Posted on 11/18/2003 2:35:56 PM PST by fourscore
http://www.sciscoop.com/story/2003/11/3/171841/084
The M1A1 Abrams tank is widely acknowledged to be the best tank in the world. It weighs just shy of 70 tons and much of that weight is armor to protect the vehicle and its crew. There are two main threats against a tank: HEAT (High Explosive Anti-Tank) rounds and KE (Kinetic Energy) rounds. To greatly oversimplify, HEAT rounds produce a blob of super-hot molten metal that cuts through armor like a torch; KE rounds have long, slender dart-like projectiles that punch through armor like a bullet. The structural armor of the tank is designed to stop KE rounds and is based on the so-called "Chobham armor" technology developed by the British. This is basically a sandwich of steel and depleated uranium plates, ceramics, and plastic composite honeycomb. When hit by a anti-tank KE projectile, the ceramic and composite components vaporize so violently they actually push an incoming dart back out the way it came in before it is able to fully penetrate the armor plating. Attached to the outside of the M1A1 is a second type of armor called reactive armor, basically boxes of steel plated explosives that are intended to disrupt the molten plasma jets created by HEAT rounds before they can get to the vulnerable structural armor. Obviously the offense-defense aspects of protecting and penetrating tank armor have been given a great deal of thought by the U.S. military and has resulted in the M1A1 having a virtually perfect record as being unstoppable in combat. That is, until last August 28. On that date, something disabled an M1A1 tank in Baghdad, and the U.S. Army is still trying to figure out what it was.
As reported in Army Times: The incident is so sensitive that most experts in the field would talk only on the condition that they not be identified. According to an unclassified Army report, the mystery projectile punched through the vehicle's skirt and drilled a pencil-sized hole through the hull. The hole was so small that "my little finger will not go into it," the report's author noted.
The "something" continued into the crew compartment, where it passed through the gunner's seatback, grazed the kidney area of the gunner's flak jacket and finally came to rest after boring a hole 1½ to 2 inches deep in the hull on the far side of the tank.
As it passed through the interior, it hit enough critical components to knock the tank out of action. That made the tank one of only two Abrams disabled by enemy fire during the Iraq war and one of only a handful of "mobility kills" since they first rumbled onto the scene 20 years ago. The other Abrams knocked out this year in Iraq was hit by an RPG-7, a rocket-propelled grenade.
Experts believe whatever it is that knocked out the tank in August was not an RPG-7 but most likely something new -- and that worries tank drivers.
"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."
"It's a real strange impact," said a source who has worked both as a tank designer and as an anti-tank weapons engineer. "This is a new one. ... It almost definitely is a hollow-charge warhead of some sort, but probably not an RPG-7" anti-tank rocket-propelled grenade.
In the end, a civilian weapons expert said, "I hope it was a lucky shot and we are not part of someone's test program. Being a live target is no fun."
Quoting Hackworth (p.108):
(p.108)"When I examined the tanks, I found each had been killed by a missile that had burned a hole through the armor. The hole was about the size a pencil would make if you stabbed it through a sheet of paper."
(p.111)..."When I examined the tanks, I found more of the little holes. The missile had melted its way through the armor, changing the air pressure. That alone was enought to kill the crew inside. The metal from the hole is called spalling. It's melted, it's hot, but the minute it's forced into the tank it hardens again ans starts zinging around at a tremendous velocity, slicing through all those young, tender, fleshy bodies.
This was General Tus's secret weapon.
It had to be a modified French Milan missile. I had seen those same telltale holes in Iraqi tanks in the French sector during Desert Storm. But that still left the question of where General Tus was getting them.
The next day I was sitting with another Coration oficer in a cafe just behind the lines. I bought a bottle of the local rotgut and we killed it plus a couple more. When we were both hanging onto the edge of the table, I showed him my magic leter from General Tus [cooperate with him where possible etc.] and told him how much the tank killer program impressed me.
"It's the Milan," he said
The system cost $80,000; each missile cost $20,000. They were getting them from South Africa. The officer raised his glass.
"The South Africans hate the Serbs," he said. "And they love the profits."
At first description, I thought this sounded like some kind of "Star Wars" weapon. Perhaps an extremely high-speed projectile a la Arnold's movie Eraser.
If the French have an Abrams-killer, I guess that's one more thing we can be thankful to them for. (Lafayette, nous sommes arrivee! ... Lafayette! ... Lafayette?)
Uh, is there something about Hackworth's description that makes your skin crawl?
Don't ask...don't tell.
Not.
Right, almost no spalling.
Boss alien: "Damnit, what happened out there? We've lost an entire starship and the Intergalactic Council wants to tear a strip off of my vignert!"
Assistant: "Uh...well...Zontar said he knew of a shortcut, and came out of hyperspace WAY too close to the third planet of this yellow dwarf."
Boss alien: "What's the planet's name?"
Assistant: "Earth. Um...looks like what was left of Zontar and his ship went straight through one of their armored fighting vehicles, and then the singularity field collapsed."
The Croats certainly had and used the Milan, and the Afrikaners certainly had them.
There are several generational differences between early and later model Milan missiles, and a late or developmental model Milan warhead is at least a possible suspect. And the use of a Milan launcher is consistant with with some of the reports of Abrams taking hits from weapons mounted in the back of light trucks during the sandstorms during the early days of clearing the Iraqi cities.
Metalurgical evaluation of the recovered penetrator slug will tell the tale. We'll see.
-archy-/-
The Croats certainly had and used the Milan, and the Afrikaners certainly had them.
There are several generational differences between early and later model Milan missiles, and a late or developmental model Milan warhead is at least a possible suspect. And the use of a Milan launcher is consistant with with some of the reports of Abrams taking hits from weapons mounted in the back of light trucks during the sandstorms during the early days of clearing the Iraqi cities.
Metalurgical evaluation of the recovered penetrator slug will tell the tale. We'll see.
-archy-/-
Saddam's electrical supply was notoriously unreliable. Any possibility that they were working on some kind of 'rail gun'? Perfect launch vehicle for such a weapon would be an ordinary bus. Revv up the generators, get close enough, and phht ... hardly even any noise.
I think it was an RPG-7V.
What can be seen can be hit, what can be hit can be destroyed.
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