Abrams and other modern armor vs RPG

[dm 9]

dude tow missles are actually really nice... those things will take out an abrams. but only the US and our allys have them so we dont really need to worry bout that now do we lol, anyways, i believe the BEST anti tank weapon is a properly trained sniper with an M82A1 .50Cal sniper rifle with depleated uranium ammunition. that thing CAN put a hole through an M1A1/A2 front to back. including through the engine. just figure out where the ammo is stored and put a round in it, witch the tank blow into pieces lol, and the US and our allys only have those too, so dont need to worry bout that either.

Following on from Pathy's post, you have a certain "armchair expert" feel about you

Comments like "only US and our allies have them so we dont need to worry" is utter BS. You can get ANY small arm/portable weapon on the black market if you have the money. Plus there are plenty of comparable systems available from countries much more "enemy friendly" like China (the love to copy) and former Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact contries.

Now, I dont claim to be a learned expert on the subject, but I find it hard to believe that a .50 round, even DU, which can weigh little more than 50g has the KE required to penetrate the FULL 9m length of an M1 including free space, engines and armour. Especially through the frontal glacis armour, which even 120mm rounds sometimes have trouble with. (Please note, I'm not an M1 fanboi, and can only reference what I've read on places like fas/globalsecurity and in Janes)

Again the "only US and our allies have them so we dont need to worry" is complete bull, as pretty much every self-respecting military will have a .50 rifle in its inventory somewhere. I read that the eastern bloc countries are particularly good at making them.

Please, people have tried to be courteous, this forum doesn't welcome the "omg I know everything" style of armchair expert. Dial down the "omg US is best" attitude and everyone will get along great

[Edit] for grammatical sense [/edit]

[EiZei 0]

dude tow missles are actually really nice... those things will take out an abrams. but only the US and our allys have them so we dont really need to worry bout that now do we lol, anyways, i believe the

At least until the gipper's boys went and gave over 2000 of them to the iranians..

[USSRsniper 0]

please be aware that i know alot more about the military than some people that are in it. i am one of the experts in this shit. . i have been studying the military, guns tanks and everything like that sence i was frekin 5 years old. i know shitloads of stuff on the subject so... ummm ya. and about the post above this one. id personally stick with a LAW. rpg type weapons are way too big. LAWs are plastic lol. they weigh almost nothing.

And how you studiet it on google? there are millions of websites and almost all of them have different information from "Russian tanks are best" to "US tanks are best" and finally "Merkava tanks are better them abrams)   Only US has .50 cal...

[walker 0]

Hi Schattenlied

There is a murky world between government and the black market. Here is one example.

In fact we know TOWs were sold to Iran by Ronald Reagan as a pure arms sale to gain influence over Hezbollah. And later even more were sold to them as part of Iran Contra. The total was round about 1000.

Laughably the shipments went through Israel. Talk about shooting your self in the foot; this is loping your foot off with several blows of a blunt axe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_Affair

Or you can see The Tower Commision Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair issued in November 1987. By requesting it in your local public library.

Or

http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/part_ix.htm

Or do a Google search.

From reading the available AARs from the IDF it apears it was predominantly AT3 Saggers that caused the problem. TOWs and Milan were said to have been discovered.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1678137/posts

As to source like the Milan and TOW they are often found on black market. They are sold all over the world and turn up in the strangest places. Like any weapon they sometines get stolen.

http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/tow/tow_chronology.html

I am not aware of a specific arms anti proliferation treaty regarding Anti Tank Guided Missiles (ATGM) There is one for Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) as part of The Wassenaar Arrangement's signed back in 2000.

http://fas.org/asmp/campaigns/MANPADS/MANPADS.html

As to black market sources for TOWs a certain Viktor Anatolyevich Bout springs to mind. The Nicholas Cage character in the film "Lords of War" is said to be based on him.

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

I reccomend seeing the film.

For info on Viktor Bout.

My favourite little potted history of this man

http://www.ruudleeuw.com/vbout00.htm

Here is the rogues gallery of possible sources for TOW and other systems. The guy from Florida will even offer you a SCUD from his website. The Swiss just caught him and put him in Jail though.

http://www.pbs.org/frontli....ws.html

The murky trade still goes on. Viktor Bout's aircraft were involved in 200,000 AK 47s going missing in Iraq. The US company Haliburton's Subsiduary Kellogg Brown and Root contracted work with Viktor Bout's Aerocom. At least one particular deal involvinv lost AKs tracks through CACI (you will remember them as the they were the Civilian Contractor involved in the worst exesses at Abu Ghraib) The AKs have been said to be turning up among insurgents in Iraq and to be responcible for the rising level of violence there.

As I said there is a murky trade in weapons where the disitinction between government and black market seems to disapear. That is the most likly source of TOWs being used in Lebanon.

There are also signs that TOW and similar weapons systems are being copied and resold.

Kind Regards Walker

[snoops_213 75]

Systems such as ARENA and Trophy and other APS's being developed should limit some of the effects that current ATGMs are managing to do to armour. However like all lessons learnt in combat someone will come up with a way to defeat APS's aswell. I was surprised to learn though, even though Trophy is undergoing fielding tests with IDF none of the systems were used in the recent conflict. Would it have made a difference? Maybe maybe not, but at the moment from what i understand of the system, i think it would have helped.

There will always be RPG/ATGMs of some description around aslong as people use armour/armoured fortifications. And as we are seeing sophistication of these devices will also increase as thier targets increase in sophistication. AT-3/AT-5 are older weapons yes, but with newer warheads (increased sophistication) they were able to take out one of the worlds most formidable MBTs. What is the next move? I've read some intresting theories and seen some devices that are supposedly being developed that will even neutralise Mortar/ Artillery in-flight( Ground Based Lasers, theres a good video out there showing this) and stop SABOT/HEAT/RPG/ATGM rounds(Trophy APS) before they hit the armour.

My conculsion is that there will always be a market for RPGs and they will adapt along with the modern armour. And as for some mid east countries developing their own RPG/ATGMs, it was bound to happen sooner or later, send enough of them to the top Uni's world wide when they go home they would have the skills needed to create the weapons their countries would want. Oooops!

Just my 2 cents

[*Pete* 0]

i dont have a source, but there is a mortar-round that becomes a selfguiding antitank weapon once fired.

it folds out wings after fired and can stay airborne much longer than normal mortal rounds, it has a camera and a computer and scans the battlefield for tanks...once it finds a target it dives down on the top of the tank (weakest armour).

there is no protection against this weapon and as opposed of normal antitank weapons the attacker doesnt have to be in range of the tank, the attacker can be far behind a hill and fire blindly on to suspected locations and still score deadly hits on tanks they dont even see.

why so few tanks do get taken out in wars is becouse the wars recently have been very assymetrical technologically.

in a real war between 2 nations with equal technology, the tank will be, as all other weapons, become a piece in a chess game, they all serve a purpose and all can be taken out by something else.

[Schattenlied 0]

yes the m82A1 can put a round through any tank front to back, and i didnt learn this shit from websites alright, i didnt study this shit from websites, ive studyed the actual specs of basically everything that every military uses, from U.S miltary documents, not internet bullshit

[walker 0]

Hi Schattenlied

Internet sources are all that people can show on the forum. Some such sources are more reliable than others.

You seem a little vague on your sources. Mine I am open about; as are most people contributing to the thread. You are invited to query any of them and present any evidense to you have to counter them. This is the purpose of this particular debate.

We are of course considering whether Armor including the Abrams has a future on the battlefield in the light of advances in Anti Tank weapons. We are particularly considering infantry portable weapons. So the British 81 mm guided AT Mortar round or the man portable version of the Swedish STRIX system can be considered alongside the more usual RPG LAW and the various infantry ATGMs.

I think this article by Kalki Gaur on the "End of the Age of Tank Warfare in Age of Anti-Tank PGMs" may be worth a read.

http://my.opera.com/kalkigaur/blog/show.dml/450204

Kind Regards Walker

[Pathy 0]

yes the m82A1 can put a round through any tank front to back, and i didnt learn this shit from websites alright, i didnt study this shit from websites, ive studyed the actual specs of basically everything that every military uses, from U.S miltary documents, not internet bullshit

Do you have any actual experience or evidence of what you're talking about?

[sniperuk02 0]

I know fuck all about tanks and guns.

But how can a .50cal bullet do more damage than a 120mm anti tank shell?

[*Pete* 0]

yes the m82A1 can put a round through any tank front to back.

fine....

in this case, tell me why the tank itself is armed with a megasized cannon able to fire very heavy rounds against other tanks...and even with those super megasized guns its far from normal to fire right through a tank (modern tank)

so, mr military expert...explain to me why there is a lack of anti-tank-tanks armed with 50 cal rifles...or even 50 cal miniguns so that they could be able to take out dozens of tanks in a matter of seconds......

and why at all they would bother to have these supersized heavy weapons on the tank at all.......to look scarier?

dont worry about sources, ill take your word for it.....

[Pathy 0]

If 50 cal rounds could pierce a tanks armour from end to end, that would make tanks obsolete. All you'd need is one 50 cal machine gun and you could kill a tank with ease, tanks just wouldnt be worth building.

However.

They can't.

Even without extensive knowledge, anyone with the slightest degree of common sense knows that it just ain't happening.

However, shattenlied seems to be lacking in that department.

[sniperuk02 0]

Thought so....

[Jezz 0]

he probably belongs to group of people that believe 12.7mm fired from aircraft could kill a tiger tank if it was bounced off of the road to hit underneath it

[mr burns 133]

Maybe just a troll? Another guess (from his nick) would be that he´s used to more magical superweapons from spellforce2 and so as a matter of fact .. he pwns us all

I´m outta here.

PS: Thanks to walker for the link, will make for a good monday morning read

[EiZei 0]

I suppose the 14.5mm PTRD anti-tank gun made by the soviets during ww2 is the pinnacle of anti-armour technology then..

[sniperuk02 0]

Well I learned from red orchestra that if you aim at the driver.....

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

Well I learned from red orchestra that if you aim at the driver.....

hehe

Seriously, there isn't much an RPG can do towards and ABRAMS in any part of the tank.

[ozanzac 0]

yes the m82A1 can put a round through any tank front to back, and i didnt learn this shit from websites alright, i didnt study this shit from websites, ive studyed the actual specs of basically everything that every military uses, from U.S miltary documents, not internet bullshit

I'd like to know which round, you're in reference too...

[BlackScorpion 0]

Only things that come into mind are SLAP and Mk211 Raufoss rounds, and afaik both have a rolled steel penetration of less than 4 inches.

Eh?

[WhoCares 0]

... i believe the BEST anti tank weapon is a properly trained sniper with an M82A1 .50Cal sniper rifle with depleated uranium ammunition. .... just figure out where the ammo is stored and put a round in it, witch the tank blow into pieces ...

As answer to this, another quote from the link I posted on page 1 of this thread:

Quote[/b] ]Turret ammunition blast doors worked as designed

Documented instance where turret ready rack compartment hit and main gun rounds ignited. Blast doors contained the explosion and crew survived unharmed except for fume inhalation

Just to put it in other words, the tank was hit (by whatever weapon, it probably wasn't a .50cal DU round...) into the ammo storage, one shell of the main gun ignited, but the tank was far from blown up into pieces. Well, at least the crew was basically unharmed.

Regarding DU rounds (also from the link on page 1)

Quote[/b] ]Documented instances where 25mm AP-DU and above ammunition disabled a tank from the rear

Seems they only got in from the rear into the engine compartment - though no indication that they went through the whole tank... But maybe the smaller .50cal round has it easier to find its way through the more effective armour

Interesting would be to talk about what kind of weapons the Iraqis used that fires 25mm (and above) AP-DU rounds. Are RPG darts made of such material?

[dm 9]

He "referenced" a DU .50 round. But I really cant see the penetration jumping from 4 inches to 9 meters just because the round is DU.

Maybe in Eraser land where they have x-ray railguns, but not in the real world matey.

[snoops_213 75]

Well I learned from red orchestra that if you aim at the driver.....

hehe

Seriously, there isn't much an RPG can do towards and ABRAMS in any part of the tank.

Not quite true. All tanks have weak points. Hit a weak point and see ya later. Top of any tank and usually the rear have the smalles t amount of armor. Thats why tankers train to keep the front of the tank always pointed towards the enemy. In an urban enviroment if someone was in a building above a tank and fired an RPG/LAW ontop of the tank, bye bye tank. Thats why in urban enviroments infantry/fast armored vehicles are a better choice than say an M1.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]

Not quite true. All tanks have weak points. Hit a weak point and see ya later. Top of any tank and usually the rear have the smalles t amount of armor. Thats why tankers train to keep the front of the tank always pointed towards the enemy. In an urban enviroment if someone was in a building above a tank and fired an RPG/LAW ontop of the tank, bye bye tank. Thats why in urban enviroments infantry/fast armored vehicles are a better choice than say an M1.

That´s why there´s TUSK

TUSK to update Abrams for urban battle

There are several infantry weapon systems used by dubious regimes that are infact a danger to MBT´s of all classes.

There´s just not enough intel on who is operating the systems.

There were some reports from Lebanon but up to now I have only seen a few of the named weapon systems shown by IDF in the aftermath.

Incomplete list of infantry AT weapons used or suspected to be used/posessed by hostile local militias with effect on today´s MBT´s:

RPG-27/29

ATGM´s:

9M111

9M111-2

9M113

9M113-1

TOW

9M14

9M14M

9M151

RaaD

RaaD-T

Milan

Toophan

9M131M Metis-M

9M133 Kornet-E (maybe confused with Konkurs)

The DU ammo myth´s still rolling as I can see

[EiZei 0]

That´s why there´s TUSK

TUSK to update Abrams for urban battle

Which got canned if I am not mistaken.