Inside The Chieftain's Hatch: M8 Armored Car

My father served in Europe in WWII in one of these, replacing a radioman who was killed. They started out with Morse code, but that was too slow, so they upgraded to voice radios before they got to Germany. He was in a reconnaissance battalion that had M8s, half-tracks, and jeeps. Some of the battalion records are on the Internet with a few photographs. He is still with us, 98 years old.

"Just drive along till they start shooting at you." Patton explaining the art of reconnaissance. This is just the vehicle they were looking for.

"No track tensioning, which fills me with sadness."

When you a little infantry man with just a riffle, all Germen tanks coming down the road looked like a tiger.

The story of the Virgin Tiger II and the Chad M8 Greyhound.

First point... There's a good article on the M8 vs mystery tank on the tanks encyclopedia. One of the Tiger IIs lost the day this is supposed to have happened is listed as mechanical damage in german records. If you're a crew in a Tank, with a V12 engine behind you growling away, would you even necessarily notice you'd been hit in the rear hull if the weapon doing it was firing a projectile that weighed less than 1 pound ? The Chieftain mentioned in one of his Q&A videos (the question regarded rear view cameras) that in Iraq he heard a "bang" of an explosion behind his tank that his crew didn't notice, stuck his head out the hatch to look back and saw that the infantry were all shooting at something and one of the humvees was on fire and thus it warranted further investigation. I think his orders went "driver halt, gunner traverse right 90". Second point... There's many articles and videos explaining that in post war testing of late war production Panthers by the USA & Britain and 1944 testing by the Soviets of captured Tiger IIs ( in comparison to captured Tiger Is and early production Panthers) that both showed the quality of steel used in the armor plates was rather poor (due to lack of critical elements used in the steel alloy composition not being available in 1944/45) and non-penetrating hits often resulted in bad spalling and cracking of the plates. A scab of tank armor blowing into a V12 engine could likely mechanical kill a tiger II without necessarily sounding like it was a shell impact. Not to mention the plates themselves weren't all uniformly 80mm thick (the +/- tolerance allowed by the german defence ministry was such that plates could be up to 5 mm out of spec in either direction so 75 to 85mm). Also remember those penetration charts everyone loves to point at used a standard of testing where 50% of the shots would penetrate X amount of armor... but they don't account for the lucky shots that over-penetrate the 50% values nor do they account for the fact that depending on WHEN the test was done, the quality of target plate material might have varied a lot. Third point... There IS a Tiger II tank on display (Tiger 213) outside a museum in La Gleize, Ardennes, Belgium only a hundred yards or so away from where it was captured after being knocked out in the war. While its been cosmetically restored and the engine and transmission are still inside its said that most of the torsion bars are broken in the suspension, and the interior is described as 'rough'. When it was captured the treads were a wreck and the gun tube had been sheared off. I'll provide links to a video of the Tiger II and the article on the different versions of M8 vs Tiger story and the one of Tiger II which also shows a B&W photo of 213 when it was captured. https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2-greyhound-vs-tiger-st-vith/

"Reality has a way of not caring what the paper specifications say." Amen, amen, and amen.

I had use access to one of these through an employer during the early 1980s...it had a big block V8 Chevy engine. The biggest problem we had was even with a giant radiator, a reverse draw flex fan and a couple of electric fans the vehicle over heated regularly as there was not much air flow. I regularly drove this thing on the Nimitz Free through Oakland, CA...had some fun with the Highway Patrol regularly...they also went through brakes fast as it weight about 9 tons and did not stop easy...great memories and fun

I drove a M8 for a few years here in the UK and found it a lovely thing to drive . Road work was fun and even overtook a convoy of Saxon,s on Salisbury plain once ( they looked a bit shocked as we flew by ) Cross country was as good as could be expected and we made it around Bovington cross country course easy.. Reference to the front prop shaft question. We used to take the front prop shaft off to save a bit on fuel and road noise so I’m guessing the owner might have done something similar. Only major problem was the time the brake system failed and I ended up driving from Poole to Torbay in the pissing rain at night on engine braking and hand brake .. not fun ☹️

A better way to operate the mg is to have someone else get out while you stay nice a safe in your armoured car.

I'm confused about how to tension these tracks. This doesn't make any sense to me. But in all seriousness, I'm glad to see some more armoured car love. German Rads next maybe <3

A little disappointed that there was no "Oh Bollocks the tanks on fire" would have been fun to see how long it took you to get out. Just kidding, another great video

My father used one of these in WW2, he was part of a reconnaissance troop for the 8th armored division, during the Ardennes offensive.

Assistant driver doesn't have much to do? Hey look at that .50 cal missing an exposed gunner!

My Dad trained on the M8 in the Mojave Desert in 1943. Later he was a motorcycle messenger in the 629th a tank Destroyer Battalion.

Oh bugger, the track tension is on fire. Another great vid and I look forward to more.

I miss his "Oh bugger the tank is on fire." test

I remember when those side skirts over the wheels were an "optional" armor upgrade for the M8 Greyhound in Company of Heroes. As if they made a significant difference.

Great video! W.r.t. 8:30, you want to use rainwater as it generally has lower amount of calcium in it than tap water therefore you dont get too much calcification going on in your radiator (which would be bad). In addition to be cleaner than water from springs (which could contain calcium and other stuff you dont want in your radiator). That`s also the main reason why you want to use rainwater for cleaning your car instead of tap water to prevent white stripes on your car

What I believe about the Tiger vs Greyhound story is that the tank was a regular Tiger I that was moving to catch up with its unit (which had moved through the area a day or so before) after whatever cause for the Tiger's pause (I think the tank crew had been waiting for a replacement part for the tiger's engine). Greyhound is sitting in a bushy area, spots the lone tiger. Waits for tiger to pass, then starts its engine and rolls up on the tiger's rear. Pops a 37mm cap in the tiger's back, tiger is like "wtf was that?", greyhound keeps smacking 37s into the rear armor until it gets a lucky shot in, and the tiger is disabled. La-dee-da, legendary story.