 G.I. Joe was the fully poseable modern army figure. It said so right on the packaging. What do armies have a lot of? Tanks. You're welcome. G.I. Joe would have plenty of tanks, right? Well, not as many as you would expect. Sure, they gave us lots of vehicles that were almost like tanks, but not quite. But G.I. Joe's true tanks were few and far between. This week we are going back to the beginning, 1982, to remind ourselves that this is the heart of G.I. Joe. Everybody hooded CW788 here. This is the show where we review every vintage G.I. Joe toy from 1982 to 1994. And this week we are looking at an original, an innovator, a classic. We're going to look at G.I. Joe's first tank, the MOBAT. This is also a redo. I reviewed the MOBAT a long time ago, and I think I can do a better job of it now, so I'm taking another crack at it. Reviews of 1982 toys are never very popular. That first year of G.I. Joe may seem kind of dull compared to later years. There was a lot of green. There was a lot of green. But it made Hasbro a lot of green, if you know what I mean. It's important to always remember our roots. By knowing where we came from, we can better understand where we are and where we're going. For me, looking at 1982 is getting back to G.I. Joe's roots. It's a search for the heart of G.I. Joe. I have a lot more information in this review than I did in the first one. I can show you a lot more than the MOBAT. I can show you a mini MOBAT and a micro MOBAT and a model MOBAT. That's a lot of M's. HCC788 presents, again, the MOBAT tank. This is the 1982 and 1983 G.I. Joe Tank Commander, codenamed Steeler, and the MOBAT tank. This figure and vehicle set were available first in 1982. They were re-released in 1983 with some slight modifications. They were also available in 1984 and were discontinued for 1985. The MOBAT is motorized and battery-powered and will really move on real rubber tank treads. In 1982, the MOBAT included the straight-arm Steeler Version 1. I will explain what straight-arm means in the articulation section of this video. In 1983 and 1984, the tank included Steeler Version 1.5, the so-called swivel arm figure, which had updated articulation. Steeler Version 1.5 was available as a mail-away offer from Hasbro Direct from 1986 to 1990 without the MOBAT tank. Surplus figures were sold at the 1994 G.I. Joe Convention. The Jocon Steeler had a special convention file card and a convention command ring. Steeler was available in one form or another through nearly the entire vintage era. Despite this, there were no other versions of Steeler in the vintage G.I. Joe toy line. There were a few post-vintage versions. We're going to take a close look at Steeler later in this video, but I'm going to set him aside for now, so we can take a closer look at the MOBAT. 1982 was the first year of the new G.I. Joe, so the MOBAT was G.I. Joe's first tank. In the later years, they had a habit of giving us vehicles that were sort of like tanks, but not really tanks, such as the 1986 Havoc. They did give us a few proper tanks, though. Precious few. In 1983, there was an approximation of a tank, the 1983 Wolverine with Driver Cover Girl. As much as I liked this vehicle, it's not exactly a tank. It's more of an armored missile platform. The replacement for the MOBAT in 1985 was the G.I. Joe Mahler and Driver Heavy Metal. Like the MOBAT, the Mahler was motorized and battery powered. It's also larger and has more features. It is in many ways an upgrade from the MOBAT. Also in 1985, G.I. Joe introduced a mini tank, the Armadillo. It was not motorized and had fewer features, but it was also more affordable and it gave kids a chance to have a G.I. Joe tank at a lower price point. The MOBAT is an acronym for Motorized Battle Tank. The name is intended to showcase the motorized feature of the toy. Of course, any real tank would be motorized, so it would be unnecessary to point that out. On the blueprints, it's referred to as Super Duty Battle Tank in parentheses MOBAT. And in the first issue of the G.I. Joe comic book published by Marvel Comics on the back cover, it's referred to as Multi-Ordinance Battle Tank codename MOBAT. The MOBAT was designed by Wayne Luther for Hasbro, the same person who designed the Sky Striker. As for a real world inspiration for this tank, there isn't a single exact match. The main body is similar to the M60 Patton tank. The turret may be based on the prototype MBT-70. Mark Balomo's Ultimate Guide to G.I. Joe says it's based on the M60 and M48 Patton, and that may be true, but that turret looks a lot like the MBT-70. The designers at Hasbro liked to base G.I. Joe vehicles on real experimental vehicles. The vamp had a similar kind of inspiration, so I wouldn't be surprised if the designers borrowed a turret from the prototype MBT-70. The mold for the MOBAT was used one other time in the U.S. during the Vintage Era. It was used for the Sears Exclusive CAT, the Crimson Attack Tank. It was a Cobra vehicle instead of G.I. Joe. Outside the U.S., it was used for an all-black Canadian Exclusive Cobra tank. There was a version of the MOBAT released for Action Force in the U.K., the Z-Force Battle Tank. It was in a lighter shade of green, and it included the Z-Force version of Steeler. The MOBAT was made into a miniature diecast vehicle produced by Aviva in 1983. The color is not quite right, but it does capture a lot of the details of the toy pretty well. The diecast MOBAT may seem small, but there was one made even smaller. In 1991, there was a Micro MOBAT that was part of the G.I. Joe Micro Vehicles Collection. The MOBAT was produced as a model kit by Revell. Revell did three model kits of early G.I. Joe vehicles, the MOBAT, the VAMP, and the RAM motorcycle. They were very similar in appearance to the toys, but they were in a slightly smaller scale. These were produced in 1982, according to the copyright stamp. This Revell model kit is pretty awesome. I just got it shortly before filming this review. The pieces are all here, and it's unassembled. I'm considering doing an on-camera build of this. I have the instruction sheet and the blueprints for the MOBAT, and I will be referring to this when I talk about some of the features on the toy. These blueprints are kind of unique in that it also includes features of the figure's visor, and it's very unusual to have the figure's accessory on the blueprints. In the Marvel mini-series G.I. Joe Order of Battle issue number four, there is a page for the MOBAT in which some of the features are described. But the information in here is different from what's on the blueprints. For example, under Armament, it says it has a 90mm anti-tank cannon with 105 rounds. Whereas on the blueprints, it says it has a 130mm cannon slash sensor web. Where there is a difference between Order of Battle and the blueprints, I will refer to the blueprints to describe the toy. Let's take a look at the parts and the features of the MOBAT. The MOBAT's main body is in green. It looks like kind of a medium green to me. It's not exactly an olive drab green. It looks a little darker than that to my eye. It's hyper detailed and looks really great, but it can only fit one action figure. It has no foot pegs. It has no space for a driver. It only has space for one gunner, or in this case, the tank commander. And he has to stand up with half of his body outside of the tank. If he moves the turret to the side, we can see a couple small hatches and what the blueprints call a viewport right here. Now, these hatches are far too small to accommodate an action figure. And even if they were large enough, the battery compartment for the vehicle is directly under these hatches. So there's no space there for an action figure anyway. This is where the driver should sit, but you can't fit a figure in there. So you just have to have Steeler drive the tank from the top turret. On the front starboard side, these blocks here are what the blueprints call track repair kit and spare tracks. And they are molded to look like the treads on the tank. So if the treads were damaged in battle, you could use these and pretend to repair it. There's a massive amount of detail on the body of the tank, including this tow cable, which is molded in and non-removable. And I'm really glad it is because on later vehicles, such as the Wolverine, the tow cable was removable. And this became a frequently lost or broken part. There's a tray with some molded in tools, including what looks like an entrenching tool. And there's another toolkit on the other side with what looks like wire cutters and a wrench. These minute details really add to the character of the toy. There's an armored skirt on each side that helps protect the tank tread as well as anyone inside the tank. And I think that looks great. It really beefs up the look of the vehicle. Behind the turret, there are some vents and an engine turbine. All exceptional details, which I love. At the very back, there is a grill and a universal tow hitch. This can be used to tow one of GI Joe's weapon systems. And in 1982, the obvious choice would have been the HAL Heavy Artillery Laser with operator Grand Slam. You can just connect it to that universal tow hitch. I think the HAL looks great with the MOBAT. It has a subtly contrasting green color and it can add some firepower as well. The main turret, the cannon, the top turret and the machine gun are all in that same green color. And this is where a little color variation may have helped. I like the color, but changing the color up a little bit may have helped bring out some of those amazing details. The main turret will rotate 360 degrees. The cannon will scrape the body of the tank, but it will turn. The cannon can elevate a little bit, but not very much. And the barrel of the cannon can collapse for more convenient storage. This main cannon, the blueprints describe as a 130mm cannon. And attached to it is this box with a black sticker in the front. And the blueprints describe this as a tungsten spotlight slash laser guidance. On the aft starboard side of the turret, there is what the blueprints describe as the main hatch. It is obviously non-functioning. You can't open that. It's only molded in. And even if you could, it's too small to fit an action figure in there anyway. At the very tippy top, there is what the blueprints describe as the command turret with drive controls. And it has a cup in which the action figure stands. You just place an action figure in like so. And at the bottom, there is a divider between the figure's feet. It has a couple of control knobs. And these knobs are short and small. And you can't really place them in the action figure's hands. You can place the hands on the control knobs, but they're not really designed to go in the hand. At the front of the command turret is a .50 caliber machine gun. And the tip of this gun is removable. And this is a frequently missing and easily lost part. This machine gun tip has a slot. And there's a variation of this in which the slot continues all the way down to the base. This one has a slot that stops about halfway. This slot lines up with a notch on the machine gun post. You just line that up and press it on. And that's how you attach it. It doesn't snap in place though, so it's easily removable. And that's why this thing gets lost so frequently. The machine gun does not elevate at all. And there's limited rotation on that command turret. But there's a reason for that. This command turret is used as the control for the motorized mechanism. And I will demonstrate that later in this review. Let's take a look at these real treads that will really move this tank. They are black, or you might call this a very dark gray. They are rubbery. And they roll along these green bogies. And there's a variation on these treads that we need to look at. The earliest releases of the MOBAT had treads like this. They're still made out of that same black rubbery material. There's a track along the inside for the teeth on the drive bogey. But there's a risk that these treads will slip in rough terrain. Later releases, probably in 1983, changed the treads and put notches on the treads all the way down. And those notches run through these teeth on the front and the back bogey. And this would prevent those treads from slipping. Because these treads now feed through these teeth, both the back and the front bogeys have been updated as well. To accommodate that feature. These updated treads are no doubt more functional. But I prefer the look of the older treads. It's just a cleaner look. Plus the extra treads on the body of the tank more closely match these older treads than the newer ones. On the underside of the tank, there's no real detail at all. Located at the front is the battery cover to remove it. There's a tab at the front. You just press down and forward at the same time. And it will slide forward and off. There are some variations on this battery cover as well. So you may run into that. And the battery cover has a connector attached to it. So the tank will not operate without the battery cover. Behind that cover there is space for two D size batteries. These are really large batteries. But they can pop in like so. And then to replace the battery cover, you just have to make sure you line up these slots with those notches and line them up and then press back and down until it clicks into place. Those batteries add a lot to the weight of this tank. It is a lot heavier. The MOBAT is pretty to look at. But it's time for us to take this outside and see if it can move. Let's demonstrate how the motorized feature works. I have two D batteries in the battery compartment. And this is a good opportunity to remind everyone to not store the vehicle with the batteries in. The batteries could corrode the connectors and then your tank won't work anymore. So make sure you take the batteries out when not in use. To control the motor, you just use the top turret. By pushing the turret forward, you will cause the tank to roll forward. So just push it forward and there it goes. You can also control the direction. You can cause the tank to turn right by turning the turret to the right or to the left by turning the turret to the left. And my tank has a harder time turning left. Oh, hold on. There it goes. To stop it, just put the turret back in the center position and that will stop the tank. The MOBAT will also move in reverse. Just push the turret back and that will cause it to move backwards. And it has directional control so you can move it. You can turn it as well in reverse. Let's look at the MOBAT's ability to climb over obstacles because it is advertised as having super climbing action. Here's where we run into a slight design flaw because of the battery cover in the front. It doesn't have a lot of clearance for the tracks in the front. So if you roll it toward an object it will get stopped. Unfortunately it can't really climb very well going forward. It does still have super climbing action though because it has more clearance for those treads in the back. So if you roll the MOBAT toward an obstacle in reverse like so it will climb over it pretty well. It actually climbs quite well in reverse. It may seem amazing that G.I. Joe got a motorized tank in the first wave of the 1982 relaunch but the MOBAT was relatively featureless compared to toy tanks of earlier decades. For example, the Tiger Joe tank. That thing had all the features of the MOBAT and then some. It had a wired remote control. It had an automatic rotating machine gun. It had real firing shells. It was big enough to roll over your mom's car. The MOBAT seems basic by comparison. I'm sure cost was a factor G.I. Joe vehicles needed to be affordable to the average family. Even so I can't help but imagine what the MOBAT would have been like with more of Tiger Joe's features. Now let's look at Steeler. His name is likely inspired by the football team the Pittsburgh Steelers. Steeler's birthplace is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So it would make sense for him to be named after his hometown team. Version 1 was released in 1982 and was a straight arm figure. Meaning it had arm articulation only at the shoulder and elbow. Version 1.5 was released in 1983 and had swivel arm battle grip. There was a new point of articulation, a swivel at the bicep. He also had a new slimmer waist piece. I must point out this figure is very fragile. It's made of light green plastic and the light green plastic that was used in 1982. Is notoriously brittle. Steeler doesn't have quite the bad reputation as Zap. But I have seen arms snap off just from moving it. Don't move this figure around any more than necessary. I will not place the figure on a stand or move the joints to show articulation. The hands on the 1983 figure are not quite as bad as the 82 figure. So I don't mind putting a weapon in his hands carefully. But on that 82 figure I would not do that. As you can see there's already a thumb snapped off on this one. Let's take a look at Steeler's accessories. And let's start with his helmet because his helmet has a pretty amazing attachment. I'm going to remove the helmet carefully without putting any extra pressure on the plastic of the figure. And the helmet has this large black visor. I'm going to remove that because I'm going to look at that in a moment. I want to look at the helmet for now. The helmet is light green. It's the same helmet that came with Zap from the same year. And it was reissued a few other times later. The helmet is very plain and standard. It has holes in the side. And that is for attachments like the visor that was included with Steeler. There are pegs on the visor that fit in the holes on the side of the helmet. And there you go. Now there's a visor attached and that's a very hefty visor. It's really big. It's almost the size of the helmet itself. The visor is dark gray, almost black. It is very well detailed. And when attached to the helmet, it can be down over Steeler's eyes or it can be flipped up. There's information about the helmet on the blueprints for the MOBAT. This is a headset, helmet slash binoculars slash camera. It has an infrared lens, zoom control knob, shutter release button and motor drive. His final accessory is his Uzi submachine gun. It is in dark gray, almost black plastic and it is very well detailed. This is, in my opinion, the best Uzi in the vintage era. It looks very realistic, almost exactly true to the real weapon. This is the same Uzi that was issued with Snake Eyes from the same year. They just reissued it. They didn't change it. But there is a variation. Some of those Uzi's had sights that were narrow and others had sights that were wider. Let's take a look at the articulation on Steeler. And I'm not going to move these figures around to show the articulation. There's a good chance I would break them. So instead I am going to use short fuse from 1982 and 1983. These figures had the same articulation but more sturdy plastic. So it's safer to show the articulation using these. Both figures could turn their head left and right. They could not look up and down. No ball-jointed neck. They could swing their arms up to the shoulder and swivel at the shoulder all the way around. They had a hinge at the elbow that allowed them to bend their arm at the elbow about 90 degrees. And on the 1982 figures, that's all the articulation they had at the arms. Starting with the 1983 release, there was a new point of articulation, a swivel at the bicep that allowed him to swivel his arm all the way around. These were O-ring figures, meaning the figure was held together with a rubber O-ring that looped around the inside. That allowed him to move at the torso a bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He could move his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's look at the sculpt design and color of Steeler. Many of Steeler's parts were reused from other 1982 figures. There was a lot of parts swapping that year. A lot of figures share a lot of the same parts. Steeler had more unique parts than most other 1982 figures, though. His chest, back, and arms were unique. On his head, he has brown hair, not much detail on that hair. He has a plain, expressionless face. In fact, I think he looks kind of bored. Same head on the 1983 figure, but on my 83 Steeler, the brown hair is slightly darker. This head was used several times. In 1982, it was used for flash, short fuse, and hawk. And in 1987, it was used for starduster. On his chest, he has a green shirt with a collar that's partially open. You can see his gold undershirt. He has a black strap across his chest and over his left shoulder. And he has a black pistol holster on his chest with a gold pistol in it. Those black strap details do continue to the back. As noted, this back piece and the chest piece are unique. They were not reused for any other 1982 figures. It's not very realistic to have him wearing a gold undershirt. But the gold paint was supposed to make the figure look kind of special. He is the driver of the premium vehicle that year. His arms feature long green sleeves, and he has gold bars painted on his upper arms. That represents his rank. He is an officer. That gold paint is not very robust and will rub off very easily, so be cautious about that. In the 1982 figure on the forearms, there are molded on pockets, one on each side, and he is wearing black gloves. That was changed a bit for the 1983 figure. He no longer has the molded on pockets on the forearms. He has unpainted cuffs, and he still has those black gloves. These arms were reused in 1983 on Wild Bill, the pilot of the Dragonfly helicopter. But Wild Bill's arms do not have any paint on them, so those gloves, instead of being black, are just green. On the 1982 waist piece, there is a wide belt with an H on the belt buckle. And I believe this is a Hasbro brand stamp. On the 1983 figure, there's an updated waist piece that's a bit slimmer. The belt is a bit more detailed. And on the belt buckle, instead of an H, there is the shape of a house, and that looks like Hasbro's logo. His legs are light green, that same light green as the upper half of the body. He has black painted pouches on the outside upper legs, and he has black standard boots. These legs were the same from the 1982 to 1983 figure. Those were not updated. Let's take a look at Steeler's file card. This file card was printed on the back of the box for the MOBAT. There is nothing on the other side, it's just blank. It has his faction as G.I. Joe. It has a portrait of Steeler here. It says he is the tank commander codename Steeler. His file name is Ralph W. Pulaski, primary military specialty armor, secondary military specialty artillery, transportation, birthplace Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and grade is 01. 01 is a second lieutenant, which is the reason for the gold bars on the figure. In 1982, as an officer, he was the second highest ranked member of the team, right behind Hawk, the leader of G.I. Joe. Despite this, Steeler wasn't given any leadership opportunities. That may have been because of his attitude, which we will read about in a moment. This paragraph says, This brief character profile at the bottom says Young, reckless, often clashes with authority and parentheses superior officers, but he's one tough soldier. If he's clashing with superior officers, that may be why he hasn't been promoted and why he's not a leader on the team. I'd like to know more about his working class background. That wasn't addressed very much in media. That territory was covered more through his teammate Clutch. I like the story of a working class guy who worked his way through college and became an officer. I just want to hear more of that story. Looking at how Steeler and the MOBAT were used in G.I. Joe media, both Steeler and the MOBAT first appeared in the G.I. Joe, a real American hero, animated miniseries in 1983. Neither had many animated appearances, but Steeler was used more than the MOBAT. By 1983 and 1984, there were a lot of new toys to sell, so the MOBAT got pushed to the background. Steeler's look was changed for the animated series. He was given blonde hair and a light green shirt. Steeler's most prominent animated appearances were in Worlds Without and parts one and two, in which he and a handful of other Joes find themselves in an alternate universe where Cobra controls the United States. In a famous scene, Steeler has a panicked freak out when he discovers the dead body of himself from the other universe. Worlds Without End, parts one and two, are often cited as favorite episodes of the animated series, and Steeler was an important part of that. In the G.I. Joe comic book series published by Marvel Comics, the MOBAT had a more prominent role, especially in the early issues. Steeler had more appearances too, though his appearances became more sporadic as the series went on. There was even a whole issue dedicated to Steeler and the MOBAT, called Tanks for the Memories. Despite having a larger role in the comic, Steeler doesn't have a moment as memorable as Worlds Without End. Looking at the MOBAT overall, it is both brilliant and lackluster. It is substantial and vacant. It is special and ordinary. The MOBAT was the premium vehicle in 1982. It was special because it was motorized. It wasn't a cheap toy tank that you would just push around. It would really move. Creating the MOBAT required extra effort and engineering. On the other hand, without batteries, the MOBAT is a big green paperweight. It doesn't have a way to free roll without the motor engaged. You may not always want to use the motor. You may not always want to keep batteries in it. If that's the case, you'll just have to drag it along the ground. It had the extra feature, yet not enough features. No removable engine cover. No hatch. No seat. No footpegs. No space for a second figure. The details on the MOBAT are exceptional. You could stare at it for an hour, taking in all those minute details. It would have been easy to just make a plain tank with some armor plates on the outside, but they went the extra mile with the MOBAT. It has tons of technical detail and it looks great, but it is all green. It's all the same green. There's no color variation at all. There's no paint to pick out those details. From a distance, it looks like just a big block of green. Those intricate details are lost. Steeler is a nice figure. One of the better figures of 1982. He at least had a few unique parts. He had gold paint. He had the holster on his chest. The light green and black paint is a nice contrast. It's too bad Steeler didn't get more attention and didn't get a second vintage version. I like both the MOBAT and Steeler. They're from an era when GI Joe knew what it was. It was an era before ninjas and aliens and mutants. It certainly isn't all of GI Joe, but if you want to see the roots of GI Joe, if you want to see the heart of GI Joe, look at the MOBAT. That was my review of Steeler and the MOBAT. I hope you enjoyed it. I'm going to take next week off. That's right, two weeks off in September. I can do that. I'll probably still give you some kind of video because that's always what I do. I never really have a week off. I haven't had a real week off in six years. If you like GI Joe and you'd like to see more GI Joe reviews, make sure you subscribe to this channel. You can find me on social media, on Facebook and Twitter, and I have a website, HCC788.com. If you'd like to support the channel further, I have Patreon. Patreon really does help keep these videos coming. You can get some special perks there like a sketch by me, a secret code book to help you decode those messages you see in the videos sometimes. You can get your name in a video like the people you see scrolling by right now. These guys, these guys make these videos possible. On this channel, 2020 is the year of the 90s. I've been reviewing a lot of 1990s GI Joe toys. We've spent the last few weeks in the 80s. But in two weeks, we will definitely be getting back to the 90s because that will be the beginning of Ninja Month. I'll see you then. And until then, remember, only GI Joe is GI Joe.