Why the Iraqis had a problem with US tanks at night

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

Do you think it would have mattered if they, the T-72s, were manned by Russian crews?

Yes. Russian crews would have sat in better versions of the T-72 and in the T-80, and would have had better ammo. As I said, they probably would have been eaten in 91 and 03 nevertheless, but they would have set up more of a fight, and I expect they would have caused higher losses. And where the Russian tank crews would have been, there also would have been Russian infantry, Russian infantry-fired SAMs, Russian Flak-tanks, and other Russian army material. The latest Russian Panzerfausts/RPGs are anything but subtle on tanks. And who knows - maybe there would have been plenty of Russian artillery as well. Plus Russian satellite intel and ELINT.

It makes little sense to single out a single variable only and by that judging the outcome of a complete war, which is a complex formula with much more than just variable. And if their tacticval analysts are worth their payment, they have learned from the Mujaheddin during their Afghanistan war what Panzerfausts can do to overwhelming tank forces, if the right tactics are used. Panjshir valley, anyone? The Russians lost dozens and dozens of Ts and BMPs there.

[Stealhead]

The Russians would not have been sitting in fixed potions waiting for the Americans to come they would have been ramming every single tank they had through 73 Easting trying to overwhelm the Americans.

In fact the roles where reversed from the norm in Fulda the NATO tanks would have moved from position to position trying to destroy as many T-72s/80s as possible they would likely have performed tactical retreats(realistically) to move into better defensive positions more or less extending the hour of doomday by perhaps a few days.

The IRG foolishly thought that our crews would not be able to hit the low profile that the turrets of their tanks made while inside their dugouts.I guess the did not get the memo that US crews train on the range to find identify and engage targets in mere seconds they also likely had no idea the true accuracy of of guns they must have had a good idea of our optical capability because they did try to hide the T-72s as much as possible.They more than likely hoped that the Abrams crews would within very close range where they actually have a chance of doing some damage.

Interesting side note the ballistics computers in the Abrams can also work with the commanders .50 cal and the coaxial M240.A Marine Abrams in 2003 saw some Saddam Fedayeen rounding up towns people likely to use as human shields so they crew decided to take out one of the Fedayeen with one round from the .50 cal they where over a mile away and hit and obviously killed the man the towns people figured out that something was blowing away the unwanted with amazing accuracy so they kept luring more and more Fedayeen into the center of town and the Abrams kept icking them off with one shot from the .50 and the coaxial 7.62mm(they where slowly moving closer to the town) .I wonder if they even knew that there was a tank doing all the killing?Allah strikes down our foes they likely thought. Cant think of the name of the book I read this in it was written by a former USMC general Bing West I think the author witnessed the event.

[Skybird]

Over 1 mile - a .50, and no dispersion, no spray and so precise on target that it picks a selected person within a group of persons and with just one and the first round? Very hard to believe, I admit.

Even more, the cal .50 is the commander'S weapon that doe snot get operated by the gunner'S primary sights. He can give a more precise range by lasing the target of course, but still the TC needs to use the purely optical sight for the .50. Without magnification. Elevation done via handcranks, not by just pointing and swinging the weapon like a LMG on a tripod. And then just one shot? Heck, this is no sharpshooting rifle, this is no M107.

You can see auxiliary sight'S design from various vehicles (LAV, M2, M1, Leo1, Leo2) in this essay, scroll down the text a bit.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=191272

I check that with the eSim forums. Many tankers there, probably somebody there has heared the story if it is true. But I have a hard time that you even can use the tank'S main aiming devices to precisley pick a single person in a group of person at over 1 mile and avoid the dispersion, always hitting with just one round.

[Karle94]

Up until Irqaq in 2003, the longest kill ever by a gun was in Vietnam, and the weapon; a Ma Deuce with a sniper scope. The weapon is well capable of making those shots, even at almost 2,5 kilometers.

[Skybird]

It is about the .50's sight of the TC that is anything but a sniper scope, the inevitable dispersion, the likelihhod of repatedly hitting on first shoit, with a single round fired only. The rahnge of the .50 is not the question here. I question is if with that setup such a precision could be reliably acchieved over that distance. And there my difficulty starts to believe this story. 1 mile, that is 1600 meters! He says the range was in excess of that! Aiming a human without a scoped precision rifle, hitting with just one round, no salvo, no dispersion. There are heavier callibres, autocannons, that inevitably see disperson patterns at that range.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

The Russians would not have been sitting in fixed potions waiting for the Americans to come they would have been ramming every single tank they had through 73 Easting trying to overwhelm the Americans.

In fact the roles where reversed from the norm in Fulda the NATO tanks would have moved from position to position trying to destroy as many T-72s/80s as possible they would likely have performed tactical retreats(realistically) to move into better defensive positions more or less extending the hour of doomday by perhaps a few days.

That's exactly what makes me ponder about the K-5 ERA that the Soviets had, given that the US forces hoped to make as many kills as possible before un-assing to the next rally point it would mean that more Soviet tanks would survive initial contact, thus giving the Soviet forces more momentum to take the push forward.
Of course, it's immaterial since initial Soviet doctrine called for a liberal dispersal of nuclear weapons on the first day and it wouldn't have changed the fate of things like the BMPs, BRDMs (Bolshevik Recce Death Machine) and BTRs, nor would it change the fate of the Soviet armour when faced with CAS, however CAS itself would have to dodge the mounted AAA and SAM units that would move with the front.

I must carry on reading Team Yankee.

[Skybird]

I did a quick check in SBP, and took some screenies.

"In excess of 1 mile". For the sake of simplicity, assume it means one and a quarter mile, that would be 1600 + 400 = 2000 meters.

Also assume, the enemy was hidding in a village, there was cover, he tried to hide and run around and after realising he was under attack he certainly did not just stand still in the open.

Below you see a couple of screenshots on a flat and featureless terrain. The tank is a M1A1(HA). Mind you, the sim is said to give quite accurate physics and visual dimensions of its sights, because real men use it for demonstration and training for the real hardware.

The setting is as such: I have set up BMP-2 (flank shown) at precise range of 1000m, 1500m, and 2010m (cannot help the 10 meters ) Attached to each BMP, in line formation, is infantry laying flat on the ground, facing the Abrams. They were placed exactly at these ranges , and in a was so that all three groups can be seen simultaneously in the sights.

The original pics are jpgs at 1680er resolution. I use imageshack to reduce them to 1280.

General overview:


Gunner'S primary sight, thermal, unzoomed (x4):


Gunner's primary sight, thermal, zoomed (x10)



Gunner's primary sight, optical, x10


Gunner's auxiliary sights


Commander's turret vision block


And Tatarataaaa: commander's cal.50 sight:


Mind you: we are talking about 1 1/4 mile. That means 2000m - the most distanced row of targets. One mile distance would be slightly behind the medium row of targets.

The gunner should have no problem to lay his crosshairs ointo a target the size of a man at ranges 1000, 1500 and 2000 meters. With the auxiliars sights it is more difficult, but still possible. The commander's cal.50 sights certainly enable him to target vehicles and hit them with a salvo, but you already expect some missing rounds here. Hitting a single man with only one round and the first shot witb these sights, repeatdly, and dispersion not messing up the ballistics at all, I assume to be almost impossible. You have dispersion even when firing rounds from a 25, 30 or 40 mm autocannon. The gunner can use the coax and lay sights on a man at 2000 m, still, even at below 1000m you would have a dispersion that make it extremely likely that you will need several salvos or one long one.

Note that the sights of the commander end line markings at the range of 1600 meters! There is no marking included for the 2000 m range.

The TC can rain fire on a group of people at that target, and with a long salvo he will hit many of them. But one shot per target only? No.

(BMP-2 is 2.45 m in height. So three quarters of its height, and you have a man 1.80 meters tall - that gives an idea of how high a standing man would appear in those pics.)

[Skybird]

Ssnake has practically ruled out any believable liklihood for the TC using one .50 round to hit a man at a range exceeding 1 miles, almost 2 km. The longest confirmed sniper shot with .50 ammunition he said was at around 1800m - but that was a dedicated sniper gun, dedicated scope, trained sniper, and special sniper ammunition that is designed to minimise dispersion - ammo that is not used on the M1. Not too mention, he added, the mounting of the .50 on the M1 that makes such precise fire and easy handling even more difficult. And as I already have illustrated, the sights of the TC for the .50 simply do not allow such precise fire.

The coax is linked to ballistic computers in every modern tank, because the gunner operates it via his primary sights anyway. While the tank was approaching and killing distance, it is possible that they may have taken out infantry with it - that'S what it is there for. But again, I doubt the range given, the dispersion of the coax is not any nicier than that of the .50., and it takes salvos, not single shots for sure. In the sim, it sprays even at several hundred meters only. 2 km is not the distance you use it at. Not even close. Low hundreds.

[MH]

0.5 slaved to main sights should do the job with short burst.

[Stealhead]

I admit I read this a few years back and memory of the exact wording is not certain it may have said short bursts at any rate the tank crew was confidant enough engage the hostiles without concern for hitting the non combatants.

I am pretty sure that they where not standing side by side the towns people where probably 20 or 30 feet away but still it gives you an idea what is possible.The enemy was in plain sight in the center of the town like whack a mole.

Skybird you are also comparing a sim to a real life tank that sim likely does not know the classified bits of information on optics and such that a real tank does know so keep that in mind.The sim could be fairly accurate in certain respects.There are also very likely things that a real tank crew can do that can not be done in that sim.

For example the AH-64 Apache the Hellfire missiles a very skilled crew can actually fire two Hellfires (the laser guided one) at two separate targets in a salvo this takes great skill and some timing but US Army and Royal Flying Corps have done so with success on more than one occasion.This has even been performed by an Apache crew in a case where it was also the laser designation source.

Real life war fighters can do things in combination with their resources that a sim even the kind that they use to train with simply can not simulate.

I hunt and I have seen game animals through optics at such ranges even with my much cruder equipment objects do not look blokish as they do in your screens.the troops look like a squre turd with a hat on when with human eyes and true high quality optics they would look like a man not a square turd you can not seriously consider your comparison to have any legitimacy when we all know the humans eyes see things better than that.

[Red October1984]

Originally Posted by Oberon

The Whispering Death.

It can see you, you can't see it, you can't hear it, and then it reaches out and touches you.

M1A2 Abrams, soiling Middle Eastern underpants since 1991.

M1A2 did, i believe enter service in 1992 as somebody said above.



M1 Abrams tanks PERIOD. Soil pants around the world.

[MH]

I admit I read this a few years back and memory of the exact wording is not certain it may have said short bursts at any rate the tank crew was confidant enough engage the hostiles without concern for hitting the non combatants.

Precision of some MG's is very underestimated but actually while not being sniper rifles MG's on stable platform with good sights can be very precise.

Or lets just say precise enough.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by MH

Precision of some MG's is very underestimated but actually while not being sniper rifles MG's on stable platform with good sights can be very precise.

Or lets just say precise enough.

Unless the barrel falls off:

[Stealhead]

Someone did not follow instructions when they replaced the barrel on that .50.

With Soviet Bloc gear that never would happen.







(I like the second top rated comment)

@ MH I would argue that an MG mounted on a tank is in the most stable state that it could be in and therefore also most accurate.An MG on a well placed tripod mount and using human hand control can place a very tight grouping with the quality of a tank mount and all that comes with it it can only get better.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

I admit I read this a few years back and memory of the exact wording is not certain it may have said short bursts at any rate the tank crew was confidant enough engage the hostiles without concern for hitting the non combatants.

I am pretty sure that they where not standing side by side the towns people where probably 20 or 30 feet away but still it gives you an idea what is possible.The enemy was in plain sight in the center of the town like whack a mole.

Skybird you are also comparing a sim to a real life tank that sim likely does not know the classified bits of information on optics and such that a real tank does know so keep that in mind.The sim could be fairly accurate in certain respects.There are also very likely things that a real tank crew can do that can not be done in that sim.

For example the AH-64 Apache the Hellfire missiles a very skilled crew can actually fire two Hellfires (the laser guided one) at two separate targets in a salvo this takes great skill and some timing but US Army and Royal Flying Corps have done so with success on more than one occasion.This has even been performed by an Apache crew in a case where it was also the laser designation source.

Real life war fighters can do things in combination with their resources that a sim even the kind that they use to train with simply can not simulate.

I hunt and I have seen game animals through optics at such ranges even with my much cruder equipment objects do not look blokish as they do in your screens.the troops look like a squre turd with a hat on when with human eyes and true high quality optics they would look like a man not a square turd you can not seriously consider your comparison to have any legitimacy when we all know the humans eyes see things better than that.

I have taken that into account what you say about sim versus real life. It's just that the claim raised here was so absurd to me that I felt confident that the screenies do no damage, but just illustrate a point I tried to make, one of severals. In this case it was to show the size difference of the target as seen through the various sights. As you can see, the gunners primary has a good chance to lock onto an individual man at 2000, even more so when he stands tall and still. But then you still have the probelm of bullet dispersion. Even 25, 30 and 40mm autocannons already have a dispersion at 2000 m that create a randomised pattern on a vehicle: a man at 2000, they can hit - or miss by half a meter.

Browning M2 cal.50 have been used for sniping. But they were fitted with sniuper scopes, and used dedicated mounts and deciated ammunition. No matter how precise you aim - the standard ammo has dispersion patterns that you cannot avoid, they are a physical fact. I doubt that they arm sniper ammuntion into M1 cal.50 these day, don't they?

Another guy linked me to this legendary sniper, who used the Cal.50 for sure, at ranges of 1000 yards, and inlduing his record kill at 2500 yards. But he was not sitting in a tank, he had special ammo, another weapon mount, another training, he had not to fight with the M1's weapon mount of the .50 .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Hathcock

Hathcock generally used the standard sniper rifle: the Winchester Model 70 .30-06 caliber rifle with the standard 8-power Unertl scope. On some occasions, however, he used a different weapon: the M2 Browning machine gun, on which he mounted a 10X Unertl scope, using a bracket of his own design. Hathcock made a number of kills with this weapon in excess of 1,000 yards, including his record for the longest confirmed kill at 2,500 yards.

Physically, the weapon and callibre has the range, and even more, no doubt. But aiming with needed precision and avoiding dispersion - that is where the tricks are done.