Chieftain vs. T-72M1, Iraq, 1991

MacCaulay

Banned
So I was working on Soviet Invasion of Iran, and one thing I'm trying not to do is make any large extrapolations on what changes the story's happenings will make to the future.

But one thing I kind of thought about was the fact that the Shir Iran, the tank that was ordered by the Shah but would be sold to Jordan as the Khalid, was to be followed by the Shir 2. The Shir 2 was a qualitative leap from the Shir Iran, which was itself a step from the Chieftain.

When the Iranian Revolution happened, the Shir 2 was diverted into service with the British Army and given a few extra bells and whistles, namely Chobham armour and became the Challenger 1.

Now, had the Shah stayed in power long enough to complete the sale, or had Parliament decided to just cancel the order entirely, then the British Army would have had to wait until the tank that we know as the Challenger 2 before it could replace the Chieftain.

In Desert Storm, they took the Challenger 1 into battle, but under these changed circumstances, the UK 1st Armoured Division would be going into battle with the Chieftain.

It's not a huge change, but by that point, the Chieftain's transmission issues had been largely worked out. The tank has a stained history. Ending it's career with a big win in the nougaty center of Arabia might be just the thing it deserves.
 
There may be a real-world answer to your question: in the invasion of Kuwait, the Kuwaiti 35th Armored Brigade managed to put up a stiff fight against Republican Guard T-72s with their Chieftains, and the Kuwaitis only pulled back to Saudi when their supply base was overrun. Kuwaiti tankers reported that the 120-mm gun of the Chieftain ripped open T-72s "like a flower." There were also a number of encounters between Iranian Chieftains (16th AD mainly) and Iraqi T-72s, with the T-72 usually, but not always, coming off worse. No real stretch to imagine that British-crewed Chieftains in 1991 would've bested both the Kuwaits and Iranians, especially if the British Chieftains had been the final standard, with Thermal sight and laser RF.
 
I'm sure the Chieftains would have performed well. It's a proven desert tank. The British were placed on the flank of the Iraqi main forces and the units they faced were down below 50% strength. Most of the opponents would be T-55, T-62 anyways.

However if the Shah stayed in power a bit longer, Iran would not just have the Shir 2, but F-16s and Kidd Class destroyers as well. The whole Iran-Iraq War could have taken a different course.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
There were also a number of encounters between Iranian Chieftains (16th AD mainly) and Iraqi T-72s, with the T-72 usually, but not always, coming off worse.

An interesting thing with that, also, is that for some odd design characteristic, it takes longer for a Chieftain to cook off when it does get hit. In my research, I found out that Iranian tankers were big fans of the Chieftain because of normally you could survive even if the tank didn't.

Myself, I tend to attribute alot of that to the way the ammunition was shot, which is through the use of a bagged charge, like in a naval vessel. That way, when it fired there weren't any cartridges to eject. It was a very novel thing to do, and I can't think of another NATO tank that used that system.

No real stretch to imagine that British-crewed Chieftains in 1991 would've bested both the Kuwaits and Iranians, especially if the British Chieftains had been the final standard, with Thermal sight and laser RF.

Very true. As soon as you mentioned the Kuwaiti Fatah Brigade I smacked my forehead. There's a good side drawing of one of them in Osprey's book on the Chieftain, and they even give as much of a rundown as is possible.

Good call!
 
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