Stephen White wrote:Fortunately, the designer of Chieftain provided bollards at the front to step on and a guard for the lights which you could grab. Of course, neither were of the slightest use on the ranges, where you had to mount the vehicle from behind the gun trunnions for safety reasons.
The first unit I was attached to as REME swapped the Chieftain for Challenger 1 before the first range package I attended, so I cannot quote on Chieftain. Chally 1 had bollards on the back, used to alert the crew someone was there wishing to climb on board.
Then once permission had been given, easy climb on to the back decks using the rear sprocket and track, even though at times taking toolbox, test eqpt and a few folders, then up onto the turret behind the commanders hatch. Tank crew did the climb maybe twice a day at most, I was doing it multiple times per day on ranges. It was easy when you knew how.
If I recall corrrectly, my best time was under 5 minutes from the extreme end of the range to the tower "repairing" a tank on the way. A young Troop Leader had reported his Thermal Imaging system as not working and was ranting on the squadron net at the REME for being useless. His tank had only left us shortly before after having a fault on the power pack fixed.
Less than 5 minutes later, I reported to the Sqn Ldr in the Tower that the tank was "fixed". He commented that it was a very fast repair and asked what the fault was. When I reported that all I had to do was reach in through the commanders hatch and switch on the BDCU ( Barbette Door Control Unit) so that the armoured plate in front of the TI camera opened, the Sqn Ldr was straightaway on the radio fining the young Tp Ldr two crates, one of champagne for the Officers Mess and one of beer for the Fitter Section.