"Something" felled an M1A1 Abrams tank in Iraq - but what?

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[Dark]

Army Times is a Gannett Publications and must be posted as a title and link only.

[Prodigal Son]

An M1A1 Abrams tank with the 1st Armored Division was hit by enemy fire in Baghdad at 5:20 a.m. on Aug. 28. The paper in the photo covers the hole.

The hole in the M1A1 Abrams tank is marked by a circle in the above photo, showing the damage behind the skirt.

A close-up of the mysterious round’s point of entry.

The round penetrated the turret well to reach the inside of the tank.

The round passed through a nuclear, biological, chemical hose inside the tank behind the gunner’s seat and bent the basket

The projectile then tore a hole in the gunner’s seat.

The round pierced the left kidney area of the gunner’s flak jacket. According to the damage report, “The gunner said it felt like someone hit him in the back with a hammer.”

The round then crossed “under the breech and hit the safety guard,” the report said. The photo shows the entry side of the safety guard.

The round then exited the safety guard.

Next, the projectile slammed into the turret networks box.

The round then pierced the breaker panel on the tank.

The mysterious projectile finally buried itself in the hull of the M1A1 Abrams tank on the opposite side from where it entered. The hole is 1½ to 2 inches deep.

[tet68]

“I hope it was a lucky shot and we are not part of someone’s test program.

In a war zone, you're always part of someones test program.

[Prodigal Son]

There's photos of the impact area and hole in post number 22.

[archy]

That looks like a Nam pic. Is that you in it? I'm ready for a "War Story."

It's 'Nam, but that's not me, it's a TC named Wayne Gundersen. The pic's one of the 1/69th Armor's tanks in Spring or early Summer of 1968, shortly after Sp4 Dwight Johnson earned himself a Medal of Honor near there just after Tet '68. I had the reasonably good fortune to work later that year with 1/69th's HHC company tank section around the old SF A-23 team camp at Dak To, later to be hit hard by the NVA at the Dak Pek camp in 1970. Bravo company 1/69th got in a tank-versus-tank fight [PT-76 amphibians] at Ben Het on the Laotian Border, not too far from where that pic was shot, between Dak To and Laos.

Remember, you have to start it off with, "This is no s***, there I was!"

Or with *Once upon a time....*

The guy with the best related story of that sort would have been from a bout a year later, Jan '69, when two C-company 1/69 tanks were ambushed on the morning of January 16, 1969 while returning from bridge guard duty on bridge 27, on Highway 19. Charlie 14 and Charlie 15 were ambushed by the NVA/VC midway between Bridge 25 and Pump Station number 7, and SFC Allan Scavella, was killed when a B40 rocket in the back. The anti-tank rocket had been intended to strike the tank, which would have quite probably killed the entire four man crew and destroyed the vehicle, but it missed and hit Scavella instead. His loader, was wounded but his wounds were not considered life threatening. If SFC Scavella gets to tell his war story anywhere, it's in some corner of Valhella where old Viking and Roman warriors get a look at him and ask *Holy $h#t! What happened to you? and he gets to explain to them what an RPG is....

BTW, I wore the Armor Brass but drove Hueys. And, I suck at your "Helicopter Pilot's Test."

Give the *throttle* little short *bursts* of altitude with the mouse, taptaptap, ant try to split the difference between the *rocks* and ground/roof. Ican generally get around 2500-3000.

You must have done real swell with the Mattel Messerschmit.... No KA-52 for you! I far prefer my airplanes not to have hinges on their wings, but I spent a little time with Bell 205s after Vietnam, though I rode in C and D-models quite a few times. It was the guys who flew $hi!hooks and Skycranes who impressed me, as well as LOH and snake drivers. Crazy people.

I should have a good *Farmer's War Story* link up later today....

-archy-/-

[archy]

Is it not true that these shaped charged weapons drilled tiny holes through the armour - but didn't actually use a projectile to do this? In spite of the fact that the hole was tiny, the shaped charge caused devastation inside the hull when the shaped charge penetrated.

Doesn't this sound a little different - a projectile actually penetrating?

Yep, sounds more like a kinetic energy penetrator of some sort, mayby saboted, maybe a hypervelocity rocket long-rod penetrator.

I'll see if I can dig up some photos of hits from 30mm DU rounds from the A10 warthog's GAU-8. But I'm guessing a sabot round of some sort....

If it's a 23mm round, we've got some serious problems....

[archy]

Spall impacts around the hole made by the projectile. That thing hit the tank's armor hard enough to chip off splinters from the location where it penetrated [think a bb hitting a hard glass window] and drive it into the adjoining armor hard enough to make those surrounding craters. We're probably looking at 5000+ FPS...

M919 25mm APFSDS for Bradley AFV

[Prodigal Son]

I spent a little time in the 1/69 in the first few months of my Army career. They were stationed in Kitzingen, Germany then.

[archy]

I hope it was a lucky shot and we are not part of someone’s test program

Friendly fire?

Or a captured/sold *friendly* coalition weapon. I'm thinking about the Sabot round for the L21 30mm Rarden semi-auto cannon of the British Fox Armoured Car, Scimitar recon track and Warrior APC.

[patton]

Had to be Sabot. No way a HEAT did that.

And if an MI ain't good enough, time to dismount - we will never field anything heavier.

[archy]

I spent a little time in the 1/69 in the first few months of my Army career. They were stationed in Kitzingen, Germany then.

The 2/70th Armor, the outfit mentioned in the article as now being part of the First Armored, was then one of the tank support battalions for the 24th Infantry, stationed in Bavaria in the mid-1960s on. The 2/70th, which had the M60 then [with three M60A1s at HHC] while the tank division battalions had the M60A1, was at Sheridan Kaserne in Augsberg, one of my daily stops as a classified documents courier *delivering the mail* to S2 offices around Augsberg/Munich/Bad Tolz/Pullach.

I pulled a couple of border tours with 2/70's scouts, mortar and ground surveillance sections as their German-speaking liason to the West German Bundesgrenzschutz at Rotz and Weiden, generally a better crew to work with than the 14th Armored Cav's scouts. At the time, the unofficial Overseas Weekly newspaper rated U.S. units in Germany, and the 14th was considered the worst possible unit to be in.

In 1966, the 2/70 went to Graf for the Table 8 gunnery exercises, and took the top dog position as high tank battalion in USAREUR. There was weeping anfd gnashing of teeth among the armiored divisions' battalions after that, and many weekend and after duty hours gunnery classes for the tank division treadheads after that little episode.

Those guys in 70th Armored were good, real good, and they knew it. Looks like they still are, too, and finally found themselves honest work in an armored division.

[eureka!]

Bump, sadly...

[archy]

Had to be Sabot. No way a HEAT did that.

Not necessarily sabot, though most likely a hypervelocity kinetic energy AP penetrator of some sort rather than a HEAT warhead. But it's possible that some sort of self-forging penetrator that achieves its velocity and shape from an in-flight explosion to achieve high velocities is at work. How long you figure it took the lads to get the battalion CBR NCO/officer to go over that thing with a Geiger counter to make sure it wasn't a depleted uranium slug- in which case, we'd have never read this story?

And if an MI ain't good enough, time to dismount - we will never field anything heavier.

But we may see a change from passive armoring systems to reactive measures that intercept oncoming projectiles. I wonder how the Russian Arena protective system for armored vehicles works against projectiles impacting at ± 10,000 feet per second....

-archy-/-

[patton]

You work with CFD's at all?

[Prodigal Son]

Speaking of the 2/70, after 1/69 I was in 2/70's sister unit- 4/70 "Black Lions". The 2/70 was just across post on Harvey Barracks in Erlangen, Germany. Also spent some time in 2/6 Infantry, 1/30 Inf, 2/15 Inf and finished up in 1/26 Blue Spaders. Both of those last two in Schweinfurt.

2/6 had the worst reputation of any unit I had ever been in. I came to work one morning and saw nothing but blue lights. The Polizei and MPs did a joint bust at HHC. Had at least 50 soldiers lined up against the wall outside in cuffs. Had to get two five tons to haul all of 'em to the police station.

[archy]

You work with CFD's at all?

You thinking of something like a Sidewinder heat-seaker homing on the Abrams turbine power pack?

-archy-/-

[SLB]

An RPG-7G has more than enough capability to do this.

[patton]

computational fluid dynamics - hydrocodes

[archy]

Supertanks take a big hit
By DEREK ROSE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Thursday, March 27th, 2003

Two of the vaunted M1A1 Abrams battle tanks have been destroyed in battle for the first time ever - by Iraqis in a truck, the Pentagon said yesterday. The tanks apparently were taken out Monday by truck-mounted missiles fired into their rear.

One of the tank drivers was trapped inside the burning vehicle for several minutes while .50-caliber machine gun rounds exploded before he was able to crawl free, according to embedded media reports.

None of the four-member crew was injured.

The same Iraqi gunner apparently destroyed both tanks as well as a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, according to the report.

Colossus in '91

Shielded by steel-plated depleted uranium, the 70-ton Abrams tank appeared invulnerable in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Of the 1,848 Abrams tanks deployed, only 18 were disabled, mostly by enemy mines and friendly fire.

In one memorable duel, three Iraqi T-72 tanks charged an Abrams stuck in the mud, scoring three direct hits, but doing no damage. The Abrams dispatched the Iraqi tanks one by one.

Peter Keating, a spokesman for Abrams manufacturer General Dynamics Land Systems, said that while it's the first time enemy fire has destroyed an Abrams, a more important streak remains unbroken.

"They've never lost a crewman," he said. "The tanks were shot in the back end - that's the least protected place. But it's all fire-walled off from the crew. It did its job."

But later yesterday, even that record seemed in danger, with an embedded journalist reporting that a loader on a tank was killed Monday. The Pentagon did not confirm that yesterday.

It was unclear what weapon was used to destroy the two tanks. It may have been a wire-guided missile, or perhaps a laser-guided Kornet, sold by a Russian firm in violation of sanctions. The Army captured several of the missiles for analysis.

"We could lose a lot of tanks," said military analyst Jim Dunnigan, editor of Strategypage.com. "It could probably kill a guy in a Bradley."

No U.S. casualties

While the destruction of the tanks by a makeshift war wagon surprised the experts, they said it will not change the course of the war. Dunnigan noted that the battle in the sandstorm was still won without U.S. casualties.

In fact, the reports from the embedded journalist described a running battle over several hours in which the tank column repeatedly was attacked but suffered little damage while delivering lethal fire on the Iraqis.

One Army captain compared the Iraqi tactics with those used in Somalia. "They basically take a civilian vehicle and put a machine gun on the roof," Capt. Kurt Gordon told The Times of London. "We call 'em 'technicals.'"

While the uranium plating is formidable, analysts said it cannot be all over the tank because of its weight and bulk. The Abrams is so heavy that one collapsed a bridge in the town of Al Faysaliyph on Monday, sending the tank down an 8-foot gulch.

It was later retrieved.

With Larry Cohler-Esses

###

[patton]

Well, I can't see the "circle" in the pic - but if it penetrated the skirt, flew over the track, and then hit the hull - no, it doesn't.