T72 Vs Abrams - osprey claims no abrams ever knocked out.

[Destraex1]

http://www.ospreypublishing.com/store/M1-Abrams-vs-T-72-Ural_9781846034077/

"nearly all sources claim that no Abrams tank has ever been destroyed by enemy fire. Despite entering service in 1980"

As far as I'm concerned if the crew bails the tank is knocked out. Period.

None of this prancing around whether it was salvageable or not. So I might grab this one just for the quick read.

[MikeyD]

I once talked to an aging 'spook' who spun a very interesting story. It was about U.S. tanks regularly engaging with North Vietnamese along the DMZ. They were regular slug-fests, set-piece battles across open ground. He even described one M48 being holed right through beneath the turret basket. Not one word about these battles has emerged in the historical accounts. There's two conclusions for us to choose from. Either the aging 'spook' was pulling a Baron Von Munchausen on me, OR the engagements were real but weren't quite successful enough for publication. M48 does not exactly dominate T55 technologically. The "official" story still is we never lost a battle in Vietnam.

[Destraex1]

well we know from another thread here that at least one abrams during the thunder run knocked out. And we know of others that have had to be towed out of battle areas. That to me is knocked out.

[JonS]

It really depends when the book was written. If it was anytime up to 1990 it's on pretty safe ground. After that ... not so much.

[MikeyD]

I saw this with Stryker too. The definition of 'knocked out' kept getting narrowed and narrowed in order for the comment to still apply. 23mm slug starting an engine fire? Doesn't fit their definition of knocked out, and certainly not knocked out by another tank.

[theFightingSeabee]

My definition of knocked out is if the tank is taken out of action, meaning it can't continue to do battle. If a tank loses it's engine, then it's knocked out. It's nothing more than a big chunk of metal, and no longer a threat.

Now if you want to debate a catastrophic hit that launches the turret 200 ft in the air, then probably not. But I have seen plenty of videos of burning Abrams tanks to know that some have been neutralized.

I'm not sure this one was salvaged...

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=4e7f9c511c

[Destraex1]

its a very recent book. the whole "duel" osprey series is pretty new. I have the sherman vs panther one and it was a decent read. Although they seemed to concentrate not on what was the better tank but what was the better doctrine during the BOB. Thats ok unless your some dummy who does not realise that for a sherman to have a chance one on one against a panther the germans had to be on the ropes for almost every aspect. If your one who believes hollywood plotlines then osprey may not be for you

[MikeyD]

Now if you want to debate...

I'm reminded of an Army press conference in late 2003. The press officer said the brand-new recce Stryker that was gutted by fire following a roadside bombing on the road to Samarra wasn't destroyed "by the bomb" but was destroyed by the demolition charge that cooked-off in the burning vehicle! So by some wierdly convoluted logic I guess it wasn't counted as a combat loss. Or something like that - working with six year old memories here.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

As no NATO armour as ever been up against contemporary Soviet/enemy armour or anti-armour weapons it would not surprise me. Even more importantly the enemies Abrams have been up against were all of shockingly low quality in terms of there man power and training.

No Abrams has faced late ‘90s Russian anti-tank weapons or tanks ammunition. If they did as you can see from CMSF there would soon be many a knocked out Abrams, or many or NATO tank littering the battlefield.

Remember all late ‘90s Russian infantry anti-armour and tank ammunition can penetrate with ease any NATO tank through its side armour even at a 45 degree strike angel at huge ranges. In real world battlefields without the edges CM battlefields have NATO losses would be huge. This is also true when you setup battles, on very wide maps, in CMBB and simulate realistic battles between Panthers and the lowly Soviet 76.2mm M’42 field guns. The Panthers get slaughtered as they did in real life or… they have to slow their attack to a crawl and often just abandon the assault. .

It is very important to build wide maps, with objectives in the centre for attacking NATO forces if you want to simulate the full lethality of real battlefields. Be it in CMSF or CMBB .

Both the wars against Iraqi were the modern equivalent of the British wars against the Sudan in the late 1800s.

Very good news if you are American or British.

All interesting stuff,

All the best,

Kip.

PS Look at what happened to the Israelis in ’06 against a lightly armed militia… imagine the out come against a properly trained military with the same generation of late ‘90s Russian weapons.

[Damian90]

No Abrams has faced late ‘90s Russian anti-tank weapons or tanks ammunition. If they did as you can see from CMSF there would soon be many a knocked out Abrams, or many or NATO tank littering the battlefield.

Remember all late ‘90s Russian infantry anti-armour and tank ammunition can penetrate with ease any NATO tank through its side armour even at a 45 degree strike angel at huge ranges. In real world battlefields without the edges CM battlefields have NATO losses would be huge. This is also true when you setup battles, on very wide maps, in CMBB and simulate realistic battles between Panthers and the lowly Soviet 76.2mm M’42 field guns. The Panthers get slaughtered as they did in real life or… they have to slow their attack to a crawl and often just abandon the assault. .

Even western modern ammo will not perforate (penetration is something else) frontal turret armor of 90's versions like M1A1HA+, M1A1HC or M1A2, their central part of front armor is estimated as 900mm RHAe vs. KE and 880mm RHAe vs. KE at the corners + 1620mm RHAe vs. CE in the center part, 1320mm RHAe vs. CE at the corners at 2000m (only for KE, CE ammo have same penetration level at all ranges).

M829A3 probably the most powerfull APFSDS have probably penetration level of 850mm RHA at 2000m.

Standard Russian 3BM-42 and 3BM-42M APFSDS rounds have penetration level:

3BM-42: 500mm at 2km

3BM-42M: 600-650mm at 2km

It is to small to perforate armor of even M1A1HA from 1987 that has frontal turret armor estimated: 660mm RHAe vs. KE on the corners, 680mm RHAe vs. KE at the center of the frontal turret plate and, 1080mm RHAe vs. CE at the corners, 1320mm RHAe vs. CE at center of frontal turret plate.

Probably M1A1HA can be perforated from the front by 3BM-48 but I don't have any infos about estimated penetration level of that round.

Side turret armor of M1 is:

247-252mm RHAe vs. KE and 510-570mm RHAe vs. CE, but this is only for M1A1HA.

LOS thickness is 350-400mm of turret side, so at 30 deegres angle it have 650-800mm, so I doubt if all 90's Russian ammo perforate side turret armor at this angle, Fasily Fofanow give me Hint about that on tankNet some time ago, i suppose he means vs. KE.

So I will be really carefull with such words:

Remember all late ‘90s Russian infantry anti-armour and tank ammunition can penetrate with ease any NATO tank through its side armour even at a 45 degree strike angel at huge ranges.

I try to find Paul Lakowsky "Armor Basics" and try to get newer variants side armor estimates.

And about M1 knocked out by enemy tanks in Iraq, there were some tanks with mobility kill hits from Iraqi tanks (only T-72M/M1's IRCC) but no destroyed.

All destroyed tanks were casualties of secondar effects of hits from RPG's and IED's/EFP's. This means engine deck fire (preatty common before crews start to get's more attention on PMCS procedures) and sometimes after big IED hull deformations, after something like this, hull is written off, turret that is usually in good shape is repaired and GDLS get some of the old M1/M1IP's turret ofs and scrap it (only short turrets from all M1's and some older M1IP's, these turrets can't be upgraded), hull is upgraded and gives new turret, or turret get's some of the low production rate new hulls buided just for such turrets. 4 to 5 M1's ran over the overkill IED, hulls were completely deformed and they goes to scrap, turrets were ok so GDLS gives them new hulls.

100-150 M1's were disabled or destroyed in Iraq from 200-3 to and of 2007 and first half of 2008, later no losses, I can tell that less than 100-150 and more than 40 were total loosses and end as written off.

PS Look at what happened to the Israelis in ’06 against a lightly armed militia… imagine the out come against a properly trained military with the same generation of late ‘90s Russian weapons.

And you misunderstanding facts.

IDF was not prepered for War, training quality was low, thanks to Minister Defence at this time who gives more money to IAF, so reservists were not prepared.

Tankers on most time must depend on their own, without infantry support all tanks can be deisabled/destroyed in such hard terrain, but then again, Hezbollah at the end of 06 Lebanon war was almost completely destroyed.

Most of destroyed Merkava tanks were old Mk.2B/C models, Mk.4A were cassualties of big IED's or the best ATGM's side shot's (mostly at 90 deegres), but heavy uparmored variants such as Mk.2D, Mk.3D and Mk.4A were very good protected against i.e. RPG-29's or AT-14.

This however was a good lesson for IDF, look how quality of training and equipment rediness was highed up in Operation "Cast Lead".

Byt the way, IDF officialy fielded APS ASPRO-A a.k.a. Trophy for all Merkava Mk.4A and Mk.4B tanks.

[Amedeo]

http://www.ospreypublishing.com/store/M1-Abrams-vs-T-72-Ural_9781846034077/

"nearly all sources claim that no Abrams tank has ever been destroyed by enemy fire. Despite entering service in 1980"

First, it's a book about the 1991 war, so I presume the statement you quote is intended, by the author, to refer only to Desert Storm.

Second, in an old discussion on the TankNet forums I remember that a former US officer stated that on all the knocked out M1s trace of DU was found near the penetrations, i.e. they were all lost to friendly fire. This despite the fact that, initially, some M1 kills were credited to Iraqi fire (this also in the official U.S. Army account of Army performance in the Gulf War: "Certain Victory", BTW the book is also freely downloadable here: http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/content.asp ).

Regards,

Amedeo

[JonS]

First, it's a book about the 1991 war ...

lol - yes, that is a rather pertinent point

[Destraex1]

u can read s>.... i must have missed the fine print on the cover.

However I wonder if that statement was written recently, was certainly published recently. I may grab this one anyway. Still sounds interesting.

"Paperback; August 2009; 80 pages; ISBN: 9781846034077"

[Sgt Joch]

The "official" story still is we never lost a battle in Vietnam.

The NVA have a different viewpoint...

[MikeyD]

I wonder if this is a flawed analogy. I mean, how many Humvees have been knocked out by T72s? Nobody's going to claim that a Humvee is a vastly superior weapons system. Admittedly, no T72s have been knocked out by Humvees either. If you instead asked the question how many T72s have spontaneously caught fire on a road march the Abrams would come off rather badly in comparison. Or ask how the Abrams fares in the hands of green conscript crews who haven't so much as fired a practce round before.

[Damian90]

Oh I see here another myth about how simple are Soviet/Russian/Ukrainian tanks.

No, there are not more simple than western tanks, in fact they are more complex, thin about that, not only FCS (in T-80B, T-80A <this is very rare type, something beetwen T-80B and T-80U>, T-80U, T-90, T-90A, T-72B) is very advanced and complex, but also turret drives, and especially mechanized loading system (Autoloader is incorrect designation for such systems in AFV), so these tanks are in fact more complex than western tanks with just human loader. Of course western tanks have more advanced electro-optics, BMS systems etc. but such tjings also can be mounted on Eastern tanks.

Not to mention such monster like T-84U Oplot-M, just look at this beast, not only common systems in all tanks, but advanced FCS, Mechanized loading system, not to mention GLATGM systems in many russian tanks.

So green recriut will be have same problems in T-84U Oplot-M or T-90A as in M1A1SA or M1A2SEP.

If you instead asked the question how many T72s have spontaneously caught fire on a road march the Abrams would come off rather badly in comparison.

As in any GT powered tank, very important are PMCS prodeuress, if crew don't maintnance tanks engine as is in PMCS than fuel will leak to engine and start engine fire, this is because AGT-1500C and other tank GT's works in temperature of about 1500F, fuel burn temperature is something about 400-450F, think about that (infos from one M1 tanker). ;-)

So in M1, T-80B, T-80A or T-80U if you don't maintain engine as is in PMCS then someday you have engine fire.

[kipanderson]

Damian90, hi,

Thanks for that but I am very familiar with the figures… always good to have someone post them though… Paul Lakowsky’s write up for Steel Beasts I agree is great.. Tankers Net is best source but no doubt you frequent that too… all interesting stuff..

Do remember that things change when tandem warheads are used in all sorts of strange ways with the use of layered armour.. I remember the launch of the AT14 in ’96 and the Russian head of the design bureau saying in effect that western manufacturers greatly over play the difficulty of producing high quality HEAT warheads… quote “ if you can read equation you can build them” … Of course the guy was showing off but that does not mean he was wrong… .

The Russians changed over the modernised/tandem warheads for their ATGMs and shoulder launched RPGs around 1990… give or take for each model. They do the job very nicely against the side of an M1.

For the fate of M1s on a real battlefield, i.e. with real opposition.. the fate of the most powerful German tank battalion of the time in its breakthrough attempt at the Korsun Pocket is a very sobering lesson. The newly reequipped Panther tank battalion of Gross Deutschland was decimated over two days when trying to force its way through village Russia as a result of the fire from interlocking villages and such.

Be it M1s, Challengers, Leopard IIA6s… whatever… all very different against ‘90s warheads when compared to ‘70s warheads. The Israelis found the same in ’06. They could not force through armoured spearheads for if the tried they were destroyed by fire form the flanks. Thus they had to grind forward in something nearer and flat, frontal attack fighting for every village slowly and methodically. Thus it proved too costly…. so they throw the towel in and went home.

For CMX2 so far Charles has not released the figures as in CMX1. But in all tests I have done the armour penetration figures seem fine.

The glory of CM is that one can simulate all this and watch it happen… so as long as you think Charles figures reasonable… which I do… there is no need to guess… just watch it happen… .

All interesting stuff and fun too..

All the best,

Kip.

[Damian90]

Do remember that things change when tandem warheads are used in all sorts of strange ways with the use of layered armour.. I remember the launch of the AT14 in ’96 and the Russian head of the design bureau saying in effect that western manufacturers greatly over play the difficulty of producing high quality HEAT warheads… quote “ if you can read equation you can build them” … Of course the guy was showing off but that does not mean he was wrong… .

The Russians changed over the modernised/tandem warheads for their ATGMs and shoulder launched RPGs around 1990… give or take for each model. They do the job very nicely against the side of an M1.

For the fate of M1s on a real battlefield, i.e. with real opposition.. the fate of the most powerful German tank battalion of the time in its breakthrough attempt at the Korsun Pocket is a very sobering lesson. The newly reequipped Panther tank battalion of Gross Deutschland was decimated over two days when trying to force its way through village Russia as a result of the fire from interlocking villages and such.

Be it M1s, Challengers, Leopard IIA6s… whatever… all very different against ‘90s warheads when compared to ‘70s warheads. The Israelis found the same in ’06. They could not force through armoured spearheads for if the tried they were destroyed by fire form the flanks. Thus they had to grind forward in something nearer and flat, frontal attack fighting for every village slowly and methodically. Thus it proved too costly…. so they throw the towel in and went home.

For CMX2 so far Charles has not released the figures as in CMX1. But in all tests I have done the armour penetration figures seem fine.

The glory of CM is that one can simulate all this and watch it happen… so as long as you think Charles figures reasonable… which I do… there is no need to guess… just watch it happen… .

All interesting stuff and fun too..

All the best,

Well ok but we must remember that armor still evolving like AT weapons.

M1A1SA, M1A1FEP and M1A2SEP have XXI armor design, this is because US have modernisation program going all the time, so armor is upgrading all the time and now after US.Army and ARNG unificating all fleet to only two types and almost 100% equipment of tanks will unificated so you know what I mean. ;-) Same goes for U.S.M.C.

Ok to the point. From the frontal arc all modern tanks are impenetrabale for all CE warheds over frontal turret armor and almost impenetrabale for KE and CE ofer full frontal arc, side armor is good protecting over 30 to 45 deegres hit's from the center line of hull or turret in standard configuration without addon armors.

And this is all I think. Of course, all depends on angle of hit, where projectile hit, what are armor specs, what are hitting projectile specs. This is very complex thing.

So oh well, let's just leave that for goverment smart heads, designers know the best how to make tanks as best protected as it is possible. :-)

[Damian90]

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6032093/Armor-Basics

Armor basics, but they are a bit old I suppose, the LOS thickness of frontal turret armor for M1's is a bit to thin, from my good sources (meassured LOS) minimal thickness is 875mm, but this probably depends on what angle we choose to meassure LOS.

Well, the best way is just have one modern M1, and chech by ourself LOS. :-)

Edit: yes these are old armor basics, new estimates are completely different, of course thanks to many new infos. :-)

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6032093/Armor-Basics

On this site many estimates were updated not so long time ago. And are very, very probabale.

[Damian90]

Here are some interesting things, this are new armor models for SB Pro PE.

But these estimates are preatty strange, I don't know what think about them.

[Kat Johnston]

Be it M1s, Challengers, Leopard IIA6s… whatever… all very different against ‘90s warheads when compared to ‘70s warheads. The Israelis found the same in ’06. They could not force through armoured spearheads for if the tried they were destroyed by fire form the flanks. Thus they had to grind forward in something nearer and flat, frontal attack fighting for every village slowly and methodically. Thus it proved too costly…. so they throw the towel in and went home.

I was under the impression they stopped due to international pressure. Their losses in 2006 were overplayed by people on all sides after the fact, but it's by the by; Israel has a short time between starting any conflict and being forced to close it. They were slowed, and they went over their time limit.

[MikeyD]

Nope, Israel was soundly drubbed in 2006. They weren't even able to supply proper food and water to their soldiers, it was a major domestic scandal. The right-wing government then blasted Gaza in 2008 as a show of muscle to make up for their earlier humiliation.

[Linuss]

The very quote the OP posted says "Destroyed"

Not one mention of knocked out. So why are there those of you arguing the definition of "knocked out"? Knocked out =/= destroyed. Knocked out = can't fight until repaired. Destroyed = beyond repair.

But I guess it just comes down to semantics....(which I guess that last sentence voids my whole post )

[Damian90]

Knocked out is tank unoperational until it will be repaired, destroyed is beyond repair, but of course beyond repair depends on how big are damages, beyond repair are fully burned up tanks or with deformed hull after IED.

And about Lebanon 2006, remember, there were problems with training, support etc.

These were effects of IAF full upgrading politics and forgeting about IDF.

Now situation is different.

[TheVulture]

The very quote the OP posted says "Destroyed"

Not one mention of knocked out. So why are there those of you arguing the definition of "knocked out"? Knocked out =/= destroyed. Knocked out = can't fight until repaired. Destroyed = beyond repair.

But I guess it just comes down to semantics....(which I guess that last sentence voids my whole post )

The point the cynics are making is that "No Abrams has ever been XXXX by an enemy" has been nicely refined over time to make XXXX more and more specific whenever the previous incarnation has fallen over. It's a version of the 'no true scotsman' fallacy