Russian Black Eagle Surpasses America's Abrams

Originally posted by Apache
Does anybody have a cite and source for the claim that RPGs can reliabiliy take out am M-1? [/b]

Little info on RPG-7:

Calibre 40mm
Length 950 mm
Mass 6,3 kg

Grenade GP-7V:
Calibre 105mm
Mass 4,5 kg
Range 200 m
Penetrating Ability:
Brick wall 2000 mm
Wood 3700 mm
Concrete 1500 mm
Reactive Armor 700 mm

Look at the last number: it’s enough to RELIABILLY take out an Abrams.

[Balamut]

700 mm of reactive armour? You ment armour with explosive reactive armour plates on it.

[Balamut]

You can fire that thing at an M1 all day long and not penatrate the crew compartment

And how did you arrived to that conclusion?

PG-7VR grenade penetrates 700mm homogeneous armour with ERA plates on it. Without them it penetrates much thicker armour.
Can you remind me an equivalent on unit of thickness of chobham armour? IIRC it's something as 600 chobham to 1000 mm of ordinary armour. Am I correct? Besides nobody would shoot from the frontal side. Shot at the back or side would do the job.

[Edited by Balamut on 9th December 2003 at 22:52]

[Voyager13b]

Originally posted by Apache

How about actual battle accounts Balamut. ZERO catastrophic M1 Losses (that penetrated the crew compartment) to RPGs in Iraq.

From Janes

Details of the M1 losses were given, including one where 25mm armour-piercing depleted uranium (AP-DU) rounds from an unidentified weapon disabled a US tank near Najaf after penetrating the engine compartment. Another Abrams was disabled near Karbala after a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) penetrated the rear engine compartment and one was lost in Baghdad after its external auxiliary power unit was set on fire by medium-calibre fire.

Left and right side non-ballistic skirts were repeatedly penetrated by anti-armour RPG fire, according to the report, but only cosmetic damage was caused when they were struck by anti-personnel RPG rounds. There were no reported hits on ballistic skirts and no reported instance of US tanks hitting an anti-tank mine. Turret ammunition blast doors worked as designed. In one documented instance where a turret-ready ammunition rack compartment was hit and main gun rounds ignited, the blast doors contained the explosion and crew survived unharmed except for fume inhalation.


http://www.janes.com/regional_news/a...0620_1_n.shtml

Apache,

Paper weapons waiting to be battle tested are always so much superior to anything in the American arsenal. Even after they fail to do the job during a battle on a grand scale (like both wars in Iraq), the excuses flow like water. Two common excuses are that the failure was total operator error, or the Iraqi's were using version 2.1.3 of such and such weapon, and version 2.1.4 is now available, and would surely have done the job.

Prior to being battle tested though, all such weapons are presented by the anti America club as being the equivilent of the hammer of Thor smashing an insect in comparison to systems in the hands of the US military. I guess hatred breeds a vivid imagination.




Voyager

[Balamut]

Quite good. BTW, we weren't talking about war in iraq.
Your question was: "Does anybody have a cite and source for the claim that RPGs can reliabiliy take out am M-1?" Reliable cite was found.(Manufacturer's page)

"ZERO catastrophic M1 Losses (that penetrated the crew compartment) to RPGs in Iraq."

There is no need to make a catastrophic loss. You brought examples of penetrating all by yourself. That's it - tank is disabled - taked out - battle useless till repair; job is done. Depending on frontline movement, or your army would repair it and proceed, or enemy would do it for you. That's a war. Who said it must be blown to pieces?

And little more:

Look at the variety of of grenades.

Iraqi definately didn't have those new, including that grenade on what I gave you info. All those countries, who use soviet RPG's ( afghanistan, Iraq, Angola etc.) have old type of grenades made in 70'ties(one that is upper on photo) You can see those old things in the news, videos, photos, what ever. ( If you'll find one with something new - post it here plz)


And: "ZERO catastrophic M1 Losses "
What do you expected? Your army rolled forward very fast with total air superiority and overwhelming quantity in everything else. I'm not talking about what weapons did iraq have and what US army have. - Of course it lowered casualties and tech losses. It wasn't fair and square battle of equal forces.

[Balamut]

Here's my point. I don't give full credence to the manufacturers claims. Why?
If they could penetrate that far, then why did they not in Iraq?

Maybe, because there was an embargo, mM?

And what is this fair fight BS you are talking about? We were outnumbered about Ten-to-One. Two of our divisions took out ten or theirs.
Why is it so painful to admit we are just pretty darn good?
Besides our equipment was only part of it, training and personnel screening/selection were the rest of it.
One American general even commented that even if we switched equipment with the Iraqis, we would have still won. Superior equipment is only a small part of the equation, crew training is the rest of it.

It's not painful - I admit that you did pretty darn good. My "fair fight" thing was about normal war when enemies are equal or almost equal on the battlefield.
Outnumbered Ten-to-One? When 4 of ten retreat and 4 are giving up to US soldiers before fight starts and two stays in WW2 helmets and AK47 ( they even didn't had body armour )

I'm not saying all Russian equipment is crap, but there is just no evidence that an RPG is anything more than a nuisance to an M1. The few losses that we did have to RPGs were mainly due to the fact that were were moving fast and did not want to wait around for a recovery vehicle to come get the tank. The tank was NOT destroyed until WE destroyed it. We just destroyed them ourselves and kept moving.

As I said, why it must be blown to pieces? It only must be disabled. Stop firing and moving around, thus battle rusult will be different.

The engine compartment venerability has already been field retrofitted and now you can't even count on a lucky hit by an RPG to take out an M1 anymore.

Retrofitted? + several more tonns? With same engine and chassis?(cause you realy must add something thick and heavy) Well now I will ask for source, pls?
P.S. Lucky shot can be done between the wheels. Or in the roof.

[Balamut]

Interesting. Thanks. see u tomorow now it's bed time