I was just talking with some of the staff here at Buffet o’ Blog, discussing new cars, and one guy said he wants a Sherman tank. We got to talking about how cool that would be, and it’s not a bad idea.
New cars typically have crash-test ratings of up to 5 stars, to represent how safe they are in the event of a crash or rollover. With a tank, you’d probably have at least 50 stars of safety. I doubt you could roll it over if you tried, and you wouldn’t need airbags. If someone drove through a red light and hit you, you might not even notice. You couldn’t get any safer. It would also be bulletproof, hail-proof, etc. You might even be able to drive it through a tornado!
You would also gain the respect (and fear) of other drivers. If someone were audacious enough to honk their horn at you while at a stoplight, you could turn the turret around, and their attitude would change really quick. Of course, firing military-grade weapons at civilians is frowned upon, so you could revamp it to shoot some green glop at them, to cover their car (including the appropriate sound effect, of course).
One negative of driving a tank is that the highway department might not care for it too much, given that you could probably make ruts all over the road — even on paved roads. But you could go off-road, too. It would be so much better than the SUVs that are sold these days.
Now I just need to find an Army surplus store to see how much one of these would cost…
BTW, I came across a page that has pictures and a video of a someone driving a Sherman tank over a car. I wonder what the insurance company would say about that…
If you’re interested, here’s the specs on a 1942 M4 General Sherman tank :
- Weight: 29.62 tons
Length: 19 feet, 4 inches
Height: 9 feet
Armor: 0.99 – 1.97 inches
Maximum Speed: 24 mph
Maximum Range: 99 miles
Crew: 5
Armament: 75mm main gun; 3 x .30 caliber machine guns; 1 x Anti-Air Defense .50 caliber (12.7mm) machine gun; 1 x .30 caliber (7.62mm) Co-axial machine gun; 1 x .30 caliber (7.62mm) bow machine gun.
Ammunition: 97 rounds (75mm gun); 4,750 rounds (Machine guns)
February 8, 2007 at 12:08 pm |
I agree… a tank would rock… Last night in youth I read an excerpt for a humor article about ‘how the world would be different if men had their way’. High on the list was that “tanks would be much easier to rent”. I concur. I did note one thing you left out on your specs… what kind of gas millage does a 30 ton sherman tank get? I’m guessing not much if the maximum range is 99 miles… but OH what a commute to work that would be!!!
February 14, 2007 at 2:19 pm |
This thing can only go 99 miles on one “tank” (no pun intended, ahem…) of gas?? Man, that could really start to add up when during the holidays to see the fam!
When are they going to come out with the hybrid version of the Shermie Tank? We really need to start thinking about the environment with these things…