I’m sure the type of tank would make a big difference. In some, you could move between the driver and the gunner position and in others you couldn’t, depending on the interior layout.
There was a story in, IIRC, Zumbro’s book Tank Sergeant where one crew member fought an M48 during a relatively big fight in Vietnam. After a rocket penetrated wounding he rest of his crew but not seriously damaging anything, he treated and evacuated them. He then rolled back in to the fight.
Pull up in position near US infantry under heavy pressure.
Climb in to turret.
Rotate turret to the front.
Unleash havoc till targets get sparse.
Rotate gun back over the back deck.
Climb in to drivers seat and drive to the sound of the guns
Repeat .
Obviously layout of an given tank stolen somewhere in the world would make a difference. Tank selection would also make subtle differences in speed when you are considering “switchology” to manage a crewed system without a crew.
Or one San Diego cop with enormous balls !
What helicopter is going to pick up a 60+ ton tank?
IIRC, when that guy stole that tank way back, NOTHING the police had could stop it. The only reason they did was because he bottomed out on a Jersey barrier.
Infantry are dangerous to tanks because they can hide in rubble or on the roof of buildings where the guns can’t traverse and shoot RPGs into it or throw a satchel charge into the tracks while it’s trying to navigate down an alley.
The police don’t have any of that stuff.
I’d say your best bet of stopping it is to ram it with a heavy vehicle like a snowplow or front end loader and try to damage the tracks for a mobility kill.
What kind of punishment can the top of the turret take? Would the explosive charges used by SWAT to open doors/walls work?
How would an M1 or M60 do if very heavy trucks like garbage trucks or cement mixers were in its path.
For instance, if the tank went down a street with large buildings on either side, could the City effectively block the tank at the next cross-street with heavy trucks across the road?
I don’t think the buildings would stop a tank, unless it fell into a basement.
But any time you try a stunt like ramming through a building you risk getting yourself mobility killed. Drive over a downed concrete slab the wrong way and you get high centered, and then you’re dead. A real crew with support can just pop out and do some digging, or get another tank to give them a push. If you are a lone maniac and you can’t move then your adventure is over, even if the hatch is locked then can just spray you with gasoline and light you on fire.
Why didn’t they try molotov cocktails against the tank? He can’t operate the weapons, so you can just drive up on a police car, hit him with a dozen, and drive off before he can crush you. And then he either cooks or suffocates inside.
Also, in the James Garner Tank movie he grabbed a vintage Sherman that was used for parades. How he got ammo for the main gun is another question.
That’s exactly what stopped killdozer:
I was assuming that the tank couldn’t go through the large buildings. My question is really whether large trucks at end of the block could pen the tank in between the buildings.
In New York City, when they want to provide security to an area, they will sometimes position two large sanitation trucks across the end of a block to stop someone driving onto the protected block with something like a truck bomb. My question is that would large garbage trucks or other heavy equipment confine a tank into a block (or prevent the tank from entering the block). Would it stop the tank, crush the trucks, or would something else happen?
I don’t know why the Ewoks get such a bad rap, they rigged up armor-crushers like this and that’s some serious jungle warfare shit.
None. Not even close 
It’s relatively lightly armored in armored vehicle terms.Think of a solid steel plate around half the thickness of the typical door though. Specifically designed breaching charges try to be powerful enough but not kill people inside. I’d guess the difference in toughness is enough to make an off the shelf system at best very marginal. Maybe there’s a spall threat.
It’s an interesting thought experiment. A heavy but still relatively lighter vehicle as an obstacle is a possibility. They have a lot less rubber in contact with the ground though than the tank. Do the tires start sliding before the track starts spinning or max power is reached. There’s also the issue of low speed “bumps.” Is that enough to break the obstacle down or push it in small increments? Blocking it in front and rear does allow a trained driver to wreak quite a bit of havoc if they just “bump” stuff without going too fast or driving all the way in to risk a basement. Assume you just inflicted serious damage on that block unless the driver is stupid or unlucky.
Msmith’s idea of ramming the tracks with something like a plow/front loader in to the tracks is probably a less costly and more effective technique. Giant brass ones and the rampaging driver staying where the ram can go and keep up are necessities though.
To really give people a sense of a tank:
- Tank running over a tree IMO he’s overly cautious the first time and overly aggressive the second (which is why it falls on the turret). Really consider what it did from being halted at a short distance though.
- Leo2 with the heaviest sled at a tractor pull It doesn’t even struggle. That might speak to the truck obstacle issue.
- Abrams launched by a very large IED (long distance, no blood or injuries, but it’s real violence it’s so spoilered) I’ve taken a similar ride (minus the IED as a launching force and landing at a cant). I did it intentionally just to see if I could get the tank airborne and rolled away giggling with zero track damage. Landing at a cant makes me wince for the left side torsion bars. Baby needs some quality crew love time after that.
Rotorcraft: MIL Mi-26
Type of record: Greatest mass carried to height of 2 000 m
Performance: 56 768.8 kg
While still a little short, I’d looked up the Mi-26 to decide if close was possible and that number was way higher than what I remembered. 
I had to relook to make srue they didn’t make some super variant. From here: about the record setting flight:
My emphasis and underline added. From wiki the bird itself weighs 28,200kg empty so around 28.5 metric tons in lift on the record setting flight. Confusion averted.
Could you average person, once they gained access to the tank, figure out how to start the thing and fire it?
Start and drive - a good chance.
Put the turret into operation - pretty unlikely.
Not feed part or all of themselves to the turret monster in the process - even more unlikely.
Manage the fire control system to effectively and accurately engage targets- I don’t F-ing think so.
That’s if they manage to find a tank with ammo and machineguns onboard.
I don’t think so. The tank in the OP has two engines. One is called little Joe. You start it, then you can start the main engine.
That was early variants of the M48 series. The tank in the OP was an M60A3.
Since it’s out of the inventory, shouldn’t just be sitting around functional, and could be figured out easily I’ll cover the main bits of the startup procedure:
- Flip the labeled switch for the fuel pumps to on.
- Press the big button labeled either “Start” or “Engine Start.”
Flip and press. That’s basically it when things were working right if you aren’t considering safety or dealing with adverse conditions. Things changed after that incident for the tank at our home station. Bits got disconnected.