Subdeacon Joe Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kO5IsVHlTo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apache Hawk 60642 Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 Joe, dat thin' sounds heavvvvvvvy ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Utah Bob #35998 Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 The laywer my wife worked for told me about this giant tank 4 track that he was on the guard detail for while it was being developed. "Super top secret", he said. I thought he was disremembering till I did some research and found out about the T28. 95 tons. Would have booged down immediately in the European farmlands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Mountain Charlie SASS #43172 Posted April 21, 2013 Share Posted April 21, 2013 Shades of Nazi Tigers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bad Hand Posted April 22, 2013 Share Posted April 22, 2013 Has no turret, looks more like a tank destroyer or self propelled artillery piece. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Utah Bob #35998 Posted April 22, 2013 Share Posted April 22, 2013 Has no turret, looks more like a tank destroyer or self propelled artillery piece.Way to slow to be a tank destroyer. Does look a bit like a giant Jagdpanzer. It was essentially a self propelled siege piece. Supposed to blast through the Siegfried bunkers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 Posted April 22, 2013 Share Posted April 22, 2013 With an intended purchase of only 25, there would not have been more than a battalion of them and they weren't intended for overrunning Europe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sonora Bill Posted April 22, 2013 Share Posted April 22, 2013 Watching that video reminded me of the time I spent on a deployment that also included a 1 week stop for the International Defense Exhibit (IDEX Show) in Abu Dubai. It's essentially a trade show for every vendor of anything that could possibly be issued or used by a military or navy. While we were on deployment in the Persian Gulf, Sikorsky asked for one of the helicopters in the area to be a static display for their exhibit at IDEX. The plan was that after we found out where our spot was, we would fly directly to it and land on the spot and then rig the airframe with various weapon systems the US Navy used on the aircraft. Sikorsky would take care of all the security and talking. We would stay the week and fly out at the end. Well we put the bird on the spot and loaded her all up and then took more of a look around at where we were. We noticed that there was a line of various tanks and APC's parked about 200 yards away from use on the short side of a large dirt rectangle, we were on a long side of the same rectangle. This rectangle had various dirt obstacles on it including whoop de doos, and a large 3 angled mound. We watched a french made light apc with six wheels fire up and drive around in the dirt a bit and laughed at how small and under powered it was. Then we heard a turbine fire up. Being airedales, we all looked up and around for the plane and asking who was flying. The Sikorsky reps pointed to the Russian T-80 Tank. After the driver was satisfied that the engine was warm, he took off like a bat out of hell on that track. He took all the obstacles like they were nothing, taking them on at different speeds and angles some of them even in reverse. While he was doing that we were looking at our helo in relation to the track and noticed our tail boom hanging out about 5 feet into the track area. That driver had to of seen our mini debate and set up for the whoop de doos at full speed. These whoop de doos are similar to what you see the motocross guys ride over in their races but lots bigger. That French apc that went over them made the driver look like a grinning bobble head. The T-80....hit the first bump, went airborne and cleared the next 9 before hitting the ground again right in front of us. His impact literally made us bounce off the ground a couple inches. He wave smiled and waved at the 4 Navy flight crew standing with our mouths hanging open. made a quick left to clear our tail, parked his tank, shut down and strolled off. That was when we found out if any of the drivers had a bad day and ran into our bird that Sikorsky would have owed the Navy a check and sent us back to our ship a bird short. I think that there was some talk that the vehicles weren't allowed to do any high speed drills after that and their main demos were on the tank range out in the desert any way. That T-80 was impressive and I shudder to think how much better the M1 Abrams was. The M1 won all the demos at the previous IDEX hands down according to the Sikorsky reps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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