Canadian Centurion tanks question

[Malcolm Towrie]

Originally Posted by Mike Cecil

One way to ascertain if the lower hull was ever fitted with IR would be to look for the auxiliary battery mounting and heavy wiring in the lower right corner of the fighting compartment, mounted to the hull wall, with enough room below to operate the in-floor ammunition bin. Two batteries stacked one above the other in this mounting. There should also be a stowage box in the drivers compartment for the driver's IR periscope.

Mike

Mike, I took a look inside the tank for IR stuff on the hull. And I took some photos. As you can see my camera takes crap pics in poor lighting and the hull interior is a bit rough.

The first pic shows a mount welded to the hull at the right rear, just below the auxiliary engine air filter. Is it for the auxiliary batteries? It is welded so low on the hull it prevents the hinged bin lid below from opening. You can see two flex conduits on the mount. The next pic shows the ID on the conduits. Seems like IRDB PL4 and PL3 would be related to IR equipment?

The 3rd pic shows the one storage bin remaining in the drivers compartment. From the studs, it looks like there was another bin above the one shown and also on the left wall.

Malcolm

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[Mike Cecil]

Hi Malcolm,

Thanks for the images. Yes, that is the IR battery mounting point, though in Australian tanks fitted for IR, the mount is high enough on the wall to allow the ammo bin below to be opened (thus not reducing the main armament ammunition load by having an inaccessible floor bin).

The driver's compartment IR periscope stowage would have been an open-top bin mounted on the left wall. The one shown is the driver's paperwork stowage bin - such as the vehicle log book, etc (plus the 'stick books' of course!).

Regards

Mike

[Mike Cecil]

"In Australian use, the rear tank in Vietnam was not used for fuel, it was filled with sand for RPG protection for the engine compartment."

Where did you hear of that, please Tony?

In many years of research into the Australian use of Centurion, and interviews with many people who operated Centurions in SVN, it is the first time I've ever heard of that, so I'm curious to learn the source.

Regards

Mike

[David Herbert]

I have not heard of filling the rear tank with sand either but it could well be something that was done without sanction from above. Did they really fill the tank itself or remove the tank and fill the armour box, which would have been much easier and quicker.

British tanks continued to use dry pin track though with replaceable rubber pads on Chieftain and even Challenger 1 but Challenger 2 finally got live track similar to Leopard.

David

[Tony Smith]

Originally Posted by Mike Cecil

"In Australian use, the rear tank in Vietnam was not used for fuel, it was filled with sand for RPG protection for the engine compartment."

Where did you hear of that, please Tony?

Regards

Mike

I believe it was in Jungle Tracks, adopted following Binh Ba. I'll have a re-read and find the quote.