Matilda II Revisited - The Tortoise of War
From Northern France to the gates of Moscow, to the jungles of the South Pacific one tank kept rumbling slowly on.
A vastly superior sequel; the Matilda II was a true tortoise of war.
This is our second episode featuring Matilda II as the expanded format of the current show made it worth coming back to.
Links to videos used in the background:
Halftime Interview
Featuring Peter Samsonov of the Tank Archive talking about his book: British Tanks of the Red Army.
Number 1 tank podcast! In the world!
We’ve gained a point on ListenNote and that has lifted us out of the crowded top 2.5% space into the clear aire of a top 2% podcast.
New Merch - The Tortoise of War
This amazing photo is of Australian engineers and a Matilda II tank crossing a bridge in Papua New Guinea in 1945.
We liked the cover art for our upcoming Matilda II episode that we had to have it on a T-shirt.
If you like it too then grab it now on a range of products at RedBubble.com
Matilda II revisited. The Tortoise of war
The next livestream is going out on the weekend of 14 June (your timezone will vary the exact date and time).
We’re going back to our first episode to revisit the Matilda II and bring the Queen of the Desert into our video era.
From Northern France to the gates of Moscow, to the jungles of the South Pacific one tank kept rumbling slowly on.
A vastly superior sequel; the Matilda II was a true tortoise of war.
Join us for the livestream and engage with a global community of tank nerds, or watch at your leisure.
Set your notifications now so you don’t miss out!
Can you guess the June Tank?
Go wild in the comments folks, what’s the tank we’re going to be featuring in June?
As a little bit of help we’re going to start revisiting the tanks we did back at the start of the show as our format has changed quite a lot, and we did some very interesting tanks before we started producing video.
Chi Ha - The Sword of Empire
We normally laugh at Japanese tanks in the Second World War. But when a Chi Ha came at you in the jungle it was no laughing matter. Just ten of them destroyed the British Empire.
The halftime show
If you’ve listened to the audio and want to see the halftime show on its own here you go:
M10 Booker - She Dead
Big thanks to everyone in the audience who’ve been updating us on the demise of the M10 Booker program, that is the US Army’s new light tank (that they refuse to call a tank). We’ll have a lot to talk about in the show but we’re just laying out what happened in the hope that some of you in the audience can drop a comment with insights for inclusion in the upcoming show!
Defense One had a good summary of the problems.
Failed to meet requirement for a parachutable infantry support asset.
As heavy as a T-72, far too heavy for the bridges at light infantry bases (or in other places light infantry will want to go)
Gun too small for fighting other tanks
Air Force load restrictions limit of 1 vehicle per C17, at which point you may as well take a full fat tank on that flight.
Lacks an APS, or effective counter drone capability
Meanwhile the planned M1A3, which really is a totally new tank from Abrams, is supposed to bring an autoloader, APS, partial autonomy, and a lighter weight (than a current western MBT at least).
This quote stood out:
“So now you have a vehicle that is the best idea of 2013, that has the best technology limitations of 2013—which are really technology limitations of 2000, because you're trying to be backwards-compatible,”
This was then followed with reporting by Breaking Defense of the Trump administration seeked a “comprehensive transformation” of the US Army. Including the demise of the M10.
“An Army official today confirmed that the service will stop producing Humvees and Joint Light Tactical Vehicles. And General Dynamics Land Systems will be told to stop producing its brand new light tank, the M10 Booker”
So what does the light tank of the future look like? Really we’re looking for something CVR(T) like. It has to be small and light enough to fit in a C130 Hercules, and to be deployable via parachute.
Support for infantry in the drone age is going to require it to be an air defence asset as much as a fighting vehicle. Fortunately fast firing high velocity cannons with explosive rounds are very useul in a variety of roles. And does it need the crew to be inside the vehicle at all? Right now the US is messing around with “Optionally Manned” systems, but that’s a bad comproise either which way.
Or should it be something else entirely, avail yourselves of the comment section and share your thoughts!
Reporting a meme theft
Sometimes they’re too good not to steal.
Personally I wait until my partner has fallen asleep before I put the podcasts on.
Upcoming Livestream - Type 97 - Chi Ha. The Sword of Empire
When Japan unleashed its armour against the British and Americans in South East Asia their spearhead medium tank had been honed with hard combat against the Soviets.
Join us to find out more about this poorly understood but highly effective tank.
Set your notification on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/live/xrlkPTU1Kpw
Set a calendar reminder with the below link:
New merch design - the Cover art collage
Having collaged the cover images why not put them on a shirt?
Or a very appealing coffee mug?
The world is your oyster.
Check them all out at: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/170108098?ref=studio-promote
Guess the may tank?
Here’s your chance for glory folks, can you guess the tank we’re covering in May?
Drop a comment and give us your best effort!
Bradley - A real tank killer
The latest episode, covering the wildly controversial Bradley vehicle is up now. We also tackle the life and times of Omar Bradley, and cover other world events.
Articles referenced in the show include:
Mysterious Weapon Fired From Bradley Fighting Vehicle During Exercise - TWZ
Australia Donated M1 Abrams MBTs Could be Stuck in Poland - National Interest
Europe’s defense puts a fresh twist on steel, growth engine of old - Defense News
One in Five Americans Want Their State to Secede and Join Canada: Poll - Newsweek
New Franco-German Tank Project Takes Shape With Industry Team Confirmed - TWZ
Why Putin was forced to use tanks from the 1950s in the war in Ukraine - Times Radio
Slide deck!
Halftime segment
New shirt - Get Totally Tanked
Looking sharp!
Show the world how much you love listening to Australians drinking beer and talking about tanks.
The new design is just the show logo featuring a Leopard 1 found gate guarding a burned out servicemans club in central Canberra.
Get it now at: https://www.redbubble.com
Tanks and the first day of April
So over on the Radio War Nerd community facebook group the co-host Mark Ames asked me directly if I had seen these new plans from UralVagonZavod for an assault gun variant of the T-90. Ostensibly it was to allow for fixed anti-drone defences and to eliminate the kaboom properties of the ammunition carousel in the turreted T-90.
In my defence it was 6am on April second here in Australia and I’d just woken up as I typed out an enthusiastic reply:
“Thanks Mark Ames this looks like similar reasoning to Von Manstein inventing the Stug III (the most successful fighting vehicle of WW2) which lead to the Soviet SU series (pictured SU-152), all without turrets.
The cost benefit reward of turrets has been on the table since the first British tanks rumbled across the Somme (with no turrets)
The “bomb” in the middle of the tank bit is more complicated.
The specific Russian style of autoloaders that have been around since T-64 have not one but two huge problems in 2025 (which is a good 70 year run for a technology!).
1) They have to go anyway because the folding two part ammunition system halves the potential length of the lawn dart they spit out the muzzle (the penetrator in technical parlance). With current gun physics and armour physics longer is better, and the reason guns haven’t gotten bigger in decades is because they can’t get around the physical limits of the penetrators.
2) in terms of the ammo carousel exploding and popping the turret off it’s extremely significant that the German leopards also have vulnerable ammo storage (different but also vulnerable), they’re not exploding in Ukraine because they use insensitive chemistry which only goes boom in more controlled circumstances (ie, in the cannon breach after an ignition sequence). If the Russians had the chemistry they could stop the kabooms without changing design. (Strong caveat that all tanks still get knocked out but without launching their turrets into low orbit)
What we’re seeing here though is that by deleting the turret (bit cheeky to blame that on Kharkov) you can simplify the autoloader (not trying to draw ammo up through a spinning turret basket) while also getting longer penetrators.
Whether passive slatted armour is the best drone solution v. where the Germans appear to be going; with an AI driven 30mm autocannon spitting proximity fused high explosive schrapnel at anything moving in its airspace remains to be seen.
This design is also getting to the heart of what tanks are supposed to do. If they’re rumbling up in company with the infantry and blasting enemy strong points then an assault gun removes a lot of complications.
If your vision is the modern cavalry slashing across difficult terrain to cut through enemy lines (like a latter day fox hunting club) then a turret is still needed.
The problem with the cavalry romance is no one seems to ask how to fuel trucks are supposed to meet up with them.
Big Serge’s latest on the need to pinch the shoulders of attacks rather than blunt the thrust is excellent. If the enemy wants to fight their way into a trap don’t interrupt them.
The tanks the Russians took into Ukraine were mostly built for charging across the North German plain and pushing to the channel before the nukes could fly.
What they’ve found they’ve been using them for is the assault gun role, and this new design is an evolved assault gun.”
Fortunately Rob was alert to the perils of this time of year before we unthinkingly packaged it into the upcoming show (12 April). I double checked with Mark and it turned out that it was in fact an April Fools. (Oh and the Big Serge reference is to this article)
Behold I am a foolish fool
Which illustrates the perils of the ancient practice (possibly dating back to the 1300’s) of April Fools in an era of multiple time zones and online material that takes days, months, and years to disseminate.
Fortunately I am not alone in my foolishness. As luck would have it friend of the show Nicholas “The Chieftain” Moran has just released a video on the long afterlife as fact of his own effort to play the fool back in 2014.
Anyway, in terms of the dumbest things I’ve done being fooled on April 2 doesn’t even make the top 100.
On the bright side I didn’t fall for this one, unlike the 1,000 or so commenters and nearly a hundred folks who shared it.
And here at Totally Tanked we have indulged is such foolishness back in 2022, although I would argue we did it with more style and panache and less humiliation of our victims.
Stay safe.
John
Upcoming livestream: Bradley - A real tank killer
Coming up on 12 April we're controversially taking on a very tank-like vehicle that folks will scream at us is not a tank.
Despised by the Reformers, reviled by Hollywood. The Bradley was a vehicle that would prove its worth in real fighting.
Set your notifications at: https://www.youtube.com/live/ARgRXq49XJs
And if you haven't watched The Pentagon Wars lately; it's free and on YouTube, and we will be talking about it, A lot.
Can anyone guess the April tank?
What vehicle will we be featuring in April 2025?
Leave a guess in the comments!
Everyone loves Tigers
Peter from Metal Art Creations Kalbarri has sent in this great pic of his tiger, while also sporting our Tiger T-shirt!
He explained his work thusly:
“a 1:3 scale Tiger 1 built entirely from metal scrap and repurposed farm machinery (I’m a metal sculptor....check out Metal Art Creations Kalbarri on Facebook). Wheels are 4x4 disc rotors, track is drag chain from the local lime plant reconfigured, gun barrel is a truck tail shaft, cupola is the bottom rim from a household LPG gas bottle etc etc.”
Contact Peter at the link above if you want a Tiger of your own, alternatively, you can get our T-shirt (or the design on lots of other things) at: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/98166888?asc=u
Stalin’s Hotrods - The Soviet BT Tanks
In the interwar period the Soviets went hard on tank production, and a tank the communists took to war from Spain to Manchuria was the BT series, with suspension from an American racecar designer, a 500 horsepower engine, and a whopping (for the time) 45mm gun.
Come join us as we explore a machine that killed fascists long before the war began.
The episode also features an interview with Kurt from the Australian Museum of Armour and Artillery.
M103 - The last american heavies
The USA had one last go at a heavy tank before settling on the MBT concept. It was not to the Army's liking but the Marines wanted as much tank as they could put ashore.
In this episode we will explore the design, development and deployment of the last American Heavy.
