1) When I was at the Basic Course in late 74-early 75 we were familiarized with the Stereoscopic Range Finder as some unfortunate, low priority Guard units were still operating M48A2's (The Coincidence Rangefinder came in with M48A2C - no prizes for figuring out what "C" stood for). I'm one of those unfortunates whose brain circuitry is incompatible with that device. Try as hard as I could, I couldn't do it. My instructor finally took mercy on me and told me to take a seat and relax, "It's OK, eltee, you'll never see one of these things" And I never did. 2) There is also non-precision or battlesight gunnery. You know the type of ammunition you are using and also know the average height of the target you expect to engage. You look up in the firing tables the range at which the maximum ordinate (height above ground) of a fired round equals the height of the target. You load one of these rounds and index the fire control computer to that range. If you see a target, the fire command is "Gunner, Battlesight, Tank". He lays the cross hairs of his sight on the base of the target and fires. This means the round never exceeds the height of the target nor will fall short. It must hit the target as long as it is at the indexed range or closer. IIRC, our battlesight for 105mm APDS was 1000 meters and our SOP was to always operate with the battlesight set as it was much quicker than using the rangefinder, allowing you to get that vital first round off first. You reverted to precision gunnery if the target was beyond 1000 meters and the second and subsequent rounds

The shrubbery monologue had me laughing so much I had to rewind to catch up on what you said of import.

@jamess7576

3 жыл бұрын

@@EdNashsMilitaryMatters We are no longer the Knights who say Nee!

@SonsOfLorgar

3 жыл бұрын

@@jamess7576 eki eki zoom phtagn!

@jarink1

3 жыл бұрын

Herring are effective at all ranges.

@mauricewalshe8234

3 жыл бұрын

Will Her Wittman Please stand up - a tank version of the not being seen sketch

@pex_the_unalivedrunk6785

3 жыл бұрын

*Ni!*

My Dad was a M48 gunner and he often talks about the "flying the geese" sight. He talks about it proudly because I assume it takes a certain cunning individual to master it and apparently he did. "The second shot always hit the target." He turned 85 recently and I love talking to him about it.

@daveybernard1056

3 жыл бұрын

Get him on Utube reminiscing about M48's. Even 5 or 10 minutes would be awesome.

@Jeeters87

3 жыл бұрын

@@daveybernard1056 haha, idk we'll see

@daveybernard1056

3 жыл бұрын

@@Jeeters87 Doesn't have to be overly clever, just any random memories he has to share would be valuable to history buffs and enthusiasts.

@bencejuhasz6459

3 жыл бұрын

@@Jeeters87 Use a tripod for your phone, and a microphone,or tow mics for both of you. After it's all tested and set for recording, I would do it something like this(of course,after I got my father's agreement about the matter): So,good morning/day/afternoon(whatever fits) to you guys, I am Jeeters87 and today I have my dad to talk about certain things from his military career. Mainly,tank gunnery. Dad, would you be so kind,and introduce yourself, as in when did you serve and what was your role?

@MultiZirkon

3 жыл бұрын

But please stear away from -- or edit out -- everything with were he went to school, were he met his wife, which pub he liked.... We don't want another "Aircrew interviews", and "Buccaner Boys" were destroyed because the old guys wanted more to talk about their drinking than talking about the airplane. -- We want to hear about your dad and his tank (y)

Drachnifel has a great video about naval rangefinding. They're a little deprecated nowadays because Radar, but the principles on optical rangefinders during the Battleship era are still the same.

@nhancao4790

3 жыл бұрын

The tank was invented by the navy, after all.

@Novous

3 жыл бұрын

kzread.info/dash/bejne/lZaM26Ozd9eviJs.html this one?

@billbolton

3 жыл бұрын

@@bk109 Drach, Ian and the Chieftain..... three reasons I've wasted hours on KZread. They cover everything from .22 to 18 inches.

@billbolton

3 жыл бұрын

@@bk109 Ian's only done 3000+ videos and I've missed one. :-) got to search that one out.

@MalikCarr

3 жыл бұрын

All the same principles at work, but the complexity sure seems to scale up exponentially as you get into larger and larger guns and the number of variables involved keeps increasing. One guy can do it for a tank, you need two rooms of plotters and spotters on a battleship of the same era.

The "SWAG" made me spit up my drink a little. I love it.

@katharinelong5472

3 жыл бұрын

We used to call such data “proctologically derived”

@RonJohn63

3 жыл бұрын

Engineers (back in the 1980s at least) used that term; it's where I first heard it.

@tonymirarchi

3 жыл бұрын

Scientific Wild @$$ Guess

@tsbjelland

3 жыл бұрын

@@RonJohn63 It was also used by some Computer Programmer/Analysts as early as that.

@gullreefclub

3 жыл бұрын

I think the first time I heard the term "SWAG" was in the mid 1970's by a Uncle of mine who was a statistical mathematician.

During an exercise our mortar platoon had an easy task of plotting ranges to their targets because they happened to come across a map of the exercise that an officer had misplaced. This allowed them to do all their calculations well in advanced and then just plop their tubes down, dial in the range and heading, and start firing.

@Shaun_Jones

2 жыл бұрын

There’s all kinds of funny things that happen in exercises. My grandfather told me a story about how he was tasked to lead a group to take out a machine gun nest, but he got lost and lead his troops in circles for a while until he accidentally ended up flanking the machine gun.

Oh lord I remember teaching the Direct support class on Laser theory to new M-1 tech at 7th ATC, Vilseck Germany when General Dynamic's/Chrysler was still fielding. The M-1 series uses a Neodymium Yttrium Aluminum Garnet type laser mounted to the gunner primary sight for ranging. The laser would take normal 24-volt power and through a series of step-up transformers produce an 8000 volt PFN (pulse forming network) charge and store it inside a capacitor. When the Gunner, or Commander pressed their ranging button. The laser would discharge the capacitor, and the energy would excite the garnet and produce a beam that would bounce back and forth between two retroflector mirrors until sufficient light energy was produced to cause a milky clouded exit lens to flash clear, releasing the beam. The beam would exit the gunners primary head mirror, (with eye-safe laser coating) passing by an optical sensor which tripped a timer to start. This timer was calibrated in nanoseconds. A nanosecond (ns) is an SI unit of time equal to one billionth of a second, that is, ​1⁄1 000 000 000 of a second, or 10−9 seconds. The M-1 series laser range finder, takes that formula and calculates the time it takes a beam of light to travel 1-meter. The M-1's ballistic computer uses this to determine super elevation angle to target. Gun lead angle is based on rate of slew (traverse) rate at that given range while tracking the target. The timer would continue to count until the First, or Last return beam (which ever was selected before hand) came back to the head mirror stopping the clock. The computer would then take number of nanoseconds counted and divide the total time in-half to achieve a distance to target. I've simplified this because as I remember the class on this subject was over 3-hours long and left many a new 45-Golf Fire-Control specialists head smoking. Edit: for Boo boo's. (sigh) what can I say, I'm old and my memory is utter rubbish sometimes. ^_^

@jrdougan

3 жыл бұрын

Nitpick, 1 ns at light speed is about a foot. Source: Adm. Hopper who used to give out wire cut to ns lengths.

@ditzydoo4378

3 жыл бұрын

@@jrdougan Thank you for that.. It's been almost four decades since those courses.

@aaronclair4489

3 жыл бұрын

You probably mean Neodymium, not Neo-diindium. Neodymium is a metallic chemical element which is commonly used as an optical dopant. Nd:YAG lasers are a really common type of high power laser. YAG has nice optical, mechanical and thermal properties, and Neodymium is the laser dopant. Neodymium is also used in powerful magnets but honestly I don't know why.

@ditzydoo4378

3 жыл бұрын

@@aaronclair4489 thank you for the spelling correction. once more, I'm getting old and my memory is rubbish at times. ^_^

@SS-hw1ou

3 жыл бұрын

A RADAR on steroids I see.

Loved the Monty Python knights who say Ni reference :)

@maxwellclark6992

3 жыл бұрын

We are the nights who say Who until recently said Ni

@matydrum

3 жыл бұрын

I shall remind you that they are now the knights who say "eki eki eki patan"!

About stereoscopic rangefinders, they used to be somewhat common on ships. They phased them out because they only worked for people with really good eyesight in both eyes, and the constant change of focus in one eye caused splitting headaches. They had to swap guys on and off the rangefinder and give them breaks to avoid constant migraines. And they didn't even work any better than traditional rangefinders.

Stereoscopic Rangefinders also give extreme eye fatigue to the point of horrible migraines and vomiting. It also required the human user to have 20/20 eyes (as almost all optical rangefinders). In the navy they used them a lot and usually the active rangefinding time was about 30 minutes before the migraines appeared. That's why the navy sticked with the coincidence rangefinders for a long time. That and the fact that the testing report showed that stereoscopic method had no real advantages against the coincidence one.

@MythicFrost

3 жыл бұрын

Sounds alot like what Apache pilots need to go throught due monocle!

@drachenklaue07

3 жыл бұрын

MythicFrost monocle is the worst way to implement a HUD

@MythicFrost

3 жыл бұрын

@@drachenklaue07 You also need consantly swivel you head to scan your surroundings wih apache front sensor while other eye scans instuments and surroundings around apache.

@neurofiedyamato8763

3 жыл бұрын

Nah stereoscopic was used well in to late WW2. Different navies preferred different ones. Or be like the Italians and used both. Stereoscopic did have one very huge advantage. Since most of the image processing is done by the brain, it is a lot quicker to actually get data points. Many Naval AA directors would use stereoscopic because it work better against fast moving targets due to its speed. Coincidence required you to turn nobs to combine the images which work well with relatively slow moving ships but planes is pretty impossible.

21:29 Have you and your tank crew ever played "Oh bugger, the tank is lava"?

Fun fact: 120mm APFSDS goes about a mile a second, so at battlesight distance of 1200m, the guy on the other end doesn't even have time to say "Oh ****"

You could do a video on those "official" acronyms alone.

@pex_the_unalivedrunk6785

3 жыл бұрын

There's actually a book all about military sayings, jargon & acronyms...i have it laying around here somewhere if i can find it, i'll post the title & author.

@scrubsrc4084

3 жыл бұрын

Theres a book by Andy mcnabb and its all his conversations with soldiers in Iraq and one sends him a letter complaining about the over use of three letter acronyms and by the end of the letter he is talking in nothing but.

Worm formula is W=R/1000 and 1000 is represented by letter "M" in roman numerals by that way it becomes W=R/M aka "WorM"...

@neurofiedyamato8763

3 жыл бұрын

thanks for the explanation

@donlove3741

3 жыл бұрын

Uppercase M is Mega Lowercase m is milli

@mortisCZ

2 жыл бұрын

@@donlove3741 You're talking about different ms. :-) Mega and mili are newer prefixes. This is M like in a date MMXXI or MCMXLV. Those are all uppercase.

But Chieftan - Why do you need to find the Range when you can just Drive closer, in order to hit them with your Sword?

@smogdanoff7053

3 жыл бұрын

Because you risk the enemy unscrewing their pommels during your advance towards them

@JoramTriesGaming

3 жыл бұрын

It's nice to know how long it's going to take to close with them, too.

@balazsneuperger2063

3 жыл бұрын

@@smogdanoff7053 Skallagrim reference?

@mysss29

3 жыл бұрын

@@Plank_Hill cf. MHV's Chieftain interview + separate video on tank ramming

@LevitatingCups

3 жыл бұрын

they might have 18mm ratchet.

In naval usage, coincidence rangefinders came first, short base ones in use before (and at, by both sides) the Russo Japanese war of 1904-5. The Brits seemed to have the lead with these. The Germans soon went with stereoscopic rangefinders. There were advantages to each, the stereo requiring more frequent training, and crew rotation, but also giving better results in poor lighting. After WWI most navies either switched to stereo or used a combination of both.

I also remember reading that stereoscopic rangefinding was used for AA, as it was much easier to range a small and fast plane that way rather than with a coincidence rangefinder with its split image (youd need to be very precise to keep the plane exactly on the line and range it properly, just wasnt practical), hence that one being used with bigger and more static things.

@azgarogly

3 жыл бұрын

BTW, one of the disadvantage of coincidence range finding is it does not work well on a periodical structures. Like when you have a fence with lots of uniform planks or order of airplanes chances are the images you match one to another are not the same object, but the neighbours in the ranks.

First seven years as a crew commander were on the Cougar (Scorpian turret on a Canadian AVGP) - pretty much all estimated range unless we a hand-held laser range finder. Going to Laser with IFCS on Leopards was a dream after that!

As a M60A1 gunner --OMG some TC's could not range at all - to fit that you go (BS) Battle sight and tell them not to touch a Fing thing . When we went to M60A3 much better fcs (by the way that was a M60A3 with a laser range finder in the Photo ) In the 1980s My job as a E4/E5 was babysitting Platoon Leaders and Platoon Sergeants and the taking care of the CO's tank that He never used .

@pex_the_unalivedrunk6785

3 жыл бұрын

Hilarious story! 😂😂😂

I started on the M-60A3 and the laser was nice - fast, accurate and etc. Got back stateside and an M-60A1 RISE. Back to the coincident rangefinder. Range? Nope. Battlesight Sabot instead.

@jamestheotherone742

3 жыл бұрын

yeah its why the LRF quickly replaced the coincident RF. Of course that is because much of the ranges weren't expected to be more than 1000 to to 1600 m, where its possible to get a 1st round hit going just off a 1200m battlesight range.

@drkjk

3 жыл бұрын

@@jamestheotherone742 , 1600 meter battlesight for the M60s until the introduction of the M60A3, and then it wasn't for a couple more years.

@claudecrawford3537

3 жыл бұрын

I always used the range find you were never trained to use it and set it up

@colbeausabre8842

Жыл бұрын

Non-precision or battlesight gunnery. You know the type of ammunition you are using and also know the average height of the target you expect to engage. You look up in the firing tables the range at which the maximum ordinate (height above ground) of a fired round equals the height of the target. You load one of these rounds and index the fire control computer to that range. If you see a target, the fire command is "Gunner, Battlesight, Tank". He lays the cross hairs of his sight on the base of the target and fires. This means the round never exceeds the height of the target nor will fall short. It must hit the target as long as it is at the indexed range or closer. IIRC, our battlesight for 105mm APDS was 1000 meters and our SOP was to always operate with the battlesight set as it was much quicker than using the rangefinder, allowing you to get that vital first round off first. You reverted to precision gunnery if the target was beyond 1000 meters and the second and subsequent rounds

Thumbs up for the shrubbery reference! Ni. 👍

I still use my pace count at my current job as a telephone cable splicer. I love the "flash to bang" method of range estimation (sound travels approximately 330m/sec). And yes, telephone poles are generally about 100' apart, handy for estimating distance.

6:20 Confirmed : The fluffy white thing trying to escape from that Best Dad Ever mug in the background is indeed the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog.

@pex_the_unalivedrunk6785

3 жыл бұрын

Omg, i think it is! How very devilish of The Chieftain, nice spotting that Easter Egg! *we cannot risk another frontal assault, that rabbit is dynamite*

@SindriTheReaper

3 жыл бұрын

@@pex_the_unalivedrunk6785 i have a plushy of that rabbit. rediculously oversized teeth and all

If you look around online you can find Coincidence Rangefinders for hunters and the like relatively cheaply online. I have one that is rated out to 500 yards. The accuracy changes with temperature. So if I set mine when the temp is 78 F it's good from 58-98 F.

@pex_the_unalivedrunk6785

3 жыл бұрын

I've seen both coincidence range finders & laser range finders at Wal-Mart in the sporting goods/hunting section from anywhere between $80-$350. Usually in the glass display case where the knives are.

@mattiasdahlstrom2024

3 жыл бұрын

Any suggestions how to validate it ?

@lalucre1803

3 жыл бұрын

As a hunter, I use binoculars wirh a built in range finder. Many quality binos nowadays come with them.

@genericpersonx333

3 жыл бұрын

@@mattiasdahlstrom2024 For the most part, you can count on range-finders being accurate as they claim on the box for legal reasons. The trick is practice, so if you can get access to a good target precisely measured off, be it a telephone pole or a rifle target at a good range, you can practice and eliminate the margin of error your own eyes tend to create, especially when using coincidence devices. For myself, there is a rock I measured out from a tree with a 100-yard surveyor's twine, just a knotted rope but a carefully made one. Rock doesn't move, nor does the tree. All you need really.

@blatherskite9601

3 жыл бұрын

@@lalucre1803 What kind of rangefindr? I have telescopic sight with mils scale, allied with guesswork as to how wide the deer is...

As a Gunner always start with 1200m for a snap shot . Battle sight . When looking though the sight after a time you can tell basically what the range is . 1200 sight picture shot at the top on the tank or a little above target close in shot low on the target -- no idea Laser 😎

About range cards, a bit of trivia about the Maginot line. (Btw, the ouvrages (forts) of the Maginot line were treated as immobile battleships and their troops were referred to as crews). The guns were of course ranged up to the German border, but the machine guns went one step further: they had cams mounted on them so that when fully depressed they would just graze the glacis. No need to aim, just press the trigger: hard-coded range cards.

Nice Monty Python reference, I see what you did there. As a career infantryman, I know all about range cards, and EIB still requires soldiers to figure out range finding with mils and math, in order to call for fire, which is probably my most hated method of doing so. Mostly because my math sucks, and I'm slow with it.

A very good example of range markers is in the last battle scene in the movie 'kingdom of heaven' . Great movie, very historically accurate pertaining to battle maneuvers and tactics and equipment and such. But in the last scene you see they painted large rocks with white paint on the side facing the defenders. As the invading forces march closer they fire their pre ranged trebuchet or catapults whatever they would be considered right as they're passing the different range markers.

A veritable font of knowledge,thank you,Sir .

8:45 True. Accuracy, and precision are not the same thing. 1. Accuracy is defined as most/all of your shots landing inside the target. 2. Precision is defined as the grouping of your shots. So, if the grouping of your shots is very tight, then your a very precise shooter. If that isn't the case, then you obviously aren't precise. So...what's the difference between the two? For example, you can be the most precise shooter in the world, but it won't matter if all your shots don't land within the target (meaning that you have crap accuracy). On the other hand, you can be the most accurate shooter (all your shots land inside the target). But, the grouping of your shots is all over the place (meaning your precision is terrible) This has been your friendly PSA (public service announcement) for the week. Have a nice day :P

@TheChieftainsHatch

3 жыл бұрын

Honestly, I wasn't thinking of putting rounds on target, though it's a perfectly valid use. I more had in mind folks giving precise, inaccurate 10-digit-grids to locations or ranges or the like.

The British Centurion tank crews circumvented somewhat the problem by applying the Battle range technique, taught at the RAC Gunnery wing during the 1950-s. By the command ´Sabot action´, the gunner aimed at 800 yards, and fired. Without waiting for any corrections, gunner upped the sight to 1000 yards and fired again. If no hit, he went down to 600 yards and fired again. Ref. Vanguards ´the Centurion tank in battle´by Simon Dunstan pp 15-16.

Thank you sir that was very interesting and cleared up some misconceptions on my side

Have not been in a tank for almost 30 years,. Retired for over 15 and I still watched this video

Interesting and informative.

great video

I had to stop the video because I was laughing so hard when you mentioned TLAR. For some old fart history, in the mid '70s I read a book called "God is my copilot" about a pilot in the AVG in China talking about using the rudimentary sights on the P40 to attack grounds targets. He called it TLAR, and I took that as my mantra for the rest of my life. As a soldier in the 1980's and 90's when I used it nobody knew what it meant, which told me that the army had lost one of its better acronyms. Mr Moran using it tells me that the army has reclaimed it from the ash heap of history, and in my opinion it ranks up there with SNAFU. Remember, no matter how many computers are involved, no matter how many graphs or mathematical problems are solved, there is still that man on the ground thinking, "Yeah, That Looks About Right"

Another issue with radar rangefinders, which is similar to spotlights as illuminators. Radar has far more detectable spread than coherent beams like a laser - and given equal sensitivity receivers, a threat can detect your range finder at about twice the range your rangefinder can even detect its own pulse. And the detection angles for the radar emitter are far wider than a laser. Which means an ELINT bird the tankers aren't even aware of can see your tanks ranging stuff (whether in battle, calibrating the sights, or making range cards) and figure out pretty easily where the tanks are, even if they are quite well camouflaged against direct sensing.

Excellent job sir, you've provided a great baseline (heh) on the topic.

the monty python reference had me laughing good.

the 1mill = 1meter at 1000meters is pretty good, because of the small angle approximation, but it will break down once you get past about 200 mills, and quickly grow worse past 400, which I presume is a laughably large number for military uses anyway.

@ScottKenny1978

3 жыл бұрын

Depends on whether you're doing actual milliradians, 6000mils in a circle, or 6400mils in a circle.

@dougsundseth6904

3 жыл бұрын

@@ScottKenny1978 The precise spacing of the marks depends on that, but the technique relies only on there being a nearly linear relationship between angle subtended and range. And that's true for any small angle and an object of known size. Fortunately*, that's true for basically any target that you actually have to aim at. * Or unfortunately, since subtended angle also determines how difficult it is to hit what you aim at.

@hatsjie2

3 жыл бұрын

Well, since (you say) 1mill = 1m @ 1km, 200mill=200meter @ 1km. A target of such size cannot be missed anyway, so the (in)accuracy doesn't matter :-)

@ScottKenny1978

3 жыл бұрын

@@hatsjie2 no, he's talking about a target 200 or 400 mils away from where you're currently aiming. That much angular distance is enough to make the difference between true milliradians (where it really is 1m at 1km) and the military approximations of 6000 or 6400 mils to the circle instead of 6283.xxx for actual milliradians.

@sayethwe8683

3 жыл бұрын

@@ScottKenny1978 While that's Likely True, and I say likely because I didn't do the math on that, What I'm actually talking about is how the small angle assumption of tan(x)or sin(x)~=x breaks down when you get to 0.2rad, 200mills, and rapidly becomes much worse past 0.4rad.

Good video, Allons!

lol @ SWAG. Great topic!

Given the advances in optics and AI I'm kinda surprised there aren't now computer based versions of the optical approaches, e.g., wouldn't be hard for a computer to try to recognize the target and it's orientation and the use the first method or to use autofocus style distance estimates with appropriate optics or to do better than a person with the stereoscopic approach. That way there is less chance of an enemy detecting the lase. Indeed, seems like you could combine a number of these approaches and have the computer merge them.

Precision rifle shooter community commonly use mils with either meters or yards. A mil is simply 1/1000 of something. It can be 1 meter at 1000 meters. Or 1 yard at 1000yds. They function exactly the same. So if a mil is 1 yard at 1000yds. Its 36" at 1000yds. Move the decimal place over for both 36" and 1000 yards. That would tell you a mil is 3.6" at 100yds! So very easily you can see the angular unit of measure. 3.6 at 100 and 36 at 1000. It grows perportionally over distance. The issue most people have is they focus on that definition of what a mil is. And they do not focus more on its actual useage. The usage is simply....your 1 mil low. Dial or hold 1 mil higher and you hit. The angular unit of measures works across all ranges. It does not care that you call that target 200 meters or 219 yards away. It only cares that you need 0.5 mils to hit for the given trajectory.

Like the video, looking forward to the Soviet doctrine video. Enjoyed the previous armored doctrine. Darn beer microbe is delaying the opening of the National Museum of Military Vehicles in Dubois, WY.

Nick I have a challenge for you. Design what you think a tank should be in accordance to the following specs: Has to be within 60 tons Must have ease of maintenance 4-5 crew members Has to be able to serve in almost any environment And has to be the same size or smaller than an Abrams If you choose to accept this challenge then good luck and if you're willing I'll pay entirely for a trip to AAF Tank museum in Danville Virginia if you haven't been already

I remember, while researching a class paper on the Franco-Prussian War, reading a report of an action between French and Prusso-German troops in the early days of the campaign of 1870. The French, holding a high rise in some farm fields, initiated accurate volley fires at 1,800 meters, completely shocking the German forces who promptly routed. Several more advances were thwarted similarly, the German troops finally having to bring up artillery, some of which was brought under rifle fire by the French, before the French yielded the position. It is amazing what a few men with telescopes, binoculars, a little mathematical training, and really good riflemen could achieve. Never underestimate the value of High School math, folks. Might save your life one day.

@norwegianwiking

3 жыл бұрын

Or it might help you kill the enemy

@gwtpictgwtpict4214

3 жыл бұрын

@@norwegianwiking Well the enemy being dead will probably save your life...

16:12. The image on the top left is an example of a stadiametric rangefinder, as the distance between the mast and the water line is used as the base of the triangle.

So, is there a suitably army term for booting the littlest fellow out of the tank to go run up to the enemy with a tape measure? CREw DEployed Tape Cannister Analog Range and Distance, maybe? CREDETCARD? Wait, that might get confusing...

My father was an old WW2 tanker. His philosophy was over, under, and on target. He said all that electronics targeting system will fail on the battlefield after a short period of time.

Man, memories of sitting in a water filled hole in the English country side learning this stuff..

During the Polish campaign, Germans had some issues with rangefinding. They tried to estimate from the distance between Poles. Ehhehe. Interestingly, an old SLR camera I have seems to use a "coincidence"-like system for the manual focus. Which makes sense, focus is range to target. A smallish circle in the center of the eyepiece, where the image is split into two, and then one adjusts the focus, until they join up.

Excellent video. Would however suggest reading the late (CSM) Dick E.Morgan's books on this. He had some excellent insights to the challenges of training Tankers and some wayward scouts. ALLONS!

Gravity is a constant, but the speed an object falls at increases by the square, that is it doubles and doubles again, until terminal velocity is reached. That is at least as much the reason why a parabola is shaped the way it is as the object slowing down due to drag.

Want to join the Greek Armor Corps so i'm here for some preparation, btw the M60 in the middle looks so cute

If you think "The floor is lava" is silly childstuff how else should one train for later "The tank is on fire"?

Varmint hunters will be very familiar with most of the various schemes to either determine range or "make do". I have personally employed MPBR and TLAR, but didn't know the formal names.

Nicholas Moran has swag... And he's also a Knight who says *Ni* ! A wild guess on range is really difficult when there's a depression or valley between you and your target. If you're near the top of a hill, and your target is also near the top of a hill on the opposite side of say a pasture with a creek in the middle of it, it usually looks closer than it is because of an optical illusion.

1600 meter APDS battlesight used to be a US Army thing until about 1981. BOT tank gunnery was the primary method of adjusting gun fire until the M60A3 was introduced.

I'm not entirely sure Soviet Tank Doctrine Ever got more sophisticated that "Keep Throwing Assets at the enemy until either they break or you do." I know Cold War Doctrine was a bit more complex, but really just seemed to at its base really was nothing more than "Hammer them with Arty, Hammer them some more with Arty followed by hammering them with Armor & them hammering them with infantry", might seem overly simplistic, but if you keep making it work, then your adversary really is a nail.

The enemy in the shrubbery offends me. Drive me closer. Where's my sword!

The TLAR method. The Army manages to make "im just taking a wild guess" sound all smart and tactical

Please do a series on all the different types of tank suspension systems and the benefits & detriments of each I.e. Christie, torsion bar, HVSS etc.

As soon as I saw that range card I had flashbacks to painstakingly drawing out these little bastards only for someone higher up the chain to decide they didn't want to set up there after all.

The biggest disadvantage of radar range finding must be that it actively radiates. And radiation can be detected and a bearing where it came from. So if the radar pulse comes from the tank it might give at least its bearing away.

@andrewlee-do3rf

3 жыл бұрын

Sorta true. Yes radar does radiate signals, in which an enemy could potentially get your bearings. An anti-radiation missile is a good example of this scenario. However, there are ways to mitigate this. I am pretty sure that the F-22, and F-35 stealth aircraft use a form of radio, and radar communication that is very hard to detect. They achieve this by using LPI (Low Probability of Intercept) radios, and radar (some AESA radars are LPI radars I think). Anyways LPI radio/radar can conceal themselves by using multiple frequencies, and rapidly switching between said frequencies. And then there's also radio/radar jammers too.

@colbeausabre8842

Жыл бұрын

Also applies to lasers, many vehicles have laser detectors. All set off alarms, some aitomagically fire smoke grenades

When talking about Laser range finder you said you can usually just either aim low with last echo or high with first echo. Now that's theoretically true however we were told that it's best to go for last echo, because on a rainy day a drop pf water could lead to problems already. Apparanetly even small things as a butterfly could theoretically lead to a round falling short which is why it's best to get used to go for last echo and only when needed actually using first echo. Now that's Swiss armed forces doctrine I don't know about other forces around the world.

@TheChieftainsHatch

3 жыл бұрын

It's actually the same for us. I've almost never used first return, we just aim a little low.

@Leopard_Higgs

3 жыл бұрын

@@TheChieftainsHatch Ahh I see. I figured we would not be the only ones to handle it like this but it's great to have a conformation anyway. Thank you vey much for the reply.

Re: Radar.... also many interesting problems involving radiation injury to crew, especially if the emitter is in a big metal box along with the crew!

@azgarogly

3 жыл бұрын

That is a bit overrated problem. You have similar box at your kitchen and it is ok. And in the airplanes they use much more powerful radars and it is still not the main health risk there.

@neurofiedyamato8763

3 жыл бұрын

I assume you mean being burned from the heat rather than literal ionizing radiation. Radar frequencies aren't high enough for it to be ionizing. You can get burns on sufficiently powerful ones, kind of like how microwave cooks food. In fact that is how microwave oven was invented. IIRC a naval technician noticed his lunch got heated after awhile when he worked on the radar on board a ship. He was fine though. As for microwave ovens being safe in your kitchen, it is because there's shielding to block the microwaves from burning you. There's also a fail safe typically if the door isn't closed, so it won't activate unless it is secured. Radars are used on tanks nowadays as part of APS or specialist roles. The radar on tanks aren't all that strong so you can stand in front of it all day and be fine. The more problematic ones are the long range air search radars like ones used on S-400 or Patriots sites. Apparently I found from online PDF, the THAD have a few meters of danger zone. Although idk what is the risk level required for it to be considered a "danger zone." I doubt it's all that significant though. Depending on the system wavelength, EM heats different things at different efficiency. Microwave oven for example heats water very well, although it heats other things too, it doesn't do so very well.

I find the discussion of stereoscopic rangefinding to be very interesting. I work in photogrammetry, which uses the same principles, but on aerial photography and to measure the height of the ground. Now I'm wondering if I could trick our software and hardware into giving an approximation of a stereoscopic tank rangefinder.

Tlar. Awesome.

I'd bet real money that some of the museum battleships around the country still have their stereoscopic range finders installed. All you'd have to do is fast talk the museum folks into not only letting you into the proper room, but powering up a turret so you could train the big guns at a cargo ship in the port.

Tanks 103: The WASH RACK

@MrRenegadeshinobi

3 жыл бұрын

Tanks 104: Tensioning the tracks

WORM = Width Over Range (in thousands) equals Mils (W/R=M). So 7m tank at 1 (thousand) meters = 7 Mils wide. Reverse the math and dividing width by mils equals range.

When lazing troops it Usually smart to laze the ground at there feat, because a single infantry man is vary compared to almost any type of vehicle and you will almost get a range from something else if you try to laze the torso.

Great video! From which manual is the figure 10-1 at 10:40

Interestingly radar rangefinding was successfully adopted to aircraft. These seem to be better platforms to carry tender electronics and be considered systems a bit more open for high tech gizmos. In the modern world lots of the cars have radar rangefinders. For instance mine has one with antenna size of VW badge on a radiator grill. And BTW, when it is snowing heavily and it gets covered in wet snow, it stops working.

Over 1000m with the 76mm HESH we would have to use 200m corrections, bracket, and then halve towards the target until BOT. Could be five rounds to hit...

I love the ol' frogface M48

"A path, a path!"

Up vote for Holy Grail reference!

Very interesting video and excellently timed as I've been wondering about this concept recently! I have two questions that I was hoping would be addressed; 1) What was the planned rangefinding method for use in the German schmalturm? 2) Is the use of a stereoscopic or coincidence rangefinder part of the commander's job as hand-off of a target, or the gunner's job as laying on target? Does this change per vehicle (my immediate thought is the T29E3 and how far to the rear the rangefinder was mounted, presumably some way behind the gunner but immediately in front of the commander's cupola).

@colbeausabre8842

Жыл бұрын

In the M48, M60 and M103 vehicles, optical rangefinding was the commander's job. I think it was the gunner's job in the M47

Addition why the height is less often used for ranging: the visible height changes with angle. ->When the target is uphill or downhill form your position the perceived height is less than the actual height, while width stays the same. (maybe less of an issue in tank warfare).

@DFOOSKING

2 жыл бұрын

Your view is askew. So what you think you measuring is not in fact the amount presented. :) Manual rangefinding in precision rifle is done the same way. Traditionally they are told to measure whichever is the biggest dimension of the target.... height or width. And put the emphasis on which dimension is resting true to you....not skewed by any angle. The shooter can also hedge their miss by knowing the "danger space" of their projectile. Basically knowing how far forward or how far back can the target move for a given sight setting and still hit. As a dirty low or high hit is worth more than clean miss due to rangefinding error. Danger space shrinks the further a target is away as the projectile is being pulled down by gravity more and more the longer it is in flight. Simply put Danger Space is Maximum Point Blank Range for a given sight setting. Whereas most people who only deal with MPBR are using it solely for where they are initially zeroed for as they wish not to use their sights or are incapable of adjusting sight for a given range. Danger space is handy to know as you can determine for yourself if you have a higher likelihood of a hit or miss.

@nirfz

2 жыл бұрын

@@DFOOSKING yes, the first part of your comment summs up what i tried to say. But english isn't my native language so the word askew didn't come up in my brain.

I wanna know about cone stabilize round (CSDS) use for training,can you make a video about it?

The standard mode of operation of the optical rangefinder of the Leopard I was stereoscopic, coincidence was normally not used.

Not gonna lie, I thought the noises in the background were my kids upstairs and I went and told them to keep it down. Sat back down and resumed the video and then you said something.

So that's why those knights wanted a shrubbery....

Could you possibly do a inside the chieftains hatch video on the T-26 light tank. Me and the boys here in Canada just graduated from high school and we were in the middle of building a full scale T-26. But because of the pandemic we had to stop. But we are continuing the work from home with the tools we have and it would be awesome if you could do a video on the t-26 for further research and to get dimensions correct witch is a big thing for us. We don't want are build to look weird and out of place. Thank you if you even read this have a good day

With those angles, how likely are you to hit and penetrate the lower front plate at a distance?

One method of verifying which return of the laser rangefinder to use to hit the target that would work at night, if you do not mind emitting bright flashes of strobe light from the tank, is to borrow a method used to identify ships off of the coast, at night, by maritime vessel traffic monitoring services. Hypothetically, the ideal system could build up an image from reflected pulses of the ranging laser, but that is not possible when you want to image a ship with optical wavelengths and your ranging is accomplished with 20 cm wavelength radar. A low light camera with an electronically controlled high speed shutter is set to open its shutter, briefly, as light from the flash is predicted to return from the target. If the return used to set the range actually came from the target, the target will be imaged by the camera.

Laser range finders also overheat right? I remember the manual in steel beasts specifically stating to not spam the rangefinder because you can only use it like 4 times per minute in one of the tanks

@nirfz

3 жыл бұрын

Really? That would be strange. I was trained in AAA and the guns had laser range finders too (for if you not use the radar firing computer but only the AAgun's own optical sights and computer ect. And you would follow the aircraft while it was constantly ranged by the laser. No overheating. Why then would it overheat in a tank where the target is moving less quick, which means it needs less pulses -> less power per time.

Artillery still uses range cards all the time, for the howitzer and crew-serves.

I was once a master of the coincidence rangefinder. Thank GOD for lasers.

Wiiiiiiiiiiiith! A herring!

What distance does one zero a tank cannon at? The near zero or far? How often do they confirm the zero?

@drkjk

3 жыл бұрын

US Army no longer zeros tank cannons and hasn't since 1980sh with the introduction of the M60A3.

Can you link a source on the "flicker range finders" (or just name one of the models) - the 3rd type you mentioned? I'm having little luck googling for it and while the mechanics of the other types are all fairly self-explanatory the flicker type sounds like it'd have a much more novel mechanism driving it that I'd be interested in learning about. Thanks.

@TheChieftainsHatch

3 жыл бұрын

Test report. USATECOM Project # 1-3-6770-01-F Component development test of stereoscopic and coincidence optical range finders Report # DPS-1081, Sept 1963 This is all it says about the mechanics of it: "The Range Finder, Monocular Flicker, XM21, is basically an M17C full-view coincidence range finder (Figure 3) modified to provide a flicker feature. The flicker feature is provided by using a vertical sliding mirror located directly in front of the eyepiece. This concept uses superprecision balls between lapped sheet plates. The flicker mirror is spring-loaded and captured against the moving sheet plate. The vertical sliding mirror is divided into two sections; one fully reflective surface and one clear glass pass in front of the eyepiece. As the mirror is moved between 3 to 10 cycles per second, the target appears to move back until it is brought into coincidence."

Um nicholas Moran I have a question for you. What are the four Sherman variants during the Tiger Ambush in the movie Fury?

Does this present a problem - or at least a disadvantage - for UK tanks firing slower HESH ammo, should the laser range finder go down?

@bogdanvino

3 жыл бұрын

Hypothetically, yes, all else equal, slower ammo is just less good than faster ammo with equal performance. In practice, hesh isn't exactly your first choice of anti-tank ammo anyways, so "if laser rangefinder is down, but the tank is still operable and the crew hasn't bailed and you are reduced to firing HESH at armour" is a point of comparison of questionable importance.

@ScottKenny1978

3 жыл бұрын

Well, HESH (HEP in the US) isn't dependent on velocity for damage, so what is going to matter is how that lower velocity makes range estimation much more critical. I ran across a memoir online of an old British AT gunner, who had started with 17pdrs and stayed in with the change to the 120mm BAT (battalion anti tank) recoilless rifles. Said it was a lot easier to hit with the 17pdrs. So my guess is that if the laser rangefinder went down on the tank, they'd likely be down to battle zero and much shorter engagement ranges as a result.

trigonometry really needs more coverage in all institutions. I'm working on a minor in math for an engineering degree and i was only required to take 1 pure trigonometry class. Granted, this class covered all known trigonometric principles I'm aware of but i wouldve appreciated more applied trigonometry for navigation and more amplitude/frequency coverage for electronic work. and alot less permutations of trigonometric definitions. those damned trigonometric definitions have only helped me prepare for more pure academic math classes. that's interesting and all but their applied purposes seem increasingly dubious to me as i start doing more applied engineering.

Nice to see some SABOW shots used for the M60's rangefinder. What do you think about that game? I've always really enjoyed it as a holistic tank simulator- SBPro may do specific aspects better, but SABOW has stuff like crew morale and what I assume is an accurate portrayal of how fucking hard it is to see anything under armor.

@colbeausabre8842

Жыл бұрын

It's SABOT

@therealCG62

Жыл бұрын

@@colbeausabre8842 no. it's SABOW. Steel Armor: Blaze of War. It's a video game. context is key.

@colbeausabre8842

Жыл бұрын

@@therealCG62 I don't care what some idiotic game calls it, yje correct term is SABOT en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armour-piercing_discarding_sabot

@therealCG62

Жыл бұрын

@@colbeausabre8842 The game itself is called SABOW, numbnuts. The game which Chieftain features shots of in this video. That is the subject of my comment asking what he thought of it. The comment which is very explicitly talking about the game and asking for Chieftain's thoughts on it and not at all referencing ammunition. You tried to WELL ACKSHUALLY me and just made yourself look like an ass, chief.

So it all works perfectly, except when it doesn't......

M26 90mm is a slightly less powerful gun than the M48's 90mm. The 90mm round for the 48 won't fit the chamber of the M26, but the M26 round will fit the chamber of the M48, and push the shoulder a bit forward fireforming it to the chamber, if I'm not mistaken.

@terifarley4770

3 жыл бұрын

Point being velocity is a bit less for the M26 round being at slightly less preassure and lower powder charge vs the WWII 90mm. Not sure how much of a drop at range distance it makes.