
The British Perfected the Art of Brewing Tea Inside an Armored Vehicle - edward
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-british-perfected-the-art-of-brewing-tea-inside-an-armored-vehicle-1cc012f3ee54
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TazeTSchnitzel
By the sounds of things, this isn't just for hot beverages. It's also used to
heat ration packs. Having a proper, warm meal must help morale.

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TorKlingberg
Boiling water is a good way to make it safe to drink in dirty environments. If
you have boiled water you might as well make tea.

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bro-stick
Exactly. As humans, we can our food and beverages because we are able to make
them mostly safer by killing many potential pathogens.

A millenia ago, wine was one of the most popular beverages because it also
fairly sterile... but you wouldn't want to use that in combat.

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conistonwater
They have their priorities in order:

 _But tea-break culture posed a big problem for the generals in charge of
Britain’s armored formations. Tank crewmen had to stop and climb out of their
vehicle in order to have a brew, making it difficult to safely sustain an
armored advance._

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mattress
It seems kind of ridiculous that it took that long to realize getting out of
the armor left them open to attack. Did everyone have to take a break at the
and time? 37% of casualties from soldiers outside of their armor. Really
Brits? Really?

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noir_lord
Tanks of the time where cramped and crews often had to be outside for other
tasks, if you think about it it makes senses that casualties would be higher
outside armoured vehicles since small arms fire would be effective, this
wasn't just a British problem as the article implies.

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sliverstorm
As I understand it, they were a lot like early subs- spending most of the time
cruising with all the hatches open, crew hanging out on top, only clambering
inside, closing hatches, and diving when the enemy was spotted. Neither early
subs nor early tanks could be lived in sealed up all day, and visibility was
poor from inside to boot so scouting happened with hatches open..

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noir_lord
Exactly that, they also carried supplies and fuel externally as their simply
wasn't space internally.

They where much smaller than modern tanks and didn't have autoloaders so they
where incredibly cramped.

Modern armoured warfare is largely a battle of logistics as keeping a tank in
the field requires a huge amount of resources and manpower.

Comparison to submarines of the era is a good one, submarines have been one of
my enduring fascinations especially WW1 and WW2.

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sliverstorm
One has only to look at tanks like the M3 Stuart with people around them:

[http://afvdb.50megs.com/usa/pics/m3stuart.jpg](http://afvdb.50megs.com/usa/pics/m3stuart.jpg)

It has a crew of 4. I believe you can see the driver & codriver through the
viewports under the turret.

Then compare to an M1:

[http://www.cybermodeler.com/armor/m1/images/m1_002.jpg](http://www.cybermodeler.com/armor/m1/images/m1_002.jpg)

I wish I could find a photo of them side by side

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noir_lord
Yup not to mention the modern stuff is climate controlled and has better ride
quality all important for endurance especially when sealed up or in a NBC
situation

