OBSERVATIONS OF THE CHRYSLER TANK
Driver’s Station
It is cramped. The driver has fuel on each side
of him as he sits in the center of the hull. The driver lays on his back when
he is buttoned up. The back of the seat that he both sits and lies in rotates
in up position for head-out driving. With the turret at 45 degrees from the
front, it is almost impossible for the driver to get out. General McEnery sat
in the driver's seat and said it was comfortable, but cramped.
Loader's Station
He has a simple hinged hatch cover with
provision in the center of it for rotating vision block. The M60 machine gun is
mounted on one of three standard pintle mounts - one to the front, one on the
side, one at the rear of the hatch. Very simple, very cheap, and rather
ineffective. He sits strapped in and can reach (so they say) 24 rounds in the
bustle. He has a knee switch which opens the ammunition door giving him access
to these 24 rounds. Knee switch looks like a good idea. The other 20 rounds are
carried in the bustle, but he must manually slide open a door and restow this
ammunition from the far side of the bustle to his side where he can reach it.
He also has a curved metal arm which is attached to the safety shield. It is
hinged with a rubber pad on the end. After he loads, he swings this arm around
so it is directly behind the breech. This rubber pad knocks the brass straight
down to the floor and I understand also serves as a gunner safe arming switch.
Commander's Station
It has a simple powered hatch with vision
blocks only. He has no telescope and no capability to swing the turret to
coincide with his powered hatch, being the hatch has only three positions - all
the way open, shut, or vertical. The 50 caliber machine gun mount is very
simple with no antiaircraft capability, or so it appeared. (The Colonel from
the Armor Division said that they are now thinking that AA is very important.)
Gunner's Station
It looks standard and I couldn't tell much
about it.
Chrysler has some redesign problems to fix the
following:
a. Redesign for more main gun ammunition
stowage.
b. The bustle top cover plate was one big sheet
of armor that blows off and they indicated that they would adopt the GM design
of several plates.
c. The exhaust of the personnel heater is
poorly placed.
d. They left space for the Bushmaster which
they must now redesign.
Other Comments
The square boxes on each side of the turret are
not armored and are simply for stowage of vehicle equipment.
They carry 3 boxes of 50 caliber ammunition
stacked on the floor one on top of the other in the rear of the turret basket -
seems very awkward. They also car carry 50 caliber ammunition inside the layers
of the armor of the turret. On the top of the turret they have 4 small doors,
each the size of a 50 caliber box, that they open to load ammunition boxes
inside the armor. There is then a trap door inside the turret that they open to
take the ammunition out. It seems like a bad idea from the vulnerability
standpoint, as they have cut holes in the last layers of armor in order to
reach the ammunition.
General Comments
Overall the tank looks pretty cheap compared
with GM’s tank, and I would guess it more vulnerable from the location of the
gunner’s main sight, from the 50 caliber ammunition carried in the hull, but
the configuration of the frontal armor should make it quite strong from that
aspect.
My final conclusion is that we have a winner.
General James H. Polk 7 May 1976
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий