MLRS

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Peter, a blunt but honest question: have you ever seen a Maverick or RPG hit mark?

EDIT: ok, here is another, 100% confirmed, Maverick hit for you to compare. notice the typical "splash" marks.

[ February 27, 2006, 07:41 AM: Message edited by: undead reindeer cavalry ]

[Kurtz]

All HEAT hits I've seen have some kind of "splash" marks. What makes these splash marks typical for a Maverick? How do they differ from a Hellfire or Kornet?

The diameter of the hole created by the HEAT jet is dependent on the calibre of the round and the design of the liner. But the hole is pretty small regardless of caliber.

[Michael Emrys]

Yeah, it was much bigger than an RPG. I still have to wonder if it might have been a Hellfire, but since I haven't seen any of their post-hit penetrations, I won't put any claims forward.

Michael

[Peter Cairns]

I'll happily stand corrected if most people think the size fits. as to an RPG I was thinking something bigger than an RPG-7, but again I would be more inclined to an ATGM, than a Maverick.

If nothing else I might have expected more signs that it came in at a higher angle. It all depends of the range of engagement, but if it was launched from 10,000 ft and say 4 miles then it would come in at 20 to 25 degrees.

Certainly the "Splash" on the T-72 is mostly below the impact point, but whether the shape of the turret or the angle of impact accounts for that I can't say. The M1 impact seems mostly to the left of impact

I've already shown my (very) limited knowledge of Shape charge effects already.

Peter.

[YankeeDog]

Peter -

To give you a frame of reference, the penetration hole created by a modern RPG-sized HEAT warhead is in the ballpark of 1 cm. in diameter. It's pretty remarkable how focused the penetrator gets.

So clearly, those holes are created by something a *lot* bigger. Whether it's big enough to be a Maverick penetration, I don't know. It does seem to be in the same general ballpark as the hole in the 2nd image, though.

[John Kettler]

undead reindeer cavalry,

Better than I dared hope for. First rate picture!

What do you know about the circumstances of the T-72 engagement, and did the crew survive?

Peter Cairns and MikeyD,

Concur with MikeyD. Don't see how a hole that big could ever come from an RPG or anything like it. Even in WW II a Panzerfaust, which had a relatively broad jet on detonation, left a kopek sized (nickel sized) hole, so inconspicuous you really had to look for it. The tank could be dead yet unbrewed, but you wouldn't know until you knocked. See the section at www.battlefield.ru on skirt armor for Russian tanks for details.

The trend since has been to deeper penetrating, hence better focused warhead designs, which would seem to rule out anything small. The picture appears to indicate that the Maverick or whatever hit suffered significant penetration loss from a less than perpendicular strike, both vertically and horizontally, into the thickest armor on the tank.

The gun mount protective flange is impressively bent, and the mantlet's dinged and protrudes into the main gun's normal working space for elevation,

so the main weapon probably won't work, considering that after every shot the gun goes to full elevation for the autoloader cycle. What surprises me, though, is that the smoke grenade discharger somehow not only wasn't blown right off but appear to be unscathed.

While I've seen plenty of TOW firing footage, the tanks blew up, so can't comment on what the holes look like. Have seen no Hellfire shots in which the target remained intact, either.

Definitely an outlier in my books, but as MikeyD noted, siliceous cored armor is pretty effective

against shaped charge attack. As I indicated in a prior thread, the U.S. T95 medium tank would've had it, and the pre HA M1 tanks all did.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ February 27, 2006, 03:34 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[Imperial Grunt]

Originally posted by Cpl Steiner:

A similar incident happened when US ground forces fired on a British Chinook (kind of like the above but in reverse). I thought this was hilarious. By the way, no offence intended to our US Marine colleagues. I'm sure this was an isolated incident.

From the London Daily Mirror, Monday April 7th 2003, page 4...

"Brit Pilot’s Punch-up"

A Furious British Helicopter Pilot who came under “friendly fire” from American troops landed yards from them, leapt out and exchanged punches with a US Marine.

The Chinook pilot shouted at him: “When was the last time you saw a f******* Iraqi in a helicopter?”

The pilot and the marine had to be pulled apart as American troops advanced on the north of Baghdad, according to US reports from US Central Command in Qatar.

British military spokesman Group Captain Al Lockwood said: “I’m afraid it would be an RAF kind of thing to do. “These guys are not known for tolerating fools gladly.”

This is an interesting story. Maybe I am just being irrational, but it seems that the BBC and various British media seem to love to report that the American military stumbled again. Probably the one exception I have seen was the BBC reporter who was embedded with 1st Battalion, 8th Marines during Fallujah 2. BBC report about 1/8 in Fallujah 2

With the little info given, it is hard to imagine how it happened realistically. How a CH-47 pilot or crew chief could ID the individual Marine who fired at the aircraft, while the helo is in flight is hard to imagine. Unless the Marines lit the helo up with a barrage of machinegun fire with the accompanying tracers. Maybe that happened.

Just as it is hard to hit a moving helo with small arms and machineguns, unless the fire is significant and there are tracers, it is very difficult for guys in a fast moving helo to even know that somebody is shooting at them with a rifle unless rounds hit the aircraft, or the shooter is using tracers.

And then for the pilot to land and get out, approach a formation of Marines, who are in a combat situation and would be more than just a little alert and fired up, and then get into a fist-fight with offending Marine, with all of his buddies standing around, seems to be to be a stretch.

Maybe that is just me and my bias.

[Peter Cairns]

LtCol West,

I am pretty sure it's not your bias or the BBC's but the US media.

I have a brother and brother in law in Australia who is an engineer and a brother in law Canada. They all visit the states and Europe, and they all say the same.

The version of the war you get on US TV is different from the rest of the world. It's not just the BBC, but anywhere in Europe, or Australia, Japan and Canada.

The BBC gives pretty balanced coverage of the situation in Iraq, and if it tends to focus on the bad news and goof up's that's not because it is bias, it's because as the journalists say, "Bad News makes Good News".

I have a friend just back from two weeks in Texas and they were amazed at US coverage of the war, they even said to the people who they were staying with

" Are there Two Iraq's, because I don't recognise this one".

Peter.

[Cpl Steiner]

Peter Cairns,

Although I wouldn't like to see wholesale censorship of the press, I do worry sometimes about how the BBC and other UK media go out of their way to report on things that could make the situation in Iraq worse. An example is the recent story on the British soldiers filmed beating Iraqi rioters with batons. The journalists always seem to follow such a report by saying how it is likely to inflame the situation in the area under British control and increase the risk of British forces coming under attack. In other words, they report the story knowing full well it could end up with a British soldier dying as a result. Is this good journalism? Personally I think the British media sometimes take their "public interest" excuse too far, at the expense of national security and the lives of UK forces.

[Peter Cairns]

Cpl Steiner,

You are of course making the assumption that people in Basra, were blissfully unaware of what was happening in there own city.

Few if any of the 103 UK deaths have been as a result of an a media induced backlash. As to censorship you either have it or you don't. In the UK we have a state funded broadcaster that is independent of the government.

That means that short of something like operational information that would endanger national security it can pretty much say what it likes, and that for me is better than the US system where the public seem to be getting a sanatised version of the war because the networks and advertisers seem to be scared to say anything that will be deemed up patriotic.

Don't forget that the majority of the UK public didn't support the war and that there is a big difference between the national interest and government policy.

No one wants to see UK service people killed but if you allow politicains to use them as a human shield, to protect themselves from scrutiny or criticism the death toll may well ultimately be a lot higher.

Peter.

[Cpl Steiner]

Peter,

I agree that it is difficult and that you can't really go around censoring the news, but still I feel that the media often behave in an irresponsible manner these days. They go after ratings by digging up scandals or manufacturing scandals based on very little wrong doing. We see it all the time in the way they hound politicians out of office once they get their teeth into a story. Sometimes they seem like a pack of wolves baying for blood rather than responsible people who believe in truth and justice. I studied American history at college and I remember my lecturer saying that when Roosevelt died, most Americans were not even aware that he was essentially a cripple. The media of that era did not think that was something they should report or that the public needed to know. Can you imagine that happening these days? Nowadays they'd run story after story asking if he was fit for public office and whether he shouldn't just stand down.

I broadly agree with your sentiments but the media do need to learn a bit of self-restraint as well and not just think of lurid publicity for the sake of ratings.

[juan_gigante]

Originally posted by Cpl Steiner:

Peter,

I agree that it is difficult and that you can't really go around censoring the news, but still I feel that the media often behave in an irresponsible manner these days. They go after ratings by digging up scandals or manufacturing scandals based on very little wrong doing. We see it all the time in the way they hound politicians out of office once they get their teeth into a story. Sometimes they seem like a pack of wolves baying for blood rather than responsible people who believe in truth and justice. I studied American history at college and I remember my lecturer saying that when Roosevelt died, most Americans were not even aware that he was essentially a cripple. The media of that era did not think that was something they should report or that the public needed to know. Can you imagine that happening these days? Nowadays they'd run story after story asking if he was fit for public office and whether he shouldn't just stand down.

I broadly agree with your sentiments but the media do need to learn a bit of self-restraint as well and not just think of lurid publicity for the sake of ratings.

I'd say that an active, questioning media is always a good thing. Think about how many times the media has used its powers to uncover wrongdoing and campaign for truth. Exhibit 1: Watergate. I would say that a dissenting and probing media certainly helped us there. And I see many examples nowadays of scandals and wrongdoing which I feel the media should cover, so as to bring the people's attention to it so something can be done. For example, what if Bill O'Reily started having episodes about the Sudan genocide? I bet in just a few days of concerted media coverage, the public could be mobilized enough to pressure policymakers into doing something, and we could start saving lives. That's just one example. You could go on for days listing all the horrible things the media has been remiss in reporting on, things that something might be done about if the media did so. So, I guess I would argue the opposite. The media needs to do even more investigation and dissention, and fulfill its proper role as a watchdog.

But this is a little off topic. Sorry.

[Tagwyn]

Pocorito Juanito: You and Henry Kissinger should get together and tell us how the wonderful media brought about our withdral from Cambodia and SEA leading directly to Pol Pot and genocide. The Eurocons are doing everything they possibly can to discredit and damage the United States in its efforts in the war on terror. I wish the media would pay more attention to the genocide in East Africa, also caused by the media forcing US forces to withdraw from another venal monster in Mogadishu. Are you hoping for the Jihadists to bring down the Space Needle? I hope you are not around then. Best Regards, Tag

[lucero1148]

Re. The film of British troops hitting Iraqui's let's also remember that the film was provided not by a BBC film crew but a member of the unit that participated in the beatings. Which wasn't nearly as bad as what "Rodney King" got dished out by the LAPD.

As for Tagwyn what a lot of rubbish you are spouting! The withdrawal from Cambodia was solely a US gov't dicision and had nothing to do with the media forcing the gov't to do so. Read your history and understand that by that time the US didn't want to get embroiled into yet another civil conflict (Cambodia). Your statements are nonsense.

[Peter Cairns]

On the media in general I think both the pace of news and competition are now factors. In the electronic age you need to be first with the story and if you don't print it a competitor will.

With far more diverse and cut throat media the race to be both first and boldest takes over. At the end of the day the paper that doesn't get the scoops tends to fold and the journalist that doesn't get the story gets replaced.

If you look at Road deaths compared to rail deaths cars are far more dangerous, but when was the last time you saw a car crash that killed five get more headlines and photo coverage than a train crash that killed three.

More people were killed at the Union carbide plant at Bhopal that in 9/11, We are hunting down Bin Laden while the Head of Union Carbide is in the US with Washington refusing Indian requests to extradite him.

The media responds to what excites and alrms, amuses and amazes the public, and before people shot the messanger they should maybe take a closer look at the opinions and tastes of the good folks around them.

The Media provide products to meet consumer demand, and what they produce says more about us than them.

Peter.