Syrian AT tactics

[Sergei]

Holy sausage, this looks insane yet appears to be effective!

http://youtu.be/UKxbuToEMNY

[akd]

That was the car next to the tank exploding (gas tank, IED?).

[Sergei]

That's an after effect. You can see the RPG hit the T-72 at 0:31 and the car next to it bursts into flames at 0:33.

[sburke]

unclear how effective. at the 0:52 mark the smoke and dust clears enough that you should be able to see the tank, however it seems it may have reversed. At the 0:57 mark there is a burst that could be the tank firing a round.

I'll say this much though, the guy got the round off. In CMSF, he'd have died no question and never have gotten to fire. Be nice to be able to at least try that in urban fighting in CMx2. Most times even in RL I suspect this guy would not have made it but dang that has got to have made that tank crew soil their underwear.

[John Kettler]

From what I can tell, and I watched the sequence repeatedly, it looks to me as though either the RPG hit the tank, but not seriously, in turn setting off the car high order; or the RPG hit the car, causing it to explode and the tank to react. It looks as though the shooter went a bit too far to the right, exposing the after right part of the RPG itself. No matter how you slice it, that guy had big brass ones!

I'm of the firm opinion that the tank did survive, retreated behind the smoke and fired several bursts from the coax MG and likely a cannon round, too. The bursts sounded completely unlike the assault rifle fire we heard later and should, considering the coax MG is firing a full power cartridge. As for the guy's surviving, it CAN be done. Smokey Smith's battle was easier in some ways, worse than this guy's in other ones. You'll see when you read the citation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Smith

Regards,

John Kettler

[Cuirassier]

Where was the infantry support?

[Tank Hunter]

Placing that tank there is just pure incompetence.

[LongLeftFlank]

True, it appears the tank was advancing down a typical city street without an infantry screen, it seems (I assume those feet running around behind it before the fireworks start are FSA fighters). But that seems typical for the government forces -- they're short of infantry (only so many reliable soldiers to go around) and with the primary FSA threat still being light weapons, they tend to hide in their armour.

Kind of dumb of the RPG gunner to try a frontal shot though, especially while running, as opposed to a somewhat aimed oblique rear shot from a sheltered alley or shopfront (backblast permitting). Unless there are other regime troops (e.g. a sniper or BMP) behind the tank covering its arse as it moves forward. Which may have been the entire point of this exercise, use the tank as bait to lure the FSA guys out to snipe them.