Nope. I once saw an M48A3 that had been the victim of a Viet Cong command detonated mine made from a USAF 750-pound bomb that hadn't gone off. The fella who tripped the thing waited just a fraction of a second too long to touch it off, and it went off beneath the engine compartment rather than the turret, but still got the job done. The power pack [engine/transmission assembly] was blown out of the engine compartment and was thrown alongside the vehicles rear deck; both tracks were thrown off the drive sprocket and rear support rollers and most of the rear road wheels either seperated or had their torshion bars shattered. That could have been from the initial blast or may have resulted when the 50-ton vehicle was lifted into the air, then came crashing back down.
The turret did not seperate from the chassis, but I was told that the main gun hydraulics and accumulators used for gun tube elevation were completely wrecked from the overstress and of course the sighting optics and rangefinder were ruined, with most of their glass components shattered. Perhaps most interestingly, the ammunition carried aboard, mostly *black can* and *green can* canister, but including a few High Explosive rounds and 4 rounds of High Explosive-Anti Tank ammo just on the chance of an encounter with a NVA PT76, did not detonate.
All four members of the crew survived. The driver's jaw was broken when he was thrown forward onto the *butterfly* steering wheel of the early M48s, but all four crewmen had their CVC helmets on [not always the case in 'Nam as the things were hot, uncomfortable and had no retaining headstrap; I used a headset and *porkchop* hand microphone with tank commo gear a lot myself] and aside from bruises and hearing damage, they came through it better than the guy who had killed their vehicle [written off as a complete combat loss] who was killed as a result of the explosion he had set off himself when that 10-ton, half-Volkswagen-sized power pack blown out of the rear deck landed on him. Ooops.
Kids, don't try this at home with your own tank.
-archy-/-
