The crew over at the YouTube channel, The Slow Mo Guys, point their cameras at fast-moving events like potato guns firing, glass breaking, etc., so when they made a video of an M4 Sherman tank firing at a range out in the desert, we knew it was a must-see. And, yes, watching a World War II tank fire in slow motion is as fun as it sounds.
WWII Tanks Firing in Slow Motion
The video is above, obviously, and there are a few great spots to concentrate on. The first shot comes at 2:15, but they replay it in slow-motion at 2:35 and the video plays slowly enough that you can clearly see the round leave the barrel, see the burnt and unburnt powder leave the barrel, and then see the unburnt powder ignite in the open air into a large fireball.
Around 3:50, you can see the blast from the tank knock the glasses off of one of the crew members, but the really cool stuff comes at 6:10 when they fire the tank and then track the round with the slow-motion cameras. In these shots, you can see the 75mm round spinning as it leaves the barrel. There’s even a bit of yaw as the round flies toward the tank at the end of the range.
The cameras are so sensitive that you can even see the shock and heatwaves from the initial blast and then the round’s flight.
As an added bonus, the guys got their hands on a 152mm Russian artillery piece which, according to them, is the largest privately owned piece of artillery in the world. It’s only 3mm smaller than the guns mounted on the Paladin. So it’s approximately a 6-inch shell that they fire, twice, at watermelons.
If you want to see some more Slow Mo action, they also have videos of opening a condom in a wind tunnel, hitting someone with a fish to the face, or my personal favorite, a chain explosion shot at 200,000 frames per second.