Cable reels on armoured vehicles?

[STURM]

Recently came across a photo taken in the 1980's of a cable reel mounted to the rear of a turret belonging to a Scorpion light tank. Apart from comms, could the cables be for some other purpose and is it still common to see cable reels mounted on armoured vehicles?

 

[DavidDCM]

Radioless communication. When the tanks are in stationary positions they can communicate without danger of being spied at by enemy intelligence.

That's the intended purpose. German Leo 2 all have such a cable reel until today.

 

[STURM]

David,

You mean that these cables are actually connected to other vehicles for comms? Interesting, I've never seen any other Malaysian army AFVs with cable reels, only the Scorpion.

 

[DavidDCM]

Yes, the tanks are plugged to each other via these wires. But it is not a standard procedure, more something like "better have and never need, than need and not have".

Possibly the other vehicles have stored them somewhere inside.

 

[STURM]

David,

Sorry to bug you again. These are cables to connect field phones right?

 

[DavidDCM]

These cables - if I remember right - connect Tank-to-Tank. But generally you could possibly plug them into anything. They are not specialised comm cables, basically just simple metal wires. They do not even have connectors at their ends. Understandability is said to be very low because signal loss is immense.

So, if the situation arises you can use them for anything. It would not be wrong to say they are just a big reel of metal wire that can be used for whatever you want. But their original intent remains tank-to-tank radioless communication.

 

[STURM]

Thank you, that was most helpful. The reason I was asking is because I was going through some photos I took in 1988 at an exhibition held by the army and there is a photo of a Scorpion with a reel mounted to the rear of the turret. Next to the reel is a small box [not a stowage bin]. Nowadays, the Scorpions dont have the reel anymore but still have the small box. If you're interested, I can E-mail you the pic, if you PM me your E-mail address.

P.S. It might interest you to know that the Malaysian army, for some reason, has a fetish for Wegmann smoke dischargers. There are 16 fitted on the Scorpion! And the Condors, Sibmas and Stormers all are fitted with more more smoke dischargers than would be fitted on similar vehicles operated by other armies.

 

[DavidDCM]

Well maybe that's the true reason why Malaysia chose the PT-91M instead of any more proven competitors. Because it has that huge barrage of smoke dischargers on its turret.

 

[STURM]

You could be right . There are 12 on each side. There were plans to fit them with Wegmann launchers but the vehicles received the Polish ones instead. Word has it that the army preferred the T-84.