Question about an M1 abrams for real gearheads.

[Lexx]

I was talking to a friend of mine and we got into what was going on in Iraq. The news was reporting that an M1 tank had been killed, and they showed a clip of one apparently burning.

I was surprised by this as I'd been under the impresszion that an M1 was so heavily armored and well designed it was almost unkillable, especially by the kind of weapons the insurgents had.


Well, my friend, who had been in the navy long ago, told me that in those cases what was happening is that the baddies were firing several of those cheap societ style RPGs at the tank, and hitting the same spot. While this couldn't penetrate the armor, it was able to, according to my friend, set the paint on fire.

According to him, M1's have a very thick coat of paint that is hard to ignite, but once it gets burning it won't stop and the heat makes the tank uninhabitable, so the crews bails and the tank is called 'destroyed".

But they just bring them in, repair and refit them and they're fine to go as there is little actual structural damage.

Now I'd never heard of anything like this story about the burning paint on an M1, but I know if it's true some gurps gearhead will know about it. So I'm asking the gearheads here about this. What can you tell me on this story?

[Michael Hopcroft]

Whether it's a true story or not, it's a good story.

There may be nothing that will penetrate the M1's armor yet, but that doesn't mean there never will be. You can bet that any modern army that expects to be facing M1s is going to be looking for ways to defeat them.

One solution to the problem is to not put on such much paint, develop inflammable paint, or do soemthing to that affect.

One last thing -- wouldn;t it be theorteically possible to come up with an attack that doesn;t neccesarily phsyicolaly destory the tank but kills the crew? Not that I'm fishing for ideas -- you don;t know whos' watching the Internet, and we have men in the line of fire.

[Lexx]

Well, the idea of killing the crew without having to pierce a tank's armor is old, and hardly a 'security risk'. Hell, ever hear of a HESH round?

High Explosive Squash Heads are special rounds that contain a wad of plastique explosive that, when it hits a hard surface, like armor, flattens out then detonates. It does NOT penetrate armor, it DOES, however, send an awesome shockwave thru the armor which can kill or stun men inside the tank and even pop scabs of metal off the interior that can fly around with lethal force.

I think the abrams was designed to resist this threat with special shock absorbant interior linings that also stopped shrapnel.

I still remember seeing that abrams burning in iraq a while back, and come to think of it it damn well may have just been the paint, if it was thick enough. Now I wonder why they have such thick paint. IR abrosbant doesn't seem likely given the amount of heat their engines produce. Radar absorbant? Possible but not likely. I just can't understand what a thick coat of paint would be for....

[Razor]

Originally Posted by Lexx

I was surprised by this as I'd been under the impresszion that an M1 was so heavily armored and well designed it was almost unkillable, especially by the kind of weapons the insurgents had.

Before war started I read about Iraquis bought russian Kornet AT missile systems (about 1200mm penetration), but I can't remember the font, sorry.

Anyway, it seems that a single burning M1 can be caused by a myriad of things, not just Kornets.

[Mark Caliber]

Well, the exact armor composition of the M1 is still highly classified. They don't want even the operators to know much about it (because they'd be inclined to tell people like ME about that kind of stuff ;) )

What we do know is that the armor is ablaitive in nature so multiple hits against the armor will have a cumulative effect.

Furthermore, the tide of Tanks has turned to the superdense ammunition such as Tungsten and Depleted Uranium (DU). Military thought (as opposed to conventional wisdom) suggests that tungsten, esp at close ranges will indeed defeat an M1's armor.

AND the Army doesn't want to face DU rounds. Ever.

THe other thing to consider is that the primary defense of the Abrams is not its armor but its maneuverability. The thing can accelerate like a racecar and with its ability to shoot on the move, it can literally turn circles around the opposition WHILE shooting.

As far as burning, that's easy. A Molotov cocktail will burn anything as surely as napalm. If you get something hot enough it WILL burn (or melt, or crumble, according to the attributes of the material in question.)

As to the incident cited, I haven't heard about it so I can't answer about that.

Hope this helps (or motivates someone smarter or more knowledgeable to reply.)

[Camillus]

The Abrams has extremely good frontal armour and excellent mobility but several were damaged so badly during the current conflict that they had to be abandoned. Only one was completely destroyed; it hit a land mine in October 2003 and two crew of its crew were killed. One fell off a bridge (either because the bridge collapsed or because the driver was killed by sniper fire; reports vary) and was lost.

Some of the damaged ones fell victim to RPG rounds that penetrated weaker rear armour and started fires in the engine compartment or external fuel cells (there's also at least one case where this occured following hits from medium-calibre weapons) and one was damaged by a hit to turret ready main gun ammunition that subsequently detonated (the crew were unharmed because the tank's internal blast doors worked as designed). One Abrams was disabled near Najaf by 25 mm armour-piercing depleted uranium (AP-DU) rounds (from an, as yet, unidentified weapon) that penetrated the engine compartment.

There were no losses to enemy tank guns and there is no solid evidence that any Abrams was attacked by Russian Kornet E anti-tank missiles, although these had reportedly been supplied to Iraq by Syria in 2002.

As far as I know paint related fires haven't been a factor in M1 losses :)

Hope that helps

[Lexx]

Originally Posted by Mark Caliber

Well, the exact armor composition of the M1 is still highly classified. They don't want even the operators to know much about it (because they'd be inclined to tell people like ME about that kind of stuff ;) )

What we do know is that the armor is ablaitive in nature so multiple hits against the armor will have a cumulative effect.

Furthermore, the tide of Tanks has turned to the superdense ammunition such as Tungsten and Depleted Uranium (DU). Military thought (as opposed to conventional wisdom) suggests that tungsten, esp at close ranges will indeed defeat an M1's armor.

AND the Army doesn't want to face DU rounds. Ever.

THe other thing to consider is that the primary defense of the Abrams is not its armor but its maneuverability. The thing can accelerate like a racecar and with its ability to shoot on the move, it can literally turn circles around the opposition WHILE shooting.

As far as burning, that's easy. A Molotov cocktail will burn anything as surely as napalm. If you get something hot enough it WILL burn (or melt, or crumble, according to the attributes of the material in question.)

As to the incident cited, I haven't heard about it so I can't answer about that.

Hope this helps (or motivates someone smarter or more knowledgeable to reply.)

It's no secret that the abrams uses chobham armor, which is made of layers of high density metal and layers of synthetic saphire fibers, the saphire fibers are woven into sheets that help break up the incoming plasma jet from a normal HEAT round because the saphire fibers are more heat resistant than metal.

That was in Omni way back in the early 1980's.

[Perfect Organism]

Originally Posted by Lexx

...the saphire fibers are woven into sheets that help break up the incoming plasma jet from a normal HEAT round because the saphire fibers are more heat resistant than metal.

Plasma jet? I understood it was a jet of molten metal.

[Lexx]

Originally Posted by Perfect Organism

Plasma jet? I understood it was a jet of molten metal.

Superheated metal, plasma, some people describe it either way.

[Cybrludite]

I've got info & links on this, but have to get ready for work. If it's slow tonight, I'll post the info.