PODCAST · history
Totally Tanked podcast
by John and Rob
It's a podcast about tanks. Do you want to listen to people talking about tanks? If so this is the podcast for you! World Wars, Cold Wars, modern tanks, we cover them all while drinking a lot of beer.Be warned though, we grapple with the politics behind the tanks, the economics, the industrial policies. Tanks are intensely political objects in both their creation and their use. So if you just want to hear dudes banging on about lethality, well, we've got dudes banging on anyway.
Episodes
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86 - SU and ISU-152 - The Beast Killers!
Following Stalingrad the Red Army wanted a self-propelled assault gun. And they wanted it with a really big honking gun. And so they came up with first the SU and later the ISU-152's. With a 152mm howitzer chonking out great big lumps of high explosive. They were known to their friends as...
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82 - T-70 - Soviet Mediocrity!
With over 8,000 produced the T-70 should not be an obscure tank. With an extremely unusual profile it should be easy to ID. And yet it's not exactly at the top of anyone's list, but we are going to try and shed some light on this Soviet light tank.
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81 - Abrams - The Lord of Battle
What time period exactly was this great tank the greatest tank ever?
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80 - Multi-Turret Tanks - Too Much of a Good Thing
When all the world was bright and new and small boys were allowed to design tanks a lot of concepts were created for lumbering landships lurching slowly across the battlefield while delivering justice and vengeance to the enemy from a series varied weaponry in multiple turrets. More boring…
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79 - Leopard 2 - The Tank of the Free World
Failed joint procurement programs somehow led to the one tank that a cashed up country making its own decisions would buy. With the production lines open again it's time to revisit the Leopard 2!
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78 - SU76M - The Swamp Fighter
The Soviets decided they didn't have a need for light tanks. And instead built a very useful light vehicle with a big gun. And they built a lot of them. And this is their story.
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77 - Vickers MBT - Steel Tank for Iron Men
Vickers went out on a limb and built their own tank in 1963. And a bunch of countries decided something tough and simple was exactly what they wanted. India built 2,000 of them and took them to war with great success. This episode we're going to take a look at what was going on with the Vickers...
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76 - Panzer II - Tour De France Champion
Early war tanks on all sides were surprisingly rattly and rickety contraptions. In this episode we're going to count the rivets on the Panzer II which really proved that some tank is better than no tank as it conquered Poland and France. The halftime interview features Graham from @xacoupeguy...
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75 - Centurion revisited - Tougher than the rest
After a world war spent building very bad tanks the British got their act together and unleashed Centurion on the world. It would fight with distinction in the Korean War, the Suez Crisis, Indo-Pakistani wars, Vietnam, and on both sides of Arab-Israeli wars. Bruce Springsteen was probably…
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74 - M10 - Wolverine - Panzer Hunter
The US Army had a lot of ideas for tank destroyers, but they arrived half a war too late, leaving the operators driving open-topped assault guns. But the M10 was there when they needed it in crucial moments of the Second World War, packing a big gun on a reliable chassis. We'll also be discussing...
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73 - Maus - Fail Big
Outfuelled, outmanned, outgunned. The desperate Germans needed a tank that could turn the tide of battle. Fortunately they came up with this 190 tonne monster instead. For all the slides and links check out: Totallytanked.net
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72 - AMX-30 - When the going gets tough, the French get weird.
The ancestor of all failed Franco-German military procurements the AMX-30 was a strange result of meeting the requirements of its moment precisely, while being birthed into a world that had changed from the time of its design. Despite seeming strange to us in 2025 it enjoyed a great deal of…
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71 - Matilda II Revisited - The Tortoise of War
From Northern France to the gates of Moscow, to the jungles of the South Pacific one tank kept rumbling slowly on. A vastly superior sequel; the Matilda II was a true tortoise of war. This is our second episode featuring Matilda II as the expanded format of the current show made it worth coming...
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70 - Chi Ha - The Sword of Empire
How good was the Japanese Chi Ha? Just ten of them destroyed the British Empire. In this episode we find out how!
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69 - Bradley - A Real Tank Killer
In this episode we take on the life and times of one of history's most controversial armoured vehicles, the Bradley! We also take a deep dive into it's namesake Omar Bradley, and share some thoughts on recent world events.
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68 - Soviet BTs - Stalin's Hotrods
In the interwar period the Soviets went hard on tank production, and a tank the communists took to war from Spain to Manchuria was the BT series, with suspension from an American racecar designer, a 500 horsepower engine, and a whopping (for the time) 45mm gun. Come join us as we explore a…
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67 - M103 - The last American Heavy
The USA had one last go at a heavy tank before settling on the MBT concept. It was not to the Army's liking but the Marines wanted as much tank as they could put ashore. In this episode we will explore the design, development and deployment of the last American Heavy.
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66 - Crusader - Britain could do better
In Britain's darkest hour they turned to the industrial genius of William Morris and he gave them the Crusader tank. It was not the tank they needed, it was not the tank they deserved, but it was the tank they got. As promised the link to Mike Pezullo's article:...
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65 - CV-90 - Swedish fire from ice
The Swedish miracle on ice, the light tank of our times, the CV-90! And our Christmas Mailbag, and we talk to a Dr Albert Pallazo, a national security expert, about the impact of climate change. You can download his book for free from:...
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64 - PT-76 - In Soviet Russia tanks are jet boats
Featuring an under-rated and misunderstood Soviet amphibious tank, a halftime interview with Dr John Dolan, The War Nerd himself, and some other thoughts of recent events as viewed through a great deal of beer.
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63 - Tiger II - The Gott in Gotterdamerung!
In which we take on the Tiger II, have a chat with the Mother of Tanks herself, and some thoughts about recent events in Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as a distinctly underwhelming beer review.
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62 - Heavies - The end of the line!
Between the Siegfried Line and the Soviet IS3 the western powers put a lot of thought into heavy tanks in the late war period. Totally Tanked is here to figure it all out with you!
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61 - T-62 - Bring on the big guns
What could have been an incremental improvement on the legendary T-55 instead became a revolutionary tank as a string of weird co-incidences and sliding doors moments lead to a the end of cannon rifling and the invalidation of steel armour. Todays western tanks with their composite armours and...
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60 - Panzer 38(t) - The Stolen Spearhead
In this episode we have the extraordinary tale of the little Czech tank that humbled the France. This episode also features a chat with Jack Bowsher the author of Forgotten Armour: Tank Warfare in Burma.
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59 - TR-85 - The Romanian Bison
Romania has its own tank program, and in this episode we unpack just why that might be as we look at the TR-85! Also we talk to a Romanian about Romania, some thoughts on new Leopard variants, western tanks performance in Ukraine, and God's lager doesn't taste as sweet as it did when we wore...
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58 - Renault FT - The Mother of Tanks
In the dark days of the First World War captain of industry Louis Renault looked on the tank building efforts of the allies and decided it could be done better. In the process he created the tank as we know it today.
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57 - M48 Patton - American Steel
Few tanks have seen as much combat as the M48 Patton, and few men have had as much to do with tanks as George Patton. This podcast takes on the legacy of both the tank and the man.
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56 - C1 Ariete - The Fiat of tanks
So what have the Italians wrought with their strange little orphan fleet of tanks? It's got issues...
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55 - Cromwell - The Cat Food.
Britain spent years getting their big tank ready for D-Day, but in the end one greedy industrialist de-railed the best of plans and gave them a sadly crappy tank. This is the story of Cromwell. (Note: This episode was recorded on 18 Feb 2024, we got confused about the year at the start)
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54 - Type 99 - The Red Wave.
Totally Tanked gives you the rundown on China's premier tank, the Type 99A. We also take a look at what reccent developments in Ukraine, Gaza, and Yemen mean for Chinese tank deployments, particularly surrounding Taiwan.
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53 - M24 Chaffee - The Voting Machine.
Possibly the best light tank of the second world war, the M24 Chaffee would take its big gun and low logistics requirements all around the world blazing a lightly armoured path through the hottest moments of the Cold War. The halftime interview features Hugh Cullimore talking about the…
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52 - T-80 - The tank of future past.
Misunderstood, misused, under-appreciated, the T-80 was cut from production a lifetime ago. And yet the hard lessons of the Ukraine war have seen its qualities come to be perceived in a new light, and production has been restarted! The halftime interview features Ross Manuel, you can find him at…
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51 - Churchill - The last landship
Brought to you by the makers of the Titanic it was a vehicle only the British could conceive of. Monstrously heavy, incredibly slow, and anaemically armed. Yet somehow over 5,000 Churchill tanks were built in the Second World War. The halftime interview features author David Mitchelhill-Green…
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50 - Al-Khalid - The tank of the pure
Pakistan has given a case study in how to make an adequate tank on a shoestring. Also some thoughts on Ukraine.
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49 - Panther - Failing to meet expectations due to technical difficulties
It is poetic, if not inevitable, that a much-anticipated episode about the Panther tank would be plagued by an omnishambles of technical difficulties, and thus fail to meet expectations. But there is some good stuff in here if you can get past what is not our finest performance!
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48 - CVR(T) - Does size matter?
Ever wonder why all those weird British light tanks had a name that started with an "S"? In this episode we're all across that, and will Graham's tank run? What's been going on in Russia? what are the household cavalry up to? What IFV is the US Army getting? Now for some links! -- Sponsor us on...
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47 - Stuart - M3, M5, Honey
The best tank is the one you have that you can get where it needs to be. But... Sometimes you wish you had a little more. The Stuart in M3 and M5 variants saw a lot of action in the Second World War and beyond, so we're going to have a lot to talk about in this episode! Now for some links! --...
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46 - Leopard 1 - The Cold Warrior
As the Cold War became more lively the West couldn't leave German manufacturing sitting on the bench. The result was a radical tank design that was widely accepted as the best of its time, the Leopard 1. -- Sponsor us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TotallyTanked -- Buy a T-shirt:...
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45 - Australian Cruisers (Sentinel) - When you need tanks and you don't know how to build them!
In this special recorded on ANZAC Day 2023 we tackle institutional white supremacy, and how it relates to a desperate Australian effort to build tanks in the second world war. We also talk to an American OPFOR tank commander, bring up the latest on Australia's move to cancel IFV production and…
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44 - T-14 - The Phantom Menace
In this episode we explore the magical fantasy tank that Russian dare not use, the T-14 Armata! Also discussion of model tank building, Australian submarines, and the war in Ukraine!
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43 - Char B1 Bis, How good can a French tank be?
We take on the best tank of the early second world war, the French Char B1 Bis. There was a lot to hate about this tank, but a surprising amount of good things there too. Also we talk to Clayton about building model tanks, and have some thoughts about the war in Ukraine!
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42 - Japanese Type 10, a great tank if it all works
Dedicated to the memory of Lejla Nikolas. Totally Tanked takes on the new Japanese Type 10 tank. We also have a chat with a Japan resident about their recent developments, and then it's into: -- The greyhound that never killed a tiger -- The failure of the Pumas: -- The rise of the Wagner Group…
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41 - 2022 End of year wrapup
A quick run through the numbers which tell the tale of 2022 for a small independent tank podcast. Quick links: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TotallyTanked Redbubble for tshirts (and more): https://www.redbubble.com/people/TotallyTanked/shop?asc=u Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TotesTanked...
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40 - M26 Pershing, the discarded future
Totally Tanked is tackling the American WW2 heavy, the M26 Pershing. In 1943 the Americans had a tank design that would define tanks into the 1980s, but they decided they didn't want it. In this episode we will get to the bottom of how and why this happened, and how it ended when an American...
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39 - T-90 The Beast From The East
Totally Tanked is tackling the Russian monster the T-90! We also have a chat with an expert on infantry fighting vehicles and the latest from Ukraine. The beer for review is the Styrian Wolf Hazy IPA - by Urbanaut Brewing. Links: -- Dr Albert Palazzo's paper on Australian infantry fighting...
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38 - Vickers Inter-war Light Tanks. The training wheels of tanks
In this episode we explore the murky world of making tanks in an era of disarmament, how keeping the Vickers company alive meant teaching the world how to make tanks, and then we go on to explore more recent events with the AbramsX and what's going on in Ukraine. Sign up on Patreon to support the...
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37 - M18 Hellcat. "Plans are nothing. Planning is everything"
In a jam packed episode we examine the reasons behind the creation of the M18 Hellcat tank destroyer and its exciting service history in the Second World War and beyond. We also have an interview with The Chieftain himself from AusArmourFest 2022, thoughts about the tank festival experience for...
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36 - Chieftain. Sometimes you get it wrong
In our 36th outing we cover Chieftain, the tank which proved the British don't always get it right. We also talk a bit about the looming war over Taiwan, and other parts between. To see the images and maps check out the YouTube livestream. https://youtu.be/RPQ8-Q6iwJA
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35 - Panzer 3. The Hammer of the Reich
In a jam packed episode we dismantle one of the greatest tanks of all time, the Panzer 3! There's also some discussion of why politics and tanks mix, and the American light tank! Beer for review is the Schnitzer Brau gluten free. If you want to join us for the live streams sign up at →...
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34 - T-64. The Ukrainian Colossus
The last masterpiece of the greatest tank designer in history the T-64 was initially a disappointment largely due to being too far ahead of its time. Now long past its prime of the 1980s it has roared back to prominence as the mainstay of the Ukrainian Army in the struggle against Russia.
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
It's a podcast about tanks. Do you want to listen to people talking about tanks? If so this is the podcast for you! World Wars, Cold Wars, modern tanks, we cover them all while drinking a lot of beer.Be warned though, we grapple with the politics behind the tanks, the economics, the industrial policies. Tanks are intensely political objects in both their creation and their use. So if you just want to hear dudes banging on about lethality, well, we've got dudes banging on anyway.
HOSTED BY
John and Rob
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Totally Tanked podcast have?
Totally Tanked podcast currently has 86 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Totally Tanked podcast about?
It's a podcast about tanks. Do you want to listen to people talking about tanks? If so this is the podcast for you! World Wars, Cold Wars, modern tanks, we cover them all while drinking a lot of beer.Be warned though, we grapple with the politics behind the tanks, the economics, the industrial...
How often does Totally Tanked podcast release new episodes?
Totally Tanked podcast has 86 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Totally Tanked podcast?
You can listen to Totally Tanked podcast on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Totally Tanked podcast?
Totally Tanked podcast is created and hosted by John and Rob.
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