Crew comfort in the tank...?

[juanfoley]

Having seen various Videos and Pictures of tanks on ranges & in combat over the years i'v often wondered how well protected the crew actually are..
I mean in terms of protection from elements & terrain
jumping a 60 ton tank into the air would surely cause some sort of a bang on impact with the ground again..

is it known for crew members to be concussed or injured while racing into battle?
what kind of systems are in the tank to prevent this?
are some tanks better than others in this instance?

a tank with an unconscious commander would be pretty ineffective i'm thinking:shudder
or a frozen crew would be be less effective than a comfortable one no?
how does fighting under NBC lockdown affect a crew?

i know this isn't going to be the defining factor in a conflict.. but could lead to some interesting stories or revelations...

 

[Waylander]

Fighting under NBC pressure system is not different from normal buttoned up fighting.
So situational awareness sufferes as always when you cannot look out of your hatch.

When having a rough cross country ride or even some small jumps it is usual that you hit the interior of a tank which can cause some small marks.
In the Leo II the most usual injury is the gunner getting some scars on his forehead.
When the driver jumps to hard into a whole and the tank is slowed down very fast the gunner knocks into his sight with his forehead.

Once we lost a gunner in the platoon. His tank tried to jump over a ditch. Unfortunately the ditch was a little bigger than expected and he jumped right into it causing the tank to stop immediately.
While a stop from 60km/h to 0km/h is painfull enough his seat broke lose and he hit the walls like a pinball.
He suffered a concussion and was out if the game for the rest of the maneuver.

Because of this itis very important that the driver and TC remember the difference between the commands "slow down" and "stop". While "slow down" means normal breaking "stop" means getting the tank to 0km/h immediately. When such an emergency brake is done without warning the crew the TC and loader may be thrown out of the cuppola or hitting the walls very hard.
Remember a modern tank breaks equally or even better than a Porsche. And there are now seatbelts.
Normally only the loader and TC suffer from bad weather and even with the heater on 100% it can get very cold standing in the cuppola facing the elements at 50+km/h.

Exception is the driver when he makes a road march with open hatch.
Long roadmarches are one thing which exhaustes especially drivers vey fast (While gunners tend to sleep all the time).
The worst temepratures I encountered were -15°C. This was very painfull in the face after some time even when wearing a ski mask.

In another threat I had a small conversation with eckherl and it looks like the Leo II is a little bit better cussioned at the sharp edges of the interior hull.

 

[DavidDCM]

what kind of systems are in the tank to prevent this?

The systems are either the commander or the driver yell "Attention, big hole!".

But it's not that bad, if you don't crash into something you wouldn't even notice. A tank does not shake very much. Up to a certain "roughness" of the terrain it does not feel any different to a street.
On a exercise we once had to drive at full speed over a longer distance through heavier terrain due to a mistake in understanding (we weren't where our platoon leader supposed us to be). We rushed over rough terrain with about 70 Km/h, I was the gunner, I didn't notice much difference to driving at 20 km/h, as well as my commander who was pretty surprised as the driver said how fast we actually were. We even made a small jump of about 1 - 2 metres, but no one of us noticed it, the torsion bars didn't break, we only heard of it when the guys from the mechanized infantry, who had watched us, told us in the evening. So, heavy terrain is almost no matter.

The only problem is when the tank impacts into a hole and is stopped from a certain speed to zero in the flash of an eye. Then with a certain probabilty everybody of the crew will get hurt, as no one has any kind of seatbelt, airbag or stuff. Depends on the speed of course.

I know/knew one crew who actually experienced such a thing, they impacted with about 20 Km/h, the driver broke several ribs (due to his chest slamming against the steering wheel), the gunner had his nose broken and two black eyes (slamming into his sights), the commander got his jaw broken and some teeth knocked out by the border of the hatch. The loader got it worst, he broke both his hips, as he was sent flying through the tank.
If the tank had been faster, the injuries would have been fatal, I think.

 

[eckherl]

Safety is always a major factor that is practiced during any training exercise.
It is very important also to have a good driver on your tank that knows how to handle the different terrian settings in your area of movement.
Here is a example for you - you never want to hit a ditch head on with your tank, if you do this then you will most likely will make your tank crew very up set with some contusion factors to boot, a good driver knows to enter that ditch diagonally to absorb the shock that the suspension system and you are going to take, I have had drivers who would actually speed up when entering ditches or gullies, they just had the knack of knowing how to handle it.

For the safety factor tank crews do wear intercom helmets and have area`s to grab onto inside the turrets when going thru rough terrian, also on the M1 series the gunner does have a chest pad and the tank commander has a shield to the left of him that he pulls up and secures in place to protect him from the massive sweet looking breech mechanism that is moving violently during stabilization runs and awesome maingun recoil when busting some caps. For that sweet cordite smell entering your turret you have a overpressure system to help out, you would also use it for NBC environments or when a fellow crew member passes gas.

The suspension systems on tanks make up the use of torsion bars matched up with rotary shocks or hydrualic roadwheel arms, The German LEO 2 series MBT is one of the best cross country movers that are currently out there and I have been told that the French Leclerc is quite impressive also, both tanks are very forgiving when it comes to protecting a tank crew during rough terrian. The M1 series is good also but with the increase of weight due to armor protection improvements we need to be a little more careful, we have reached the over 70 ton mark with the M1A2 SEP.

I have experienced two tank roll overs in my time, one was on a M60A1 and the other was on a M60A3, during both times it scared the living daylights out of me, during both occasions I was lucky and managed to walk away with contusions and scrapes, one of my tank commanders during one of the
roll overs wasnt so lucky, he mananged to get his head and one of his arms trapped between the ballistic shield for the M85 50 cal and his hatch opening, it took me around 15 minutes digging like a dog to get out of the loaders hatch so that I could get to him and dig him out to render first aide to him, I will never forget that for as long as I live, I did manage to save him and after a year of physical therapy he turned out okay.
I have also sunk tanks in the Munsan river in South Korea, the maintenance support team would just glare at me when I approached any rivers edge.
I have also recieved fractures and scars from being thrown out of tank during a cross adventure. I have also seen my fair share of accidents involving fatalities because tank crews get lazy and start taking short cuts during training and during war. Tanks have come along ways as far as safety features, especially in western designed MBTs, crews are seperated from ammunition storage areas, they have excellant fire suppression systems, good machine guarding for your legs and arms so that they do not get ripped off. Eastern armor still has a long way to go for crew protection and comfort.

 

[Waylander]

Another frequent source of injury is the maintenance, especially when you are tired from the days in the field, it's dark, raining, muddy,...

Working with the heavy tools required for a tank as well as the moving and non-moving parts of the tank under such circumstances can easily lead to injuries especially at your limbs.

As Eckherl said many injuries are due to laziness and/or not enough sleep.

@Eckherl

Was the M60 more vulnerable to roll overs than the Abrams? I could imagine that because of the higher centre of mass.

At every rail transport the picture of my tank rolling of the wagon scared me... :shudder

 

[eckherl]

Another frequent source of injury is the maintenance, especially when you are tired from the days in the field, it's dark, raining, muddy,...

Working with the heavy tools required for a tank as well as the moving and non-moving parts of the tank under such circumstances can easily lead to injuries especially at your limbs.

As Eckherl said many injuries are due to laziness and/or not enough sleep.

@Eckherl

Was the M60 more vulnerable to roll overs than the Abrams? I could imagine that because of the higher centre of mass.

At every rail transport the picture of my tank rolling of the wagon scared me... :shudder

Yes - if you were moving up a incline or decline the wrong way, both cases for me were during night time movements in desert environments (Fort Irwin).
Both occasions ocurred when we got too close to ridge lines and started driving along side of them causing the ground to give way, I thought that I was going to roll a M1 in Korea during a field exercise because I got too close to a creek bed, but due to the wider stance and profile versus a M60 series all it did was slide down the bed sideways and throw the left track. This was another occasion as to where the maintenance team was real happy with me . If I had done the same thing on a M60 series I know it would of rolled.

Which brings up another important point, it is a lot tougher driving in a desert evironment due to terrian features and with every thing looking the same at night, holes and ravines seem to swallow you up if you do not practice good land navigation, your GPS may not work on all occasions.

 

[Waylander]

Not that many deserts here in germany though.

 

[eckherl]

Not that many deserts here in germany though.

You got a point there.

 

[kato]

Not that many deserts here in germany though.

Hmm, one of the biwaks my unit did was actually in the "desert" - a large sand beam used by engineers for training to dig tank positions, surrounded by loose, light forest similar to Northern Spain or South France. Not the best kinda ground to dig in

We also did our cross-country training with our trucks and APCs there. Only time i've seen a 20-ton 6x6 truck lift off.

 

[Waylander]

Which training area was that?

 

[kato]

Dudenhofen near Speyer. Main purpose for the area is training grounds for PiMaschZg and similar. I've also seen EOD teams train there, and it was occasionally used for minor KFOR retraining.

Primary users are SpezPiBtl 464 from Speyer (nowadays responsible for building and operating camps in Afghanistan), and the BWB for vehicle testing. THW and the Bw driving school in Bruchsal also do their driver training for cross-country ops there.

Probably too small to train with tanks really, but it offers a lot of varied terrain (except hills really). Whole thing partly sits on a large ice-age drifting sand dune, of which there are several in the area. Only sparsely lightly forested (mostly pines), and surrounded by somewhat denser forest. The sandy areas also vary, some stretching pretty flat, some going in real dunes up to 25m high. In some areas, even though the forest is only a few hundred meters away, you can't see it due to the shaping of the dune around you.

Here is an example of what the sand dune looks like (with a THW truck on it). Some more pictures of the area (not the military part) can be found here.

Makes for some fun driving anyway.

Coordinates are 49°19'43"N 8°24'8"E, if you want to look it up in GoogleEarth/GoogleMaps. There's actually more forest around there now than back then (note that the forest itself mostly also sits on sand). Both of those larger "white" areas as well as the forest up to the shooting range to the west belong to it. If you zoom in, you can see a lot of prepared ditches and earthworks.

There are plenty of these old, rather large ice-age drifting dunes in the area. Most were planted with forests in the 17th and 18th century though to prevent sandstorms in surrounding towns - so they aren't really visible.

 

[Waylander]

I have to admit that I never heard of that training area.
The white sand looks a little bit freaky with no sea near by.

The dunes remind me of the sand in Putlos.
Very nice training area directly at the baltic sea next to Fehmarn.

thanks for the infos.

 

[kato]

I have to admit that I never heard of that training area.

No wonder really. Other than that PiBtl and the NBC Brigade in Bruchsal along with their associated units, the next Heer units are about 100 km away (artillery somewhere in the Odenwald, and the SKB tank maintenance center in Darmstadt). The Luftwaffe basic training regiment (the only remaining one?) in Germersheim is just around the corner, but i've never seen any Luftwaffe guys there.

edit: apparently, that training area was used by French forces since WW2 (before that by the Wehrmacht since 1936), and handed over to the Bundeswehr in the 90s. There's an active effort to plant forests on it, since wind is eroding the dunes and blowing the sand around nearby towns.

The dunes remind me of the sand in Putlos.
Very nice training area directly at the baltic sea next to Fehmarn.

I think in Putlos i'd constantly keep ducking my head waiting for some artillery or tank shell to impact somewhere "close".

 

[Waylander]

Hehe, once we were there suddenly a battery of MARS opened fire on the range next to us were we practiced with small arms.
Scared the death out of me... :shudder