When it was first made it was ahead of any of it’s rivals as it boasted the most powerful main gun and also had the heaviest armour of any other tank in the world!

There were many variations and modifications to the Chieftain tank throughout it’s life span to improve it and modify it to be more suitable to specific conditions.

The Chieftain was able to hold 4 crew members and weighed in at a hefty 55 tons when at combat weight, compare this to average car weights of between 1 & 2 tons and you can see why driving over and crushing a car in a tank is no trouble at all!

With the gun pointing forward the length of the Chieftain Tank was 10.8 m, the length of the hull was 7.5 m, the height 2.9 m and the width 3.5 m. Powering the Chieftain was a 695 diesel engine which had a range of 500km on road and a maximum speed of 48km/h or 30km/h when off-road conditions!

The Chieftain eventually made way for the Challenger & Challenger 2 tanks as the Army’s main battle tanks.

Chieftain Tank

This 9 minute video should be enough to get your juices flowing and wanting to do some tank driving!