Replies

Very much so. Only two people in the tank could be responsible for this mistake - the track commander and the gunner (or if cross-training, the people in those positions at the time). Those are the only two crew positions that have the responsibility of identifying and prosecuting a target. And unless the track commander had left the gunner to prosecute the engagement on his own, he would have had to authorized the gunner to engage each target.

This is basically the current way US tank crews engage targets, borrowed from elsewhere:

If the commander sees the target he would say, “Gunner, Sabot, Tank” this notifies the crew but especially the gunner, tells the loader and gunner what round to use and what the target is. The gunner would reply, “identified” if he has it in his sights, the loader would say, “up” meaning the breech is up and the round is loaded, the commander would say, “fire” and before the gunner shoots he says, “on the way”. The commander will reply, “target” for the kill or “doubtful”, or “low”, “right”, “over” etc...

It would sound like this:

TC “gunner, sabot, tank”

GNR “identified

LDR “up”

TC “fire”

GNR “on the way”

TC “target cease fire”, “driver back up”.

And no IR identifiers in use to prevent this?

I didn’t read the article yet, but maybe this was the coax and not the main gun, or the tank commander’s 7.62. Dunno.

If the crews were buttoned up inside their M1A2s, there’s little chance of a crew member being injured by a training round.

Maybe the TC was sitting up in the hatch and was hit by shrapnel or a small arms round.

I will read the article now ...

Not familiar with the Abrams fire control system but, in the M60A1, in the sequence you left out one step. After the gunner identifies the target, the TC would have to range in on the target through the range finder so the computer could apply the correct super elevation for the round to reach the target. That would mean the TC would also be verifying the gunner identified the correct target. Other than actually firing the main gun, the gunner position is the most boring position to be in, you just ride along with absolutely no view of anything other than the inside walls of the tank.

Only two people in the tank could be responsible for this mistake - the track commander and the gunner (or if cross-training, the people in those positions at the time).<><>There's no way this was cross-training. Night gunnery isn't done until after you're decently trained on the system. On top of that, if these were actual gunnery tables, any crew member replaced would mean that whole truck crew starts over at the beginning. These were very likely the normal truck crew.

The only way this would be untrained soldiers woild be if this was a simple night familiarization fire, but those are generally pretty restrictive: you line the trucks up, then shoot the hillside. It's near impossible to accidentally shoot your buddy.

Regular gunnery tables are only running one truck at a time, and safety measures are pretty tight. If they're doing any kind of section / platoon gunnery, that requires a bunch of training / stuff before shooting as a team. At that point the crew are well trained, and they should easily be able to tell the difference between a wooden target and an actual tank. Someone(s) really messed up here.