Meet Aunt Tammy! A 55 ton, 35 foot massive structure of steel! She
served in many wars! Just a few are Iran-Iraq War and the
Iran-Kuwait War. She was born in the United Kingdom and moved here
after she retired from the Army!
The FV 4201 Chieftain was the main battle tank of the United
Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s. It was one of the most advanced
tanks of its era, and at the time of its introduction in 1966 had
the most powerful main gun and heaviest armour of any tank in the
world.[2] The Chieftain also introduced a supine (lying backwards)
driver position, enabling a heavily sloped hull with reduced
height.
The Chieftain was a radical evolutionary development of the
successful Centurion line of tanks that had emerged at the end of
the Second World War. The British had learned during the war that
their tanks often lacked sufficient protection and firepower
compared to those fielded by the enemy, and that this had led to
high casualty levels when faced with the superior German tanks in
World War II.
Leyland, who had been involved in Centurion, had built their own
prototypes of a new tank design in 1956, and these led to a War
Office specification for a new tank. The design was accepted in the
early 1960s. Chieftain was designed to be as well protected as
possible and to be equipped with a powerful 120 mm rifled gun. The
heavy armour came at the price of reduced mobility, chiefly due to
engine power limitations, which was perhaps the Chieftain's main
drawback. The engine selected took the multi-fuel route and as
introduced gave less than the planned output; improvements to the
engine did not increase power to the desired value.
The Chieftain did several things differently. Its hull and
turret were heavily sloped, and the driver had to lie on his back
inside to operate the tank. This made the tank's profile lower and
more difficult to hit. The original engine could use petrol,
diesel, and several other types of fuels. The 120-mm gun mounted on
the Chieftain actually incinerated spent shells; other tanks either
had to store or eject them. The Chieftain's design also included an
infrared search light and side plates to shield the tracks and
protect against side attacks.