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The Aluminum “Air-Droppable” Tank That Killed Its Own Crew | Unbelievable true stories | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: The Aluminum “Air-Droppable” Tank That Killed Its Own Crew
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The M551 Sheridan was an experimental, air-deployable light tank developed by the US Army that, despite its innovative concepts, suffered from critical design flaws and unreliability, leading to a poor combat record and a high casualty rate for its crews.
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overpriced, over complicated, and as a
cherry on top, a death trap. Why was
this tank developed with aluminum armor,
a missile launcher instead of a gun? And
why did military planners want to drop
it straight into combat from a plane? It
saw heavy action in the Vietnam War,
where it earned a dark reputation that
quickly pushed it out of frontline
service. In the end, it became nothing
more than a target so others could
practice shooting at enemy tanks. You're
about to see all of that, as well as the
dark reason why so many Sheridan crews
never made it out alive.
During and after the Second World War,
development of tanks was huge and
militaries went into full
experimentation mode with various
concepts to find the right balance
between protection, mobility, and
firepower. So, they ranged from absurdly
heavy like the T-28 Super Heavy tank, a
95 ton armored bunker with four sets of
tracks, all the way to something like
the M56 Scorpion, basically a recoilless
rifle on a paper thin chassis with no
armor for the crew. Now, every one of
these aspects comes with its pros and
cons, and if you could find exactly the
right spot between those three main
characteristics, you would probably have
the best tank in the world. However, as
we're about to see, in trying to achieve
exactly this, the M551 Sheridan would
end up having almost the cons of each
characteristic, and you're now going to
see why. In the early 1960s, when all
major powers were working on heavier and
heavier main battle tank concepts,
someone got the idea to instead create a
heavily armed tank that could be dropped
by parachute exactly where needed on the
battlefield. While the Soviet Union
focused on massive armored spearheads in
their doctrine, the US turned to air
mobility and rapid deployment, trying to
build lightweight forces that could be
flown in anywhere. Military planners
wanted something that could be delivered
together with airborne units and provide
them support in their most vulnerable
moment while they were lightly armed
behind enemy lines as they couldn't
parachute heavy equipment with them.
This was observed in multiple actions
where paratroopers had to fight against
heavy enemy armor using only a couple of
light anti-tank weapons they could bring
with them. There was actually the M22
Locust that could be delivered into
battle by glider, but it had only a 37
mm gun and practically no armor.
However, this idea was pretty much put
on hold during the Cold War until after
some time in the moment when main battle
tanks like the M48 and M60 patterns took
all the attention. The US Army suddenly
wanted to create a tank three times
lighter. That is thanks to the emergence
of the Soviet PT76, which showed the US
that they didn't have anything remotely
like it. It was fully amphibious,
lightly armored, able to cross water
without engineering support. Even worse,
the North Vietnamese army had them, as
it would turn out, and they were using
them in terrain where American tanks
couldn't quite follow. Then, being
classified under the name armored
reconnaissance vehicle, the M551 began
to take shape, using an aluminum hull
and a lightly armored steel turret as
its protection. Aluminum was used to
keep the weight down while still
providing protection against 50 caliber
rounds. The idea was that aluminum is
lighter, so it could be used in thicker
plates to match the same protection as
thinner steel plates, but at a lower
weight. However, it had a much lower
melting point than steel, which didn't
go well with high explosive anti-tank
type weapons like RPGs and blasts from
mines. As it would quickly turn out,
getting hit by anything bigger than
heavy machine gun meant a very bad day
for its crew crammed inside. However,
enemy fire would turn out to be only one
part of the problem. The other came from
the tank itself, and you'll see that in
a moment. Production began in 1966 with
Sheridans now weighing just over 34,000
lb, which was only about 4,000 lb
heavier than the M113 armored personnel
carrier that was entering service at the
same time and was envisioned to fight
together with Sheridans. The Sheridan
was manned by a commander, gunner,
loader, and a driver. Its diesel engine
gave it around 300 horsepower and very
good off-road capabilities with a top
speed of 45 mph. And most importantly,
they could be airlifted and delivered
directly to the battle when needed in
rapid deployments. Transport aircraft
like the C130 used a unique lowaltitude
parachute extraction system. The plane
would fly slowly just a couple of meters
off the ground, while a horizontally
deployed parachute would drag out the
tank and help stop it after it slid
across the ground. The crew would
parachute separately and then find and
mount their tank. Sheridan could also
cross water using flotation screens like
the duplex drive Sherman tanks on D-Day.
The most interesting thing about it,
however, was definitely its gun, which
operated completely differently from any
other tank main gun at the time.
Revolutionary, but a major part of the
Sheridan's dark reputation it was about
to earn in combat. The M81 was a low-
velocity smooth boore gun. actually a
missile system firing 60 lb caseless 152
mm shells. This concept was supposed to
help solve the problem of light vehicles
carrying heavy armorament. And in
theory, everything looked like they had
succeeded. In practice, however, it was
a different story. It could fire two
main types of ammunition, conventional
high explosive shells and a
revolutionary wireguided anti-tank
missile designed for longrange
tank-on-tank engagements. It could also
fire canister shots, turning the gun
into literally an enormous shotgun.
However, the first problems emerged
almost immediately. The recoil was
immense and it damaged the fire control
system and electronics. The problem was
also that the gun's short barrel and low
muzzle velocity made the shell
trajectories very high and slow, which
meant poor accuracy, especially at
longer ranges. The rate of fire and
reload was also painfully slow. Three
rounds per minute could be fired at best
by a well-trained crew, which is quite
bad when you compare it to around 17
rounds patents could fire in the
so-called mad minute. It could also
carry only 20 rounds, whereas Patns
again could carry over 50. Because of
the caseless rounds, the loader had to
wait for the mechanism to open and for
the air vents to clear the gun tube and
breach before loading another round. The
Chilea guided missile, which was
supposed to be Sheridan's signature
weapon, turned out to be almost useless.
Although it had a supposed range of
3,000 meters and a powerful warhead, it
needed a clear line of sight and no
interruption in its flight from the gun
toward the target or it would be thrown
off. After launching, the missile was
controlled by the gunner using a
joystick and guided onto the target. The
catch is that it didn't work under 800
yd and in the war it was about to be
deployed in, the Sheridan wouldn't fire
this revolutionary weapon, not even
once. Now, as the war in Vietnam began,
Sheridan wasn't immediately deployed
because the production of ammunition
hadn't caught up yet. In the beginning
of 1967, the first Sheridans were sent
to Vietnam to begin replacing M48
patterns. However, it would immediately
go wrong. Their light configuration was
good for difficult, muddy terrain. But
the slow and complex venting systems and
semi-automatic loaders were unreliable,
especially in the rough conditions of
Vietnam. Out of 74 first deployed
Sheridans in just the first 3 months,
there were 16 serious mechanical
breakdowns, 41 failed shots, 140
defective rounds of ammunition, and 25
burned engines. Then 125 turret
electrical faults, several recoil system
faults, and even instances of blown up
guns. They were sensitive to moisture,
heat, and rough handling, which is not
something you'd be in short supply of
during the war. Crews quickly learned
not to attempt to fire damaged shells.
They would also soon learn the hard way
that after being hit by basically
anything, you'd want to exit the tank as
soon as possible. Sheridan crews
suffered much higher casualty rates than
patent crews because they were often
assigned to reconnaissance and road
clearing missions. And in that role,
their aluminum armor, enemy fire, and
mines combined with shells that could
very easily ignite, were not exactly the
best combination in the world. You see,
the main body of the shell casing was
made of a combustible material designed
to burn up completely when fired. Only a
small metallic base stub remained which
had to be ejected manually after firing.
Now add to that the fact that ammo was
stored in unprotected racks between the
crew members inside the fighting
compartment. Just one month after
arrival in Vietnam, a Sheridan drove
over a mine which surprisingly
penetrated the light aluminum belly
armor and ignited the 152 mm shells. The
result was an immediate catastrophic
explosion with the unfortunate crew
still inside. And it wasn't the only
case. Soon after, nine Sheridans were
crossing a river. Three hit mines and
were also completely destroyed. In
another instance, nine Sheridans were
destroyed by RPGs in a single
engagement. Very soon in the war, the
sight of a completely blownup Sheridan
became concerningly common. They would
burst into flames immediately after
being hit by anything, and it started to
look like a new Tommy Cooker, just like
the Sherman tank in World War II before
they introduced wet ammo stowage.
Sheridan, on the other hand, didn't have
it. Crews tried to protect themselves as
always, adding additional plating and
sandbags, but nothing could solve the
fundamental mistakes in the tank's core
design, and it very quickly became very
unpopular among crews. Sheridan began to
be replaced already in 1978, although
there was no real replacement for a
rapidly air deployable tank in sight at
the moment. Some were later upgraded to
the A1TS model. A few saw action in the
Panama invasion in 1989. 10 were
delivered using the airdrop technique
with the C141. One of which had a
parachute failed to deploy and got
destroyed and another one was damaged.
This marked the first and only combat
airdrop of tanks in history. They were
then used in the Gulf War in the first
phase of the operation before heavy
armor arrived by ship. They saw some
tank-on-tank combat, but due to their
armor and age, they were mostly used as
reconnaissance. Just six Shellar
missiles of over 80,000 produced were
recorded as having been fired in combat.
By the late 1980s and early '9s, the
Sheridan wasn't trusted to fight real
wars anymore. Some were converted and
used to simulate Soviet armor for
training. They became the so-called
opposing force units. In other words,
pretending to be the bad guy so real
tanks could practice blowing it up,
which frankly wasn't very hard. Target
practice wasn't quite the glamorous end
for a tank that cost about 12 billion to
develop in today's equivalent. If you
found this story interesting, you might
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