'Something’ felled an M1A1 Abrams tank in Iraq – but what?

[Beaker]

http://www.armytimes.com/print.php?f=1-292236-2336437.php

Mystery behind Aug. 28 incident puzzles Army officials

By John Roos

Shortly before dawn on Aug. 28, an M1A1 Abrams tank on routine patrol in Baghdad “was hit by something” that crippled the 69-ton behemoth.
Army officials still are puzzling over what that “something” was.

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...

more at link
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Time to put the military-industrial complex to work developing an even newer uber-tank.

[mainegreen]

1. Sounds like a meteor.

GODS AGAINST THE WAR!

PULL OUT!
PULL OUT!
PULL OUT!

[qb]

2. or one of Raygun's Star Wars lasers.

[soothsayer]

3. but if "it" came to rest inside the far hull of the tank, then...

can't they just extricate it and see what it is?

Sounds like a depleted uranium-type ultra dense projectile.

Mebbe some of our stuff being used back against us. In Vietnam, the enemy were famous for taking our unexploded ordinance and using 'em to blow up our troops.

There's a big effort put into making sure bombs explode so they can't be used against us. Unexploded bombs are studied to see what the heck went wrong.

[Ready4Change]

13. Read the full Army Times article

Theres a link to the full Army Times article in the article linked above. Towards the end of it "experts" lean towards concluding that it may have been an improved version of the RPG-7, or one of several other known, more advanced weapons, mostly of western manufacture.

Regarding extrication, that's not likely due to what's necessary to pass through all that armor. Basically, the penetrator "bullet" is converted by a shaped charge into an extremely hot, pressurized fluid stream that burns as much as blows it's way into the tanks interior. The full article says "a penetrator of a yellow molten metal is what caused the damage." They probably found it as a residue around the final impact point inside the hull.

My first thought was maybe some sort of heavy duty sniper rifle, but the experts are all talking some type of RPG, so I guess there was explosive marks on the outside of the hull.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

4. Must be one of those WMD's

What else could it be! Conclusive proof at last! (irony)

[LoneStarLiberal]

5. Some Kind of Sabot

Small hole, solid projectile inside interior...

...sounds like some kind of small sabot round. I thought the Swedes had something like this as a warhead option on their man-portable shoulder-fired anti-armor weapons.

Maybe a small recoiless rifle firing a sabot round...

All that we can say for certain is that the gunner's a lucky man to be alive.

[jayfish]

8. I Must Be The Slowest Typist Ever.

See my post below.

Jay

[jayfish]

6. Not That Mysterious.

Probably a Sabot type weapon. Without getting into to too much detail. The Sabot is a, non-explosive, very high-speed, very long-range projectile . There are two parts to the system: a hardened tip that penetrates armor and then a softer metal that kind of melts from the impact. The molten metal then travels through the hole created by the penetrator and incinerates the interior of the tank. I haven't done much research on the Russian Koronet missile to know if it uses this type of tech, but if it does it's nothing new and we have know about Iraq having them for a quite while.

Jay

[LoneStarLiberal]

12. Porous borders, lots of weapons

It's a pretty good bet that with the borders of Iraq being as pourous as they were immediately after the Hussein government fell that there are a number of different portable anti-armor and to a lesser extent, anti-aircraft weapons in Iraq right now.

Instability and violence on this scale usually has as its corollary a hodgepodge concentration of weapons. Give the disparate sources of weapons for muj organizations and Saddam's own extensive arsenal, who knows what all is floating around in Iraq?

I'm not certain about the Koronet, either, but I am fairly certain that the Swedish shoulder-fired weapon with optional sabot warhead was made by Bofors, incidentally the same Swedish company that plays a part in manufacturing the AT-4 shoulder-fired weapon that is standard issue for the U.S. Army.

[OldSoldier]

7. Easy: tank destroyer

To make a tank destroyer, find a shot-up tank with a good main gun. Remove said main gun and put it on a trailer, or in the back of a truck. Instant devastating weapon--you can get it in and out of an area without too much trouble.

The tank destroyer was used by the Soviets against the Nazis and is an effective point-defense weapon.

The hole they're describing is very much like that created by the Soviet 122mm armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot round, which fires a tungsten penetrator that's about the size of a pencil. (The discarding-sabot part refers to a plastic jacket the penetrator sits in as it travels down the tube. When it gets out of the tube, the jacket is peeled away in the air, the penetrator speeds up and flies toward its target at about a mile per second.) The friction of it passing through the hull of a tank would heat it up enough to set off the fire-suppression system.

If the Iraqis do have a tank destroyer regiment, we have big problems--they're hard to find and hard to stop, and as devastating to our armor as a whole tank.

[jayfish]

10. Yeah... Like A GMC Yukon or Ford Explorer?

That does sound like trouble.

Jay

[OldSoldier]

22. Probably a Toyota pickup

Toyota pickups seem to be the preferred base for improvised combat vehicles--Somali "technicals" were all made from Toyota pickups. I don't know why this is.

They could always build these things as towed weapons--a couple of old I-beams for trails, a rear axle with the differential out of it, use a tin can and a dowel as a sight...tank rounds have very flat trajectories, so no problem there and the targets are large enough you don't have to be real precise. If I was doing it, mine would be self-propelled.

[jayfish]

29. I Always Spot A lot American Made SUV's In Video Footage...

from Iraq. I'm not sure if they are brash (or foolish) enough just yet to mount a 125mm cannon in an open bed pickup. Although a Toyota Landcruiser would be an option. A scary scenario nonetheless.

Jay

[matcom]

9. it was a Sabot round

and as a former M1A1 tanker i can tell you that nothing else on earth scares a tanker more.

nasty, nasty shit

[Hep]

17. How many

people operate a tank? That is, how many people are inside when fully loaded? I've been asked but have no idea.

[matcom]

18. Four

driver
loader
gunner
commander

[Hep]

21. Yow!

Hello claustrophobia!

[matcom]

24. only 3 in the turret

the driver has a hatch up front but yes its cramped as hell

[Sushi_lover]

11. IRA has something like that

I saw a news show where the IRA built their own long barrel stationary weapon with an electronic trigger. I don't know the specs but it seemed like a barrel about 4 feet long which fired a round about 30mm in diameter. It was a one-time only weapon.

They would install it back from the road with the electronic trigger programmed to pre-count X # of cars in a motorcade and with a delay of X milliseconds so it would fire through the back seat of the X'th car.

The high velocity would take the round completely through the car. The long barrel made it very accurate.

That's the kind of weapon I imagine we are facing if it happens again.

[Atlant]

14. As I've suggested elsewhere, probably recycled DU

We've left tons of Depleted Uranium laying around the desert.
ANYBODY could figure out that they ought to pick this
stuff up and remanufacture it for use against us.

Atlant

[jmowreader]

31. Why bother?

Depleted uranium has a few nice features (if you're a tanker, that is), but there's absolutely nothing wrong with the Soviet-made tungsten penetrators they have a shitload of already.

[Brian Sweat]

15. Another way that this war may be compromising National Security

Foreign powers may be using Iraq as a testing ground for new weapons in order to see what works against our equipment.

[The White Rose]

16. Now that's creative thinking.

And a very good point.

[knowledgeispower]

20. Yeah, I was just gonna ask:

"where did this mystery weapon come from?"

Because it almost surely wasn't Iraqi in nature--their military means are outdated Russian and U.S. weapons, so if it was something like that then the military would know already what the weapon was. I'm guessing that some foreign governments--perhaps Russia or China--are feeding weapons to the opposition. I would (strategically speaking), if I were that government.

[jayfish]

19. Fantastic Info On APFSDS (Sabot) Rounds Here.

I wasn't real comfortable with my explanation of Sabot rounds so I did a little digging.

http://www.army-technology.com/contractors/ammunition/apfsds.htm

One interesting thing about this link is

"Examples of the primary APFSDS rounds currently in Service:

USA: M829A1/A2/A3 120mm APFSDS - Abrams Tank
Russia: 3BM32 125mm APFSDS - T-72 Tank
UK: L27A1 CHARM 3 120mm APFSDS - Challenger 2 Tank
France: OFL 120 F2 120mm APFSDS - Leclerc Tank"

This gives credence to OldSoldiers "Tank Killer" theory.

Here is some video. It's not very good. I have seen, and will try to find, better. I seem to remember seeing interior footage at one time or another.

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Orbit/1038/tankhit1.mpg

More tech. info

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m829a1.htm

Jay

[maine_raptor]

23. Questions for an Abrams Vet

"boring a hole 1½ to 2 inches deep in the hull on the far side of the tank."

What is the thickness of the turret side armor?

I would assume that since the actual "penetrator" is a hot metal plasma jet, that the heat would be noticable by the crew, yet the only "crew damaged" is the brused flak jacket. I know the uniform protection is good (nomex and all that), but what about metal fumes?

[Ready4Change]

25. Heat set off the tanks fire suppression gear.

Full Army Times article mentions this. That is probably how the crew survived.

[maine_raptor]

26. Roger that

Yea, but I'm wondering about the fumes, after all they're not on OX masks, like flyers.

[Brian Sweat]

27. They might use some type of negative ventilation system to remove fumes.

[OldSoldier]

30. Sabot: Not a plasma jet

A sabot round doesn't create a plasma jet; that's a High Explosive Antitank round.

Check this out: Go to the kitchen. Open one of your cabinets and tape a sheet of paper between two shelves, so it's stretched out flat and vertical. Take a regular (preferably sharpened) pencil and throw it hard enough to go through the paper. Or use a dart if you like, but take the dishes out before you put up the paper if you use a dart.

Now imagine that the pencil is made from some incredibly hard metal, and the sheet of paper is really a six-inch-thick piece of very hard steel. That's an antitank sabot round. The only force used to make the sabot round knock a hole in the tank is kinetic energy imparted by the gun.

The sabot round is propelled by a hunk of molded gunpowder that's about the size of your leg, or bigger if you're petite.

Now for plasma jets: These are created by the combustion of high explosives. It is a shaped charge; to get it, imagine taking an oiled funnel, packing plastique around it and pulling the funnel out. The resultant cone will cause a jet of superheated gas to form; this jet is what cuts through the tank. This you normally see in bazookas and other shoulder-fired AT weapons because you don't need tons of gunpowder at the firing position to get it to work.

[Aristus]

28. Someone mentioned the possibility of a shoulder-mounted

Carl Gustav-type sabot round. Unfortunately, that kind of thing is not possible with current technology. The sabot, whether made of tungsten or depleted uranium, requires a tremendous amount of propellant in order to achieve the velocity necessary to punch through armor as thick as that on the M1A1. A shoulder-mounted rig that could fire an effective sabot round would be too big to carry and fire with a one or two man crew. It's also why you rarely see a sabot-firing tank cannon smaller than 100mm. It is the bigger calibers, i.e. 105mm, 120mm, and 125mm that have the propellant capacity to launch sabots. BTW, the Russian 125mm may seem more fearsome because of its size; however, the rounds that it fires are of a lower velocity than the 120mm guns used by the West.

Having said all that, this former Abrams crewman has no idea what might have disabled the tank in the manner they described.

Lots of good discussion here.