Meanwhile in Brazil: Leopard Smashes Civillian Car

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Source: http://www.noticiasautomotivas.com.br/blindado-passa-por-cima-de-chevrolet-s10-e-motorista-sobrevive/

Thanks to PzBarkhorn for this one

Hello everyone,

check out what happened in Brazil recently.

The 79 year old farmer Lusardo Ottaran was returning to his property trough a non-paved road, that connects the BR-290 highway to the “Campo de Instrução Barão de São Borja” (a Brazilian Army tank instruction camp), located in Rosário do Sul, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, when he found a column of Leopard tanks. He was instructed by the column recon officer (who was there to ensure people’s safety, making them move away from column’s path) to move his Chevrolet S-10 pickup to the side, so the tanks could pass, which he did. The first 2 tanks of the column passed without any problems, but the third one couldn’t maneuver fast enough due to the slippery mud, and ran over the pickup. The driver was able to jump to the right seat moments before being crushed, but he suffered injuries to one leg and to the fingers of both hands.

The driver of the tank helped rescue the farmer, who was taken to the city hospital. He passed trough a surgery to reconstruct his fingers and another one to reconstruct his leg. The tanks where supposed to be carried on trucks, but due to the conditions on the road, the military decided to drive them trough the muddy area, since the trucks would just get bogged in the mud.

33 thoughts on “Meanwhile in Brazil: Leopard Smashes Civillian Car”

    • I’ve never driven a Leopard, but if it’s anything like the BMP, it’s not that hard. It’s kinda hard to explain, the vehicle has this “pull” under some circumstances, it sort of “slides” you. It’s definitely possible.

      • I’ve only been behind the “wheel” on a Leopard 2, but 55 tonnes can be hell of a lot of weight to stop. If its not paved road and you are going anywhere faster than walking pace the ground simply doesnt have enough resistance to stop such a beast. you lose traction, cant steer and the tank just slides over the ground as you said.

        So in conclusio, its very easy to run over stuff unintentionally with a tank. I ran over a tree during my training becasue i took a turn too tight, it was good 30cm in diameter, it simply broke like a toothpick without any resistance to the tank.

        • ^This. Also, the way the tracks on the Leopards are constructed, they don’t have a lot of “sideways traction”, presumably to get them to turn easier. On the other hand, that means that once you start sliding sideways you’re fucked, and pretty much the only thing you can do is point the front downhill and try to keep things under control.

          • If they had side traction, Leos would throw tracks a lot more than they do now.
            Also, it seems that they had rubber pads on, which didn’t help.

          • But ONLY on that kind of mud. Remember tracks are designed to deal with such surface. On normal wet underground it is impossible to do WT-like stunts.

            • Na not really. Tracks slide around very easily on all kinds of terrain. As soon as forward inertia exceeds the force of its own weight things tend to get weird. A tank can slide on dry grass just as well as on wet pavement. The reason for that is that the tank is so heavy, that the ground is simply not dense enough to offer enough resistance. Imagine the tank ripping off the gras off the ground and sliding on a carpet of gras. Its the same as when you run, jump on a carpet and slide on it. The same thing happens with tanks. Pavement for example is very slippy when on metal tracks, same for normal gras. Best terrain would be low-grown forest to be honest because the roots of the foilage would keep the soil together. Its very hard to find ideal terrain for a tank.
              Tracks are not really made to provide traction, tracks are made to prevent the tank from sinking into the ground.
              Thats also a thing why its forbidden to sleep under a tank, because it could sink into the ground so much that you could get trapped or even crushed unter it. Funny side story, when i was on training it was pouring, but we where told not to get under the tank to seek cover becasue in the wet ground it could sink till the bottom of it touches the ground and we would be pancakes by the morning. We where btw also not allowed to sleep next to it, becasue we where in a region with a LOT of wild boards. They would attack the tank when you parket them near their hideout, and so happend one night when we woke up for a “clonk” “clonk” sound. When we checked with flashlights we saw that a boar was banging his head against the side of our leopard, apparently we intruded in its territory. Thank god we where sleeping on the engine deck :)
              Thou we all had our Glock around the chest and where instructed to shoot if where attacked by a boar, but who knows what would have happend if it would have suprised you in your sleeping bag :)

          • Sadly that is true, yes. People just dont realise how weirdly tanks can behave. Everyone things thats a 55 tonnes block of steel thats calm like a cruise ship but nah ah, its worse than ice skating :P

    • Because cotnrary to what the internet whiners claim, tanks move and drift much closer to how they do in War Thunder than how they move in rails in WOT.

      In order to be able to cross muddy terrain they are made so that they have a very low pressure per square cm under their tracks, and on muddy terrain that makes it EXTREMELY slippery.

      • Does not help when they have the rubber pads fitted to protect road surfaces – it makes they easier to slide on mud, snow and ice (even wet surfaces).

        A one point we were told on transition to war we were to remove the rubber pads and reverse the tracks to get better traction off road – we never tried it.

  2. that’s why leopard has to be nerfed!

    btw, the tank drivers should play WT ground forces before driving a tank.

          • then you should stop playing arcade. it’s not really WT GF, and shouldn’t be how the physics should be judged. play Sim battles, and you would see that unless you are going extremely fast, you won’t slide. hell most of time it’s difficult to get your tank to not behave like a brick when it trys to turn.

            Again you like most of the wot players probally only every played arcade, which means you haven’t really played GF.

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  8. First two drivers had a WN8 of over 1600

    Third driver leapfrogged to tier 10 after playing a Löwe for 10,000 battles straight, and has a WN8 of exactly 13.

    Thirteen!

  11. If I see a tank coming, I’d pull over and out of the driveway, the Chevy seems to be barely away from the middle of the road.