Centurion Tank: Hull 169041, the Emu Field Atomic Blast and Vietnam

The British Centurion was drafted in 1943 as a heavy cruiser tank able to take hits from German 88mm guns, and it reached Europe in May 1945, just after the war there ended. The Directorate of Tank Design under Sir Claude Gibb was first bound by the 10-foot-8-inch British railway loading gauge until the War Office lifted the width limit and let weight rise to 50 long tons. Designers replaced Christie suspension with Horstmann bogies bolted outside the hull, which crews could swap after mine damage, and added a fully automatic gun stabilizer so gunners could fire accurately on the move. The gun grew from a 17-pounder to a 20-pounder and then the 105mm L7, driven by a 650-horsepower Rolls-Royce Meteor. A Centurion cost about £35,000 in 1950 and £38,000 by 1952, and the stabilizer's gyroscope accounted for only about £100.

In Korea, the 8th King's Royal Irish Hussars parked their Mark IIIs on straw and ran the engines every half hour through freezing nights, then covered the 29th Brigade's withdrawal at the Imjin River in 1951. U.S. General John O'Daniel concluded that anywhere a tank could go was now tank country. In 1973 about 125 Israeli Centurions, rebuilt as the diesel-powered Sho't, held the Valley of Tears on the Golan Heights against roughly 500 Syrian T-55s and T-62s. The strangest record belongs to Australian Army hull 169041. In 1953, during Operation Totem One at Emu Field, it sat fueled, loaded and idling 500 yards from a 9.1-kiloton nuclear blast that shoved it back five feet, sandblasted its optics and blew off its side plates. The engine ran until the fuel was gone, and three days later the tank was driven away.

• The atomic tank was decontaminated, returned to service and later fought in Vietnam, where an RPG hit injured its crew but left it battle-worthy.
• Australian crews in Vietnam from 1968 removed the armored side skirts so mud and vines would not jam the tracks, and fought at Coral-Balmoral.
• Australian logbooks show Meteor engines rebuilt and moved between hulls, one engine serving several tanks for over eight years.
• Diesel's higher flash point made the Sho't less likely to burn after a hit than petrol-engined Centurions.
• South Africa's Olifant tanks and Israeli heavy armored personnel carriers are built on the Centurion chassis.