The Challenger 1 enjoyed a short turbulent career with the British Army, but it did make it into the record books. During the Gulf War, A Challenger 1 took out an Iraqi tank at 5.1km and still holds the world record for the longest tank to tank kill.
The Chieftain Replacement Program
But the Challenger 1 was only a temporary stop gap for the British Army. They had been using the Chieftain MBT since the mid 60's and there had been 5 Mk's of it. A new pioneering type of armour known as 'Chobham' had been developed by a Dr Gilbert Harvey at the formerly known 'Fighting Vehicles Research and Development Establishment' in the UK for the British Army.
The Chieftains were ageing and the British Army needed a new MBT that could be fitted with the new armour. They had been involved in a joint project with Germany for a new standardised NATO MBT, known as the 'MBT-80' project, but was eventually cancelled and development of a new MBT for the British Army would not produce results until the 1990's.
Whilst this turn of events had been occurring in the UK, in the Middle-East, which had been the main customer for the Chieftain, namely Iran, who had made further orders for a large number of them, which were variants built for Iran known as 'Shir 1' & 'Shir 2' Iran went through a revolution in 1979 and subsequently withdrew their orders.
The Shir 1 was starting production at this point as Iran had ordered 125 and an improved "Shir-2" was due to start as 1225 were ordered. So the British Army picked up the order for the Shir-2 in limited numbers so they could have an MBT fitted with the new Chobham armour, whilst a development program still continued for a new MBT.
Originally the tank was called Cheviot, but re-named the Challenger. The British Army took delivery of the Challenger in March of 1983 from the manufacturer at the time, Royal Ordnance Leeds. In total 420 Challengers were built and production ended in 1990 with Vickers Defence Systems, who had bought ROL in 1986.
The 1987 Canadian Army Tank shoot
In preperation for the CAT 87 shoot, both the Royal Hussars and the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment put together a team and both practised for the competition. 2RTR were the better team by a mile and were expected to be chosen as the British entry. How ever amazingly the team to enter the competition was picked out of a hat! and a very surprised RH team went into the competition.
A large amount of statistical information was sifted through and it was thought at the time that, although it was not possible to win the competition RH may actually get as high as 3 in the end ranking. The 90% dispersion zone of the L11 was quite a bit bigger than most of the targets whereas the rest had guns that had a 90% zone smaller than most of the targets. Even if the Challenger and crew performed at 100% efficiency they could not win.
In the run up to the 1987 CAT shoot, the Challenger 1's for the competition were up-grade and modified. The chase mod fitted to the breech mechanism meant there was no need to close the breech before making the Loader's guard, shorterning the loading sequence as the breech closed as the guard was made. This system is currently used on the Challenger 2.
On paper it was an excellent system and similar to that of the system now on the Challenger 2, except the technology of the day couldn't quite make it work, how ever It did take a bit of getting used to and on the first real competition run, the RH crew achieved a score that was thought to be nigh on impossible.
The Challenger Armoured Repair and Recovery Vehicle
The British Army still uses uses the CRARRV (Challenger Armoured Repair and Recovery Vehicle) as its ARV. Its built on a Challenger 1 chassis, has two winches (main and auxiliary) a front dozer blade and an Atlas hydraulic crane for lifting a Challenger 2 power pack. It has a crew of three and two Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers (REME) fitters.
The Jordanian Al Hussein
The Challenger 1's of the British Army have now been sold on to Jordan who now call it the 'Al Hussein'. It will replace their ageing fleet of Tariq tanks which are improved Centurion tanks and will work along side their now reduced fleet of Khalid MBT's.
The Jordanian Army is currently completing up-grade programs to their various armoured vehicles to bring them to a third generation level, in an effort that will see them being equipped with shared systems. Their M60 series fleet has been up-graded to the M60 Phoneix which mounts a new Ruag Land Systems L50 (Length Calibre) 120mm smoothbore Compact Tank Gun which is also due to be fitted on the Al Hussein. The Al Hussein will have a new low profile turret called the 'Falcon 2 Turret'. It's reported that the crew are kept below the turret ring and is now reduced to three as it uses a new FHL Claverham autoloader, with a rate of fire up to 8 rounds per minute with 3 rounds fired in the first 10 seconds.
11 or 17 ready-rounds can be stowed in the autoloader. An additional 17 rounds can be stowed below the turret ring. It is equipped with a new unspecified modular armour.
It has a new improved Fire Control System (of which many elements are from that of the new one installed in the M60 Phoneix), which includes a digital balistic computer, 360° commanders independant sight, giving the vehicle a hunter killer capability, auto-tracking of targets and a gunner's new thermal imager video sight. It has a laser-warning system and Thales AFV smoke screening equipment. The turret drive and stabilization system has been replaced with an all-Electric System.
End of the Chieftain Replacement Program
By 1989 development of the Chieftain's replacement was in full swing with nine proto types built by VDS, with full production starting in 1993, which then entered service of May 1994 and was called the Challenger 2.
The original idea by the Ministry Of Defence, was for a mixture of Challenger 1's and 2's within the British Army, but this was dropped, additional numbers of the Challenger 2 were ordered and the Challenger 1 was phased out of the British Army by 2000.
Despite its short service, it saw action in the Gulf War, when 180 of them were deployed and destroyed over 300 enemy tanks with out a single loss. It then went onto peace keeping duties in the Balkans through out the mid to late 90's.
