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

Army times! ^ | Dark

[Dark]

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

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Friendly fire?

That's what I was thinking. The description of the damage seems to indicate a highly advanced weapon that is extremely unlikely to have been fired by an Iraqi.

[archy]

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

See the following. So does a 25mm from a Bradley....

But a PG-7 HEAT round wouldn't likely leave a *yellow metal projectile* stuck in the tank's armor. Unless somebody has a new material for making the cone liner in a HEAT warhead...?

-archy-/-

[archy]

Friendly fire?

That's what I was thinking. The description of the damage seems to indicate a highly advanced weapon that is extremely unlikely to have been fired by an Iraqi.

I've been thinking a 30mm APFSDS round from the L21 30mm semi-auto cannon of a British Scimitar or Warrior AFV. Though I'm not certain as to whether they were still in-country on 28 August.

-archy-/-

[archy]

computational fluid dynamics - hydrocodes

I know it's one field they got into heavily when considering the heat output of the Abrams turbine and air cleaner system [source of multiple vehicle fires that have killed a couple of dozen crewmen over the years] particularly in relation to hiding from thermal viewers and other camouflage considerations. One contractor [to the tune of 3/4 million$$$] was ThermoAnalytics, details *here*.

And I note that reference in the story to the vehicle's fixed fire extinguishers going off....

-archy-/-

[SLB]

'Nuff said on this incident. Let's change the subject to something that leads to less of a chance of soldiers being killed or injured. Someday you can drop in and visit and we can discuss in detail, but not in this forum.

[patton]

good idea.

[Valin]

Flag

[Physicist]

Self-ping.

[redhead]

"In the sort of excited language seldom included in official Army documents, he said, “The unit is very anxious to have this ‘SOMETHING’ identified. It seems clear that a penetrator of a yellow molten metal is what caused the damage, but what weapon fires such a round and precisely what sort of round is it? The bad guys are using something unknown and the guys facing it want very much to know what it is and how they can defend themselves.” "

A meteorite?

[redhead]

"A meteorite?"

Never mind. I see what it probably was. I'm just amazed that something with the diameter of a pencil can cause that kind of damage. How big are the sabot rounds?

[ErnBatavia]

welcome to FreeRepublic, #124339.

Where are you now finding the registration number? I can't do dat, ever since the last revision.

[leadpenny]

Click on your own screen name and then click on Find in Forum. Your registration number will be in the address box. Don't mean nothin' 'cept braggin' rights.

[leadpenny]

I meant to say click on "In Forum"

[theFIRMbss]

>The description of the damage seems to indicate a highly advanced weapon that is extremely unlikely to have been fired by an Iraqi.

Well, let's remember,
France and Germany are not
our friends in Iraq.

Their black-ops people
might be letting Iraqis
field test some tough stuff

to see how it fares
in real-world situations
against the world's best...

[TheOutlands]

Could be a liquid-tungsten-core round? I heard a rumor that such was being developed to replace the DU as a more "environmentally-friendly" ammo.

Otherwise, it looks like a real good/lucky shot w/ a standard DU round - going in *under/below* the DU/Chobham snadwich.

[Admin Moderator]

You're photo in post 4 was changed to porn. That site may have an auto program to switch linked photos. I've permanently removed the picture.

[CPT Clay]

What the _ _ _ _!?!?

[TaMoDee]

There is that olde saying: "You build it, I'll build something to kill it!"

A "something" has been built to kill it.

That "something" probably has been around for quite sometime
but was just tried out real time in Iraq against potential
targets.

[blanknoone]

self ping keeper

[NonValueAdded]

Those are amazing photographs and the description of what happened is very detailed.

Question ... what is now the easiest job to perform in the world?

Answer ... spy, because the Americans just can't wait to show off their shiny new toys and their "pull" to get and release insider information.

Can someone please explain to me why this isn't classified stuff? And don't say because the shooter already knew what the weapon would do ... why did we need to confirm their test for them?