M1 Abrams Tank

[Thor]

March 2003 Al KUT, Iraq

Recon 1 “Tank 1,000 meters”

Recon 7 (me) “what is it”

Recon 1 “I don’t know”

Recon 7 “so you can’t see it”

Recon 1 “ I see it I don’t know what it is”

Recon 7 “ moving up on your north side about 100 meters”

Recon 7 “that’s a T34 looks knocked out”

True story!

We use the bore evacuator among other things to ID different tank varieties.
Recon 1 was a young guy and the T34 was no longer in his flash cards.

Brad’s rules of combat
Rule #17 Tanks are dangerous they can kill you in many ways, stay away from them and stay out of sight of them and run from them if exposed.

Ground troops always multiply the number of tanks they see be a factor of 10.

To add to rule #17, tanks are made to kill, they don't care who they kill. Be careful around tanks. (nothing quite like closing a 450lb grill door on your toes...and yes it closed)

 

[Alamo]

To add to rule #17, tanks are made to kill, they don't care who they kill. Be careful around tanks...

when I was stationed in Germany from 86 to 91, The stars and stripes newspaper regularly had articles about bad outcomes for soldier versus tank at Grafenwoehr and elsewhere. I’m an Air Force guy, but from the articles I picked up it’s probably a bad idea to sleep on ground anywhere near a tank, they seem to have a tendency to start up and drive over you in middle of the night. Also if you’re driving an APC At night, try not to look like a target because an Abrams training round will go right through one side and out the other.

Mercedes versus Abram doesn’t go well either Some German gal tried to pass a convoy on the autobahn and hit an Abrams. There were pictures of pieces of Mercedes, and probably Frauelein, scattered all over the pavement; the M1 had scratches.

 

[johntheplinker]

To add to rule #17, tanks are made to kill, they don't care who they kill. Be careful around tanks. (nothing quite like closing a 450lb grill door on your toes...and yes it closed)

Ain't that the truth! Got more than 1 calcium deposit and scar to show for it. I even stopped a traversing turret with my foot. Got lucky, escaped with a couple of broken toes instead of losing them.

 

[Thor]

I picked up it’s probably a bad idea to sleep on ground anywhere near a tank, they seem to have a tendency to start up and drive over you in middle of the night.

At Ft. Irwin there was a new medic assigned to an armored ambulance who was concerned that since he was new that the crew would forget about him and drive over him, so he took his sleeping bag over the hill to bed down. Of course that's where I drove over him with an M48A5, didn't know about it until we were told hours later.

Army training, expect casualties. It was during the first live fire exercise with A-10s.

 

[Alamo]

.. drove over him with an M48A5..

Ugh. RIP soldier. The first casualty of Operation Desert Shield was a USAF staff sergeant in Saudi Arabia who was sleeping on the flight line in an area roped off for rest breaks. Somebody in a pick-up truck, not seeing the rest area because the base was in complete blackout conditions, drove over him.

 

[Alamo]

Nice shot of the bore evacuator and other stuff:

Taken a couple days ago: [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif]https://strategypage.com/military_photos/military_photos_20191123125148.aspx#article-archive[/FONT]

 

[Cameramonkey]

On a related note, this is an interesting documentary on the battle of 73 Easting. I watched it a couple months ago. Figured those in here would appreciate it.

[video=youtube;tJNk7DcFIkk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJNk7DcFIkk[/video]

 

[Thor]

Okay, got through about 12 minutes of that. We were not afraid of the soviet armed Iraqis, they were going to die like the soviets would have...unable to stand before us. Those who say this was a contest that would have resulted in our sustaining significant casualties have no idea what they were talking about.

 

[blue2golf]

At Ft. Irwin there was a new medic assigned to an armored ambulance who was concerned that since he was new that the crew would forget about him and drive over him, so he took his sleeping bag over the hill to bed down. Of course that's where I drove over him with an M48A5, didn't know about it until we were told hours later.

Army training, expect casualties. It was during the first live fire exercise with A-10s.

Awful, but all too common.

I remember some infantry troopers sleeping on the ground and having a M113 run over them. 3 or 4 dead. We had to mark sleeping areas with chem lights after that if we were sleeping on the ground. (Being tankers, we didn't.) Ft. Hood, 1993.

 

[johntheplinker]

Yeah, stuff like that happened way too often. One reason I never slept on the ground while in the field, left front fender for me, even when on the countryside in Germany.

 

[daddyusmaximus]

Left fender in hot weather, back deck when you want to keep warm in winter...

If inside the drivers compartment, you take off your seat back and lay it in the edge of the turret ring. (make sure turret power is off, and listen for the accumulator to kick in) Lay back with the driver's NVD box as your pillow.

If in the turret, either on the banana boxes under the main gun, or on the hammock over the main gun. Unroll the recoil pad, poke a hole in the bottom. Use the breach block eye to attach it to the gun. Lower the gun a bit... hammock. Feet up by the mantlet, head up between the TC and loader's hatches.