who can kill a modern Main Battle Tank (MBT)?

Status
Not open for further replies.

rapiergunner

New Member
gf002 trust me the armour on the m1 doesnt even conpare with chally 2 look at op telic how many wagons were lost compared with the yanks problem with the yanks was they never up armoured
:cop
 

Revival_786

New Member
What type of M1 Abrams does Saudi Arabia have? Probably a downgraded version of the US M1 Abrams (I think the "A2" comes into play here). Is there a big difference between the two? :)
 
A

Aussie Digger

Guest
Re: who can kill an M1 Abrams?

Hey RapierGunner? Is that you're actual (or former) profession? Rapier Gunners in the Australian Army used to go by the grandiose official title of "Air Defence Missilemen"... Always sounded kind of funny to me...
 

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
rapiergunner said:
gf002 trust me the armour on the m1 doesnt even conpare with chally 2 look at op telic how many wagons were lost compared with the yanks problem with the yanks was they never up armoured
:cop
It's intereresting over the last few weeks how many yank master gunners I have spoken to who are saying the same. they can't give much detail (due to classification issues etc) but they have all (3 of them) been confirming what you just said.
 

Gremlin29

Super Moderator
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Re: who can kill an M1 Abrams?

Regarding the Op Telic mention, I'd be curious to know what the loss ratio is between Challenger and M1?

Ultimately which tank is actually "better" than the other is a pointless arguement. Neither is worth a darned without infantry support. And if your infantry aren't highly mechanized you are really minimalizing any MBT's abilities. It also remains to be said that none of these tanks have any real countermeasures against serious aerial attack either. Hellfires will make Swiss Cheese out of any of the state of the art AFV's let alone LGB's and so forth. And as a point of interest, a 13 year old kid with a molotov cocktail can take out the M1, Challenger, Leo II, etc.
 

Revival_786

New Member
What type of M1 Abrams does Saudi Arabia have? Probably a downgraded version of the US M1 Abrams (I think the "A2" comes into play here). Is there a big difference between the two? :)
 

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Re: who can kill an M1 Abrams?

Gremlin29 said:
Regarding the Op Telic mention, I'd be curious to know what the loss ratio is between Challenger and M1?

Ultimately which tank is actually "better" than the other is a pointless arguement. Neither is worth a darned without infantry support. And if your infantry aren't highly mechanized you are really minimalizing any MBT's abilities. It also remains to be said that none of these tanks have any real countermeasures against serious aerial attack either. Hellfires will make Swiss Cheese out of any of the state of the art AFV's let alone LGB's and so forth. And as a point of interest, a 13 year old kid with a molotov cocktail can take out the M1, Challenger, Leo II, etc.
Actually the swiss version of the Leo2A6 is top armoured and has an ERA capability. It's the only top armoured western MBT that I know of.
 

Gremlin29

Super Moderator
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Re: who can kill an M1 Abrams?

True, however I am unaware that this variant is actually capable of defending against Hellfire or 500 pound LGB's?
 

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Re: who can kill an M1 Abrams?

I'm not too sure I'd want to be inside anything that a 500 pounder was intending to drill through - or a hellfire. ;)

The swiss might build the toughest banks, but I'm not sure they also qualify for building the toughest tanks...
 

tankboy

New Member
Re: who can kill an M1 Abrams?

hi,im a for crewman on a original m1 tank and it was very capable itself.im sure the newest version is just awesome i wish i was still in the service so i could experience its capabilities.can the m1tank or its newest variations be knocked out?well ofcourse it can,just like anything.now im talking tank vs tank here,the m1 or any of the newest verions can knock out another tank beyond visual range with its thermal vision sights,so it can knock the other tank out before the enemy can see the m1 tank.in the first gulf war,no m1s were knocked out by the enemy.the only ones destroyed were from friendly fire.just like most tanks a top attack or rear attack and to a degree a side attack are its most vulnerable spots,that is why as a tanker we never showed our assend to the enemy
 

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Re: who can kill an M1 Abrams?

as I said before, one of my associates was a master gunner in an M1, was involved in its development, and also was involved in assessing potential enemy tanks (even the possibility of rogue controlled M1's, Challys and Leo's). He still is absolutely convinced of the capability of the M1.

He's made a few comments about foreign tanks rolling up at Aberdeen and not asking any questions as to where they got them from. The SAS managed to extract significant amounts of equipment through the Mujihadeen and in other areas such as Muslim controlled Croatia. The SAS apparently would "shop to order"

He's not in the habit of talking much about his past, but he certainly gets animated when he talks about trials they ran with "enemy gear".
 

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Awang se said:
Is it possible to protect the top area of the tank?
It is, The Swiss Leos and UK Chally 2's are top armoured. Western tanks are moving away from reactive armour as its not seen as beneficial as it was in the past.

As a last resort ERA can be used (especially on older less protected AFV's) but there has been mods made like skeleton skirts etc that are added to the tank perimeter - there doesn't seem to be any reason as to why skeletal skirts wouldn't work on the turrets etc... - just a bit unweildy and might compromise some fields of view.

The US has been using skeletals on some of their strykers in Iraq and none have been lost to RPG's etc since the retro fit. (to date)
 
A

Aussie Digger

Guest
Re: who can kill an M1 Abrams?

Shields that detonate RPG type weapons away from the main armour of the vehicle work very well and have done so for 30 odd years, since the Brits (I think) came up with this idea for use in Northern Ireland. I'm not sure that they would be of any use against hardened penetrator type weapons, (although I'm not sure if there are too many "handheld" type hardened penetrator weapons around at the moment only HEAT or HESH rounds, still this is a nice cheap way of adding protection to a lightly armoured vehicle... Even "armoured" landrovers have withstood RPG's with metal screens fitted.
 

echo4bravo

New Member
destroyed m-1

hey all....im new to the site,
anyways i came across some pics the other day of a destroyed m1 with the turret blown off sitting about 50 ft away from the hull. the story goes, the tank rolled over 3 AT mines in succession, thus blowing the turret off and destroying the tank and killing severel crew members (may they rest in peace). now is this possible? can AT mines destroy an m1 like that? or is it just another internet tall tale? the pics looked authentic and im 100% positive it was an M1.
 

Winter

New Member
Re: destroyed m-1

echo4bravo said:
hey all....im new to the site,
anyways i came across some pics the other day of a destroyed m1 with the turret blown off sitting about 50 ft away from the hull. the story goes, the tank rolled over 3 AT mines in succession, thus blowing the turret off and destroying the tank and killing severel crew members (may they rest in peace). now is this possible? can AT mines destroy an m1 like that? or is it just another internet tall tale? the pics looked authentic and im 100% positive it was an M1.
Were the pics in the DefenceTalk Gallery? Probably not...If so, then is a link possible?

We also have some related discussions:

http://defencetalk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=755
http://defencetalk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=258
 

echo4bravo

New Member
Re: destroyed m-1

no i did not find them here i found a thread on another site but the DoD made them pull them off the site but there was a post and a link to a russian website that had the pics i have the pics and could post them but they might get pulled again i dont think they have been cleared for release or something to that effect. if its alright with the mods and i can figure out how to do it ill post them
 

Red aRRow

Forum Bouncer
I think I had the pictures on my hard disk. But I can't find them in the gigabytes of pictures that reside on my hard drive. echo4bravo just upload the pictures in the Gallery section of this website under the Gulf War title. Then you can link them from this forum and we can have a discussion.

cheers.
 

echo4bravo

New Member
Re: who can kill an M1 Abrams?

i have the pics of the destroyed m1 with the turret blown off but i cant seem to upload them if any one can help let me know i am curious to find out how this tank was destroyed.
i get this error when i try
-PHP running on your server does not support the GD image library, check with your webhost if ImageMagick is installe-
they are staanderd jpeg pics
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top