Chieftain Tank

The Chieftain is a British main battle tank that entered service with the British Army in 1966, developed as a successor to the Centurion with a stronger emphasis on firepower and armor protection than speed, mounting a powerful 120mm rifled main gun, at the time one of the largest guns fitted to any Western tank, along with heavily sloped cast and welded armor and a distinctively low silhouette achieved by reclining the driver's position. Its 120mm gun and associated ammunition, firing separate charge and projectile rounds rather than a single fixed cartridge, gave it strong armor-penetration performance against contemporary Warsaw Pact tanks and influenced the choice of gun caliber for later British and export tank designs. The Chieftain served as the British Army's primary main battle tank through the 1970s and 1980s and was exported to and license-produced for several Middle Eastern militaries, including Iran, where Chieftains saw extensive combat during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, before the type was eventually replaced in British service by the Challenger.