That was a pretty good year
A bumper year for YouTube growth for us, thanks to everyone who's been along for the ride!
Tanked beyond Repair - The machine sees us
Playing around with the Suno song generator we liked this one enough to share it. The prompt?
“male symphonic metal about the totally tanked podcast”
Have to admit the machine did a pretty good job.
If you want to have the mp3 for yourself you can get it here:
Upcoming livestream: SU-76
Coming up on 31 January (running the clock as late as possible this month!) we're taking on one of the more important, and less understood, fighting vehicles of WW2.
What was the second most produced Soviet fighting vehicle of the Second World War?
It was the little self propelled gun that could, the SU-76.
It took over the light tank role in the Red Army and offered every role from artillery, to tank destroyer, to close infantry support.
The halftime interview features @TankArchives promoting their new book: https://www.ospreypublishing.com/uk/hetzer-vs-su76m-9781472866103/
Set your notifications for the stream at: https://youtube.com/live/gPtQSaAo97o?feature=share
Can you guess where we’re going in January?
We await your best guess here in the comments!
The Best Tank - Solved
Look folks, It’s a very hard life. But someone had to take this one for the team.
On what might have been the finest afternoon God ever made for sitting in a beer garden smashing pints we chatted to Chris from History of Everything to finally resolve what in fact is the best tank.
Special thanks to the Old Canberra Inn for being gracious hosts to the weird youtubers.
Vickers MBT - The Full Show
Vickers went out on a limb and built their own tank in 1963.
And a bunch of countries decided something tough and simple was exactly what they wanted.
India built 2,000 of them and took them to war with great success.
This episode we're going to take a look at what was going on with the Vickers MBTs and the Indian Vijayanta.
The halftime interview features @lottiethetankwhisperer !
Links:
Australia selling off Defence land. SMH
Czech tanks can’t shoot for Ukraine. Trench Art
Russia isn’t running out of vehicles. EuroMaidan
Cromwells and Churchills in Korea. Mike’s Research
Ace the tank in distress. Totally Tanked
Ajax finally working. The Register
Ajax stopped working again. The Guardian
Slide Deck:
Halftime Interview:
Upcoming livestream: Vickers MBT
Coming at you the weekend of 6 December 2025.
Vickers went out on a limb and built their own tank in 1963. And a bunch of countries decided something tough and simple was exactly what they wanted.
India built 2,000 of them and took them to war with great success.
This episode we're going to take a look at what was going on with the Vickers MBTs and the Indian Vijayanta.
We'd love it if you can join us on the livestream and comment merrily.
Set your notifications at: https://www.youtube.com/live/hfD915jreIw
Can you guess the December tank?
Now’s your chance friends!
Drop us a comment with your best guess as to what tank we’re covering this December?
How did that get there?
Caption contest anyone?
Ace, the Lancer Barracks Museum Matilda II in Sydney’s Parramatta district appear to have come a cropper and we don’t believe it’s how maintenance is recommended.
Anyone want to try and construct a story that could explain this predicament?
The source of the photo is Reddit.
Here’s a closeup:
A couple more photos have come in,
looks like a trailer loading incident and we hope no one was hurt despite the levity of our comments.
Update 18/11/25:
This now in from the lancers:
Panzer II: Tour De France Champion
Early war tanks on all sides were surprisingly rattly and rickety contraptions.
In this episode we're going to count the rivets on the Panzer II which really proved that some tank is better than no tank as it conquered Poland and France.
The halftime interview features Graham from @xacoupeguy reflecting on a year spent working with tanks.
Links
Photos
Halftime interview
Upcoming livestream: Panzer II
Early war tanks on all sides were surprisingly rattly and rickety contraptions.
In this episode we're going to count the rivets on the Panzer II which really proved that some tank is better than no tank as it conquered Poland and France.
The halftime interview features Graham from @xacoupeguy reflecting on a year spent working with tanks.
We'd love it if you can join us on the livestream and comment merrily on the weekend of 8 November.
Check the time zones and set your notifications at: https://www.youtube.com/live/6I1tfryBUcE
The Centurion revisted episode
After a world war spent building very bad tanks the British got their act together and unleashed Centurion on the world.
It would fight with distinction in the Korean War, the Suez Crisis, Indo-Pakistani wars, Vietnam, and on both sides of Arab-Israeli wars.
Bruce Springsteen was probably thinking of Centurion when he wrote "Tougher Than The Rest":
"If you're rough enough for love /
Baby, I'm tougher than the rest"
Centurion was the first audio episode we tried to record remotely during the Covid lockdowns and John's technical errors made him sound like a dalek so it was a good candidate to revisit.
The halftime interview features Chris from @HistoryofEverythingChannel on Air Disaster Hill just outside Canberra.
Slide deck:
Breaking records in September
Where’d they come from?
Well, that was unexpected.
Between splitting the audience with the video version, and the super fans using the ad-free Patreon feed our podcast numbers have been flat for a few years. But not the last two months. 15,000 downloads in September is uncharted territory for two dudes rambling about tanks.
Hopefully some of the new listeners stick around.
Tanks Thanks to everyone who listens, likes, subscribes, watches, and leaves reviews!
Streaming live - Weekend of 18 October
After a world war spent building very bad tanks the British got their act together and unleashed Centurion on the world.
It would fight with distinction in the Korean War, the Suez Crisis, Indo-Pakistani wars, Vietnam, and on both sides of Arab-Israeli wars.
Bruce Springsteen was probably thinking of Centurion when he wrote "Tougher Than The Rest":
"If you're rough enough for love
Baby, I'm tougher than the rest"
Centurion was the first audio episode we tried to record remotely during the Covid lockdowns and John's technical errors made him sound like a dalek so it was a good candidate to revisit.
Join us for the livestream where the tank chatter gets willing! (Added bonus for the live audience we've turned off the ads as we value you more than the ad money)
Set your notifications at:
The M10 Episode
The US Army had a lot of ideas for tank destroyers, but they arrived half a war too late, leaving the operators driving open-topped assault guns.
But the M10 was there when they needed it in crucial moments of the Second World War, packing a big gun on a reliable chassis.
We'll also be discussing China's new tank, current events in modern warfare, wrapping up AusArmourFest25, and as much nerdy tank stuff we can get to while drinking a few litres of beer each.
Special thanks to our halftime guests; tank whisperers Nick and Phil Rutherford.
The pics:
M10 - Wolverine - Panzer Hunter
The US Army had a lot of ideas for tank destroyers, but they arrived half a war too late, leaving the operators driving open-topped assault guns. But the M10 was there when they needed it in crucial moments of the Second World War, packing a big gun on a reliable chassis.
We'll also be discussing China's new tank, current events in modern warfare, wrapping up AusArmourFest25, and as much nerdy tank stuff we can get to while drinking a few litres of beer each.
Join us for the livestream on 20 September where the tank chatter gets willing! (Added bonus for the live audience we've turned off the ads as we value you more than the ad money)
Special thanks to our halftime guests; tank whisperers Nick and Phil Rutherford.
Three days of AusArmourFest25
That was a wild weekend in Cairns making new friends and seeing, hearing, feeling, and riding a huge array of armour!
Enjoy 29 minutes of tank ASMR!
Photo Gallery
For those who don’t like video here is a highly eclectic selection of stills:
Can you guess the September Tank?
We're going to have a lot to talk about in the upcoming episode. But first things first, can you guess the feature tank?
Drop us a comment for bragging rights!
(Also a huge thank you to everyone we met at AusArmourFest, you folks were grand and it far exceeded our expectations)
