Dude. The Chieftain Mk5s were fitted with Thermals OUT OF THE FACTORY.
The Mk10’s were fitted with them through the Totem Pole Program.
The Chieftain’s used a TOG’s Box, they didn’t use a Actual Thermal sight. They had a secondary sight that was Thermal’s only.
Most Chieftain’s fitted with Thermal’s just had the TOG’s sight retrofitted into the Old IR spotlight housing.
Edit: You can even SEE the TOG’s Box on the side of the Challenger 1 in game, since the C1s were fitted with the same Gen 1 thermals as the Chieftains.
Chieftain Mk5 was introduced decades prior to thermal sights for tanks existing.
Barr & Stroud Thermal Observation Gunnery System was introduced in 1984, Chieftain Mk5 is 1970s.
And notice that is indeed a Challenger you posted and not a Chieftain.
Note that a Chieftain with thermals would be 9.7/10.0 in BR.
Standoff, terrain masking, speed, and the ability to disengage are exactly how you combat IADS if you don’t have ARM to fight them.
The fact that you can bore in as long as you stay at >Mach.9 against most systems is already BS.
“Exercise Totem Pole” was carried out in six-to-nine phases depending on the Mark of vehicle being modified in between 1975 and 1979 and included fitment of the Marconi improved Fire Control System (IFCS), replacement of the searchlight with the Barr & Stroud Thermal Observation Gunnery System (TOGS),"
The Mk5 was still in production in 1976, Thus the last of them to leave the factory were prefitted with the TOG’s sight system. But due to a shortage of the actual purpose built housing for the TOG’s box, most of them had the thermal sight fitted into the pre existing Spotlight housing.
THANK YOU! i had been looking for this picture, FOR YEARS!
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Oh look, a picture of 03EB67. IIRC the only chieftain that kept the Mk 10 name while having TOGS, while the rest of them had TOGS in the TOGS housing and were called Mk 11.
By that i mean all of them, as all of them were converted to 9, then to 10 and then to 11.
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Yep. I think it’s now somewhere in a museum with it taken out.
the Mk11s were literally ONLY Mk8 Chieftains that had Completed the Totem pole program.
And the Mk8s were just Mk3s that had completed the earlier program to bring all earlier MK’s of Chieftain up to Mk5 standards in early 1975
What are you talking about?
Oh, i see. Yo uare just using a source that is lying to you.
Give me a sec.
Its been verified as Correct information my self, Ive found other sources that back this up, Wikipedia is just the easiest one to get too.
That’s a universal housing used for multiple things, on top of having no tank identification let alone optic identification.
You now need a confirmed picture of what was in that housing earlier.
@Heavytanker1945
So allegedly there were test vehicles for the TOGS, which aren’t in game.
And the first use of the TOGS was on Challenger in 1985.
Chieftains got them later.
Wikipedia is not a source.
Oh look, @DevilO6 already made my take for me.
None of the thermal Chieftains are currently in War Thunder.
This book has been proven wrong MULTIPLE times.
the first big one is that NONE of the Mk1’s received any kind of Totem Pole upgrades. Yet in the book it says they did.
Plus that book is RUSSIAN! its not representative of how the British actually did the Totem Pole upgrades,
