I have to face a sad truth: YouTube is running out of tank videos for me to watch.

[Aristus]

16. Kevin Reynold's 'The Beast'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beast_(1988_film)

It's about Soviet tankers in Afghanistan. (If only we'd known it was also a cautionary tale...)

It was filmed in Israel and featured American actors as the Russian tankers, and Israeli actors as the Pashtun tribesmen who oppose them. American actor Steven Bauer plays the leader of the Afghans. Stephen Baldwin appears in an early role, long before becoming a bonkers right-wing evangelical.

It was notable at the time for offering a close-up look at the Soviet-designed T-55 tank, which was still mostly a mystery to American eyes at that time. Israel captured hundreds of undamaged T-55's from their Egyptian and Syrian opponents in the Six-Day and Yom Kippur Wars. The IDF converted these tanks for their own use in training and for when their own tank stocks grew low because of war losses. The producers of the film bought two of the T-55's (known as the Tiran-67 in Israeli service and boasting upgrades in weapons and communications gear), and used them for filming.

Because this was one of the few opportunities at the time to see Soviet-made tanks close-up, I had my drill sergeant in tanker school screen the film for we trainees.

I watch the film four or five times a year. The film includes an excellent musical score by Mark Isham.