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To: spokeshave

“73 Easting: The Last Great Tank Battle of the 20th Century”
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Dang it! Something is vewy skwoooweee with the audio on my phone so I couldn’t listen to the vid you posted.

I hope the video featured the fact we could squat our Abrams just outside the range of the Iraqui T-72s and watch their rounds fall short. With a “neener-neener” reply we would return fire and blowed them up real good as the effective range of the Abrams 120mm smoothbore was about 2.25 miles IIRC. I read this range figure was a pleasant surprise discovered during the battles there. The official range figure was considerable shorter. Perhaps some disinfo? I am still in awe of how highly destructive the 120mm ordnance is.

In all, the M1A1 Abrams acquitted itself handily over there. I remember the all the bedwetters claiming the desert conditions would destroy the tracks and undercarriage and also completely overwhelm the turbine engine intake filters within 20 miles of travel. How wrong they were.

The Abrams was/is a pretty tough bird.


1,034 posted on 10/27/2019 4:33:42 AM PDT by EMI_Guy ("You have to slow down to go fast." - Kenny Roberts)
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To: EMI_Guy; spokeshave
I had the distinct honor in the late fall of 1990 of going out to forward operating base with a group of fellow Aramco employees to serve real American food to a tank group in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.

The gave us tours of their Abrams.

I'm in the green shirt on top of the tank, and in the driver's seat. Unfortunately, they didn't let me take 'er for a spin.


1,090 posted on 10/27/2019 8:25:10 AM PDT by Larry - Moe and Curly
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