Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: GtoRA2 on November 05, 2003, 02:37:59 PM
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Story here. (http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292236-2336437.php)
Check this page for a link with pics. (http://www.armytimes.com/channel.php?GQID=292236#7)
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is this fo'real?
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Looks like whatever it was started to disintegrate shortly after passing through the armour skirt.
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I find it hard to believe saddam had nothing more sophisticated than the rpg7.
Like the SA7's, it would be available but only in limited quantities. The best time to use any weapon like that is obviously now, not in a standing fight they knew they'd be killed before they could get a shot off.
Think about it. Iraq was facing one of the best equipped invading forces in the history of war. If they had put up everything they had when we rolled in, it wouldn't have taken much longer than it did. We are a country that has a history of going into countries, but leaving when things got tough. Why not plan to make the invasion easy, and then use your more sophisticated weapons in a terrorist fashion?
Shoot down a couple aircraft, blast a couple of tanks, hope we get antsy and leave.
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Just a guess here ... Russia and France have these type, as well as the US and UK: But I think it would have to be fired from a tank...
depleted uranium sabot (http://www.army-technology.com/contractors/ammunition/apfsds.htm)
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"Eryx can defeat all modern static or moving tanks"
This weapon system was not seen in Gulf War 1 but was used in the Iraq war.
I wonder if this could be what did it?
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/row/eryx.htm
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Udet, yeah it is for real.
Gunthr
They state in the article they think it is some kind of chemical warhead, and not a solid shot round.
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Eryx is 136mm
The hole in the tank was abot the size of a pencil
So, basically you'd need a thin sharp object at high velocity that can penetrate depleted uranium armor
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Gunthr
They state in the article they think it is some kind of chemical warhead, and not a solid shot round.
Hmm. Wierd. What do you want to bet its Russian or French made ... ?
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Anti-tank "rifles" were used in WWII... could this be some sort of new version on crack?
That slide show in the second link is nuts. The projectile ricochets off the gunner's jacket and then has enough energy to pierce a safety thing, some equipment, and THEN bury itself 2" deep? sheesh
Maybe someone is testing a rail gun :D
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Seraphim,
Modern anti-tank weapons are not simply explosives packed into a tube. They use special shaped charge warheads, which create a jet of molten metal focused on a small point on the target. This jet burns through the armor.
http://thor.prohosting.com/~normkay/noframes/no_reactive.html
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Right right........forgot about that
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Seraphim,
Lets explain couple things about how the ammunition works...
Eryx uses a shaped charge ammo, the projectile is 137mm in diameter, but it will not create a 137mm hole.
Shaped charge focuses the energy at very small area, which then penetrates the armour and leaves a very small and clean hole in the armour.
It doesn't either do such a mess inside the tank like some SABOT round can leave (unless it hits something which makes a mess..)
Pretty much same thing with the SABOT round, what comes to the caliber; its a sub-caliber ammunition.
120mm SABOT does not do a 120mm hole, but much smaller instead - the penetrating part is in the casing, which is an arrow like long & thin projectile.
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eeyyaaaa
just read about it :)
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looks like a small caliber sabot round to me.. the interior damage woudl be different with a heat round.
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From the article:
It seems clear that a penetrator of a yellow molten metal is what caused the damage...
An RPG-7 can penetrate about 12 inches of steel — a thickness far greater than the armor that was penetrated on the tank in Baghdad. But the limited spalling evident in the photos accompanying the incident report all but rules out the RPG-7 as the culprit, experts say.
Limited spalling is a telltale characteristic of Western-manufactured weapons designed to defeat armor with a cohesive jet stream of molten metal. In contrast, RPG-7s typically produce a fragmented jet spray.
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I'm not buying a heat round yet... they don't stay together after penetrating the outer hull. There was an intact core that continued through to the other side of the hull.
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Didn't they just lose an M1 the other day to a road side bomb?
...-Gixer
~Hells Angels~
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Ah, no worries found it.
M1 Abrams tank disabled by Iraq roadside explosion
http://www.globalsecurity.org
"An M1 Abrams tank was disabled in Iraq by a roadside explosion for the first time in an incident that killed two crew members and wounded a third, US military spokesmen said Wednesday.
Little information was available on the extent of damage or the type of explosive device used in the attack late Tuesday about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northeast of the town of Balad.
But it was another sign of the growing effectiveness of the attacks against even the most heavily armored US forces.
Two soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division were killed and one was wounded when their tank hit an unidentified explosive device," the US military said in a statement.
One of the dead was identified as Sergeant Michael Paul Barrera, 26, of Von Ormy, Texas. He was with the division's 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment.
Military spokesmen in Washington and Baghdad said it was the first time the army's main battle tank had been disabled by a roadside explosion since Iraqi opposition forces have begun targeting US convoys and patrols with so-called improvised explosive devices.
A US defense official, who asked not to be identified, said an improvised explosive device detonated as the tank rolled over it.
The force of the blast caused the behemoth to roll over an embankment, which is what killed and injured those inside, the official said.
The 4th Infantry Division has the latest model of the tank, the M1A2 SEP, which weighs 69.5 tonnes, is armed with a 120mm main cannon and is equipped for digitized communications.
"It is the most heavily equipped, and heavily armored main battle tank that the US has ever put out in the field, and supposedly can protect those inside fairly well," said Patrick Garrett, an analyst with GlobalSecurity.Org, a private research group.
"If it is true that a tank was damaged to this sort of extent resulting in fatalities by a simple roadside bomb, depending on whatever size it was, that does not bode well for the future of the occupation," he said.
"That really does prove there is no safe place for American soldiers," he said.
The incident also raises questions for the Stryker, the new wheeled armored vehicle that the army has made the centerpiece of its efforts to make its armored forces lighter and more rapidly deployable.
The Stryker has been scored by critics as too lightly armored to withstand rocket-propelled grenade fire. Its advocates say it makes up for it with advanced communications, greater mobility and precision firepower.
The army plans to deploy its first Stryker brigade to Iraq in the spring. "
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"The army plans to deploy its first Stryker brigade to Iraq in the spring. "
the first Stryker brigade is being deployed to Iraq now. Friend of mine is a Company XO who is heading out in a couple weeks. The Stryker is going to get quite a few killed..
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Cant really be all that mysterios. If it was a guided round the residue of warhead would be there to evaluate.
If they are not inidicating that they have that residue then it was a LAW of some sort.
Some kind of modern fused Heat warhead, could be any one of several. Might even be a Recoiless as that would leave very little behind to evaluate. Just a very good shot.
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Pongo does a shaped charge stream stay so consitent to create same size holes all the way through the vehicle with open air spaces between components it hit? I would imagine it would want to spread out after it exited the main metal armor - IIRC this is how some of composite layered armors work by letting the metal stream deform in a softer material..
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It's definately not a HEAT round. Some kind of small caliber AP round of extremely high velocity. How thick is the armor where the round first penetrated the M-1? Anyone know?
MRPLUTO
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(Rueters)
Bagdad.
35 year old Iraqi man blows nose and propels brain out!
Making contact with US Army Tank #453 Leaving a pencil sizied hole in the turret.
Officials are baffled.
Pentagon spoke sperson said they believe this to be an isolated attack and do not feel the need to step up security.
Although extra rations of Kleenex have been shipped to the regione.:D
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Some type of rail gun maybe. I think if it was somthing as big as 137mm somone would have noticed who shot it or were it came from. Just speculation....not saying the iraqis have railguns but this is interesting.
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An operational railgun would be far bigger than any man portable anti-tank missile.
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I'm telling you it's a high speed Iraqi brain bugger:eek:
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I don't know what hit the tank, but I bet it was mounted on a flying carpet.
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I think we can say it was osama and saddams love child that is also the second comming of jesus that did this. ALLAH ACKBAR
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Whatever weapon this is its extremely dense and travels at extremely high velocity in order to penetrate the skirt, side armor, a person, a few gadgets, and then get lodged on the other side of the tank.
Scary ****.
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Originally posted by Animal
Whatever weapon this is its extremely dense
That explains it !
It must be an Iraqi:aok
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not a HEAT, unless it was some new kind with some sort of new kind with a penatrator. i would guess a APDS round from a 30mm soviet BMP-2. but those were rapid fire guns and this is only one hit. though one of those could have been taken from a BMP and mounted on something. might have been good for one shot only. if it was laying next to the road and hit point blank it may have done this. notice in the pics that they dont show a close up of the hole in the skirt armor. im surprised that they still keep it a secret how the uranium is layered with the pink ceramic material. yes a RPG will penetrate 12 inches of steel, but it has to be solid steel and hit perfectly square. thats why tanks have angles and curves. the armor on a m1 is not steel or a solid consistent material but a sandwitch of materials.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/m1-tank4.htm
edit
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/row/at-16.htm
here is a missle with a penetrator
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I'm bettin it's Russian.
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Could it be a BLUE on BLUE incident?
Another M1A?
Why could it not be from a US weapon? you know fog of war.
I love reading all the conjecture here, like we are all knowing, myself included.
Rail gun, ha that is my favorite :D
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I dont know of any US weapon capable of doing that damage. But maybe it was friendly fire.
A 30mm round from a Gau88 is the only thing I can think of capable of penetrating so much, and that would have killed the gunner for sure.
I doubt a shoulder fired weapon in the US arsenal is capable of doing that much penetration on an Abraham.
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strange there'd be no better cover up if it was a blue-blue.
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What the liner of the heat war head is made out of really effects the results after penetration. They seem to be saying its some kind of yellow metal.
The penetrator did break up quite a bit on the gun shield as expected. The seat and his jacket arnt enough to break it up much. Certainly it is far more coherent then what we see from an M72 or an RPG.
Just a very well fused very lucky shot with a modern Law of some kind.
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I wonder if Saddam was researching into sharks with freakin' laser beams on their heads?
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Golden BB
Same thing that brought down a F-117a a while back. Just dumb luck
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What part of the M1 is known as the 'skirt'? The article said the RPG7 could penetrate the skirt of the M1 very easily.
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I'm skeptical that this is real. Would the Army release all this info if they were really confused about it? Seems a little fishy to me.
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It was a camel fart
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What part of the M1 is known as the 'skirt'?
"Skirt" is a thin sheet of metal or other material that covers the upper part of the tracks and wheels on the sides of the tank.
It's purpose is to detonate the munitions before they come into contact with more important parts - track, wheels or armor. Skirt is often made of rubber on some tanks.
It totally defeats the AT-HE munitions that rely on spalling(sp?) effect and reduces effectivenes of shaped charge munitions.
The damage to the tank was likely formed by a regular well-formed shaped-charge jet that kept it's coherence longer than usual.
miko
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It had to be hizooka fire that got him, or maybe a P-47 bounced his bullet stream into the tank.
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Looks like it's a HEAT high-velosity stream.
Probably something like a long-focus HEAT charge we studied in college.
This type of anti-tank weapon uses a metal stream from a cummulative charge to hit a target at a distance, not when the shell hits the armour.
US has such weapons since 80s. They even had a disposable robot with one charge focused at several dozen meters. The charge looked like a searchlight on top of a tiny tank.
Soviet army had cassete anti-tank bombs with elements dropped on parachutes, rotating, scanning the surface, and when a heat detector sences a tank engine - this thing goes boom and sends a cummulative stream for 20-30 meters. Cummulative stream moves at impressive 7-15km/s.
For example: RPG-7 HEAT charge has a deep cummulative funnel, all the explosive is around the long copper cone that forms a cummulative stream. This is a short-focus charge, where the stream is dangerous at short distance (centimeters). A long-focus cummulative charge looks like a searchlight, with a shallow spheric cumulative funnel. The cummulative stream doesn't fall apart for dozens of meters at least.
IMHO it was a modern anti-tank mine, designed to hit a tank from the side. It was indeed a "golden shot".
Sorry for silly explaination, I don't know English terms. :( I studied for four years to be a warhead designer, had to quit and didn't finish college :(
Now, back to my original repertoir ;)
It was the second Abrams knocked out of commission by the enemy in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
They lie as they breathe.
Arabian TV showed at least 3 burning M1s. Fourth one mysteriously "sank in Tigris". So three plus one makes one. I love this little military lies. "If you civilians are so clever - why don't you march in formations?" "In war time sinus can reach 3 and even four"...
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Originally posted by miko2d
The damage to the tank was likely formed by a regular well-formed shaped-charge jet that kept it's coherence longer than usual.
miko
Right words here!!!
Cummulative stream = "jet".
Some shaped charges are designed to keep jet's coherence for up to several dozen meters.
Thanks, Miko! ;)
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Boroda: Some shaped charges are designed to keep jet's coherence for up to several dozen meters.
Designed - yes. Keeping tight manufacturing tolerances is another matter altogether...
miko
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Originally posted by miko2d
Boroda: Some shaped charges are designed to keep jet's coherence for up to several dozen meters.
Designed - yes. Keeping tight manufacturing tolerances is another matter altogether...
miko
"Tolerances" = "dopusk" (äîïóñê)?
Miko, I can tell you long stories about production of shaped charges. There are hundreeds of manufacturing conditions that influence the way they work. But long-focus charges exist, and can be mass-produced. They are out of experimental stage for several decades.
Anyway, I understand that what I was shown in college sometimes was unknown in regular units. But this things are in production and availible under certain conditions.
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Boroda,
This Abrams which ended up swimming in Tigris, was parked somewhere along the river bank, when it collapsed and fell into the river, killing the driver who was alone there IIRC.
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Fourth one mysteriously "sank in Tigris". So three plus one makes one.
I know an Iraqi soldier shot the driver of an M1 and it crashed off a bridge (into a river), killing the whole crew.
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Originally posted by Fishu
Boroda,
This Abrams which ended up swimming in Tigris, was parked somewhere along the river bank, when it collapsed and fell into the river, killing the driver who was alone there IIRC.
IIRC they told they couldn't get it out of the river. So it's ok, commisioned, but just is underwater. Very American. They know how to hide losses from public.
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I am not sure it would make much difference to public opinion if we lost 2 tanks or 20.
Americans were expecting a bigger war with casualties in hundreds or even thousands. The right-wingers were praying for our troops to be massively hit with Chem/Bio weapons just to say "I told you so" to the democrats.
Hiding a loss of two tanks would seem silly. Not that they wouldn't do a silly thing.
I am much more interested in the number of soldiers wounded - it is not reported and the estimates differ drastically.
miko
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Non-amphibious tanks gone swimming:
"Cpl. Robert M. Rodriguez, 21, of Queens, N.Y., was killed in action on March 27 when the tank he was riding in fell into the Euphrates River during combat operations northwest of An Nasiriyah. His remains were recovered on March 30. He was assigned to the 1st Tank Battalion, 1st marine Division, Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, Calif."
"The Department of Defense announced today that Pfc. Jesse A. Givens, 34, of Springfield, Mo., was killed on May 1, 2003, in Al Habbaniyah, Iraq. Givens was parked in an M-1 main battle tank alongside the bank of the Euphrates River. The riverbank gave way resulting in the tank falling into the river. "
I suppose Boroda meant Euphrates instead of Tigris?
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An m1 is not invulnerable. Anyone who thinks so is misguided as is anyone who thinks it's possible to have an invulnerable tank. Disabling and burning the tank is not all that difficult. How many tank crewmen have been killed? Even the M1 tank can be 'killed'. It's the crew protection that makes it what it is. Killing the tank, and killing the crew are two very seperate things. A 'killed' tank is simply one that is no longer able to fight.
So a riverbank collapsed and a tank fell into the river, thats an accident, they happen. Not a combat loss.
One M1 "Killed" by the iraqi's was immobilized by an RPG, and abandoned. There were videos of it burning, taken long after it was abandoned.
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Originally posted by Innominate
One M1 "Killed" by the iraqi's was immobilized by an RPG, and abandoned. There were videos of it burning, taken long after it was abandoned.
Wasn't the burning because of self destruction charges?
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I agree boroda, though I am no expert just an ex user of heat warheads. The effect of the initial impact makes it look like it was fused to initiate quite some distance from the vehicle. The effect inside the vehicle just looks like a very coherent penetrator jet.
I am pretty sure it was just an advanced heat warhead and I am pretty sure the US army knows exactly what it was.
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Originally posted by Boroda
US has such weapons since 80s. They even had a disposable robot with one charge focused at several dozen meters. The charge looked like a searchlight on top of a tiny tank.
Are you going on about the IR light mounted on top of the M-60 years ago?
Not really sure what you are talking about please explain
This light was mounted inline and above the main gun, a big box like thing.
That searchlight looking thing is just that not some focused beam weapon.
I have also seen the versions that had reguler white light built in as well as the infared.
http://www.3ad.us/pio/photos/action/tank.turret.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/m48-pics.htm
After the Yom Kippur war in 1973 the United States transfered a large number of M-60s to Israel for replacing the large combat losses. This devepopment created a shortage in US Army tank units and soon it was decided that a number of M-48s would be remanufactured in order to reach the M-60A1 level capabilities. The new version was the M-48A5 equipped with a new M68 105mm gun, new track system and a 12,7mm with a 7,62mm M-60 machine guns. Almost 2,000 M-48A1/2/3s were converted to the A5 version and despite the fact that the armor protection had no match with the M-60s, the A5 had the same armament and engine.
from this site
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/m48.htm
The M48A5E1 h was a upgraded M48A5, with full resolution digital fire, a laser range finder, and an improved day/night sight assembly.
The M48 vehicle is separated into three compartments: the driver's compartment, the fighting compartment where the Gunner, Loader, and Tank Commander [TC] fought, and the engine compartment. Above the main gun was a 1 million candle-power Xenon searchlight. This light had both a white light and an infrared mode. It was boresighted with the main gun and gunsights so that it could be used to illuminate a target at night.
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No he is talking about the shape of that kind of warhead. It doenst look like a long funel like a normal heat warhead. It looks like a hocky puck with a slight funnel indent like the old IR lights had.
At least thats what I think he meant. It is what the bomlet like anti armour munitions look like anyway.