diabolic-mind

ive seen these in a few movies. not even sure if they are real or fictional. but its a attachment of sorts that ive seen on the fronts of tanks and it is basically a large rotation drum with chains on it. it rotates as the tank drives forward and the spinning drum whips the chains down onto the ground causing landmines to detonate. is this a attachment that fits onto whatever tank or is it a specific tank? ive had the idea pop into my head from time to time to build one. it wouldnt be all that difficult to make one and i think they are pretty cool looking. it has a sinister look to it with the chains whipping around and slashing into the dirt. any info would be great, thanks

pattoncommander

That's the flail tank, designed by England and used first on Churchills. The chains beat the road and detonated the mines..Very slow and extremely noisy. There were many different mine exploders made, but not many used., the huge T-1E1 was a steel wheel chain driven on the front of a Sherman, which was OK on a straight road, but made steering extremely difficult and rendered the Sherman useless until they dismounted the roller. Todays variety are called plows and used like one. Abrams tanks in Iraq used a lot of them and seemed to be pretty effective.

diabolic-mind

im going to try making one and see if i can get a working prototype of it. thanks for the info patton!

diabolic-mind

just found this pic online, i love how it looks! i can imagine it could have dished out some punishment to the enemy if they went strolling throw a crowd of them

rivetcounter

There were many different types of AVRE vehicle’s nicknamed “Hobarts Funnies� used by the 79th Armoured Division all were British designed and mostly utilised the Churchill chassis over 100 were built, they were used on D-Day by the British and Canadian forces for some un-known reason they were rejected by the Americans but latter in the Normandy campaign the US used some of them along with their own designed hedgerow cutter, another British design was the DD tank It is without doubt that these Funnies got the troops of the beaches without them casualty’s would have been very high
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobart%27s_Funnies
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hobart%27s_Funnies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DD_tank

Oracus

We(1AD) took our plows to Iraq in 2003 but never used them. 4ID or 3ID used them afew times that I know of.

pattoncommander

What tank are you going to use? Hope you aren't thinking about the M-41...that would be totally useless. The M-41 is a high speed recon tank, not even a tank vs tank battle vehicle, and to render in completely useless would be to put a flail or mine roller...or dozer blade on it, which was never done. For the mine roller or flail, get a Sherman. Check out the T-1E1 roller....that would be easier to build and use ....but with a Sherman.

diabolic-mind

the prototype isnt going to be for the bulldog. im just making one in general. im not sure what my next tank is going to be but sofar im leaning towards a stug

Rex Ross

Check this out........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhJcM6BzGxw&NR=1

I did a Google search .........."Sherman flail tank on youtube"............ and got this, and a few other links. They are out there. I don't know what scale they are, but some guys are making successful models of the crab/flail.

olfart

Heheh! One way to sit back in a lawn chair and mow the grass!

diabolic-mind

lol, thats great. id let my girlfriend use it to weed the gardenm and turn the soil in the flower beds! i think that tank might be 1/6th scale. i could be wrong though

1sgt

Man that's cool, On top of having a very unique tank, you can use it to cut the grass LOL.


Jim

OOOps, guess I should have read all the posts before commenting, Sorry olefrt