When this meaning of the word 'turret' started being used at the beginning of the 1860s, turrets were normally cylindrical. Rotating gun turrets protect the weapon and its crew as they rotate. A modern gun turret is generally a rotatable weapon mount that houses the crew or mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon and at the same time lets the weapon be aimed and fired in some degree of azimuth and elevation (cone of fire). Loading of ammunition is also often done by automatic mechanisms.Ī gun turret (or simply turret) is a mounting platform from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility and ability to turn and aim.

JSTOR ( September 2009) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)Ī modern naval gun turret (A French 100 mm naval gun on the Maillé-Brézé pictured) allows firing of the cannons via remote control.Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. “A vehicle would drive off and you’d still see the heat signature of the tires in the ground.This article needs additional citations for verification. “You could see someone taking a leak from a mile away,” former British Army Chieftain gunner Mick Hadfield said in a recent podcast. The tank’s optics, while aging, were famously effective in their day. If the Chieftain offers the Ukrainian army anything, it’s long-range day-night firepower. And it’s safe to assume the Ukrainians will weld as much ERA as they possibly can to the hundred-plus old, and thinly armored, Leopard 1A5s they’re getting later this year. German-made Leopard 2A4s are getting the added armor, too.

They weld on rows of explosive reactive armor.Īll of Ukraine’s ex-S0viet tanks have gotten the ERA treatment. The Ukrainians have a tried-and-true method of adding protection to thinly-armored tanks.

And it’s likely that, if Ukraine indeed is getting Chieftains, the tanks are coming from one of the last countries to use them: Jordan. The problem is that the United Kingdom never exported Stillbrew. That so-called “Stillbrew” armor boosted a Chieftain’s protection by 50 percent. The British Army was so alarmed by the Iraqis’ destruction of Iranian Chieftains that it launched a crash program to develop an add-on armor kit-layers of rubber and steel-for its own Chieftains.

British modern tank inside