The tank in battle.....

[dinkydow]

......I was not a treaded during my years in the US Army....but....I have some experience with armor. I watch the footage taken by Ukrainian attack drones taking out Russian armor, tanks. APCs, etc. And hmmm... i noticed all those ukranian drones diving and successfully destroying the Russian armor. And ALL, atracks have/had one thing in common. THEY ALL DIVE THROUGH OPEN HATCHES on the armor. Based on the effectiveness of this tactic... many
wags have declared that the tank is obsolete. Well... how effective would those drone attacks have been if the armor had been buttoned up?

This is not to say that contemporary anti-armor rockets, etc., are not effective. Also anti-armor defense systems are and will be under development. So, the idea that tanks are obsolete now....because Russian tanks do not have HVAC to cope with, "buttoned up," temperatures in the Summertime....well. That's on them. By now, I would imagine that most of our armor can maintain a "shirtsleeves" working environment inside.

[Sanders]

Armor is also thinnest on the top compared to the rest of the tank. That's why the earlier drones were dropping RPG7 grenades onto them and popping them like corks - US M1 Abrams, German Leopards, and British Centurians, not to mention the old Russkie tanks the Ukes had.

[dinkydow]

An RPG7 is not a grenade. It is collectivly the shaped charge rocket used in an Rocket Propelled Grenade Launcher. The tube and the rocket together are an RPG. The 7 is the most modern launch tube and most improved shaped charge rocket/munition together.
i have never heard of an RPG hand grenade.
Anyone?

[dinkydow]

Yes top attack is where the US AGM Javilin anti-tank system begins its work. It's effective against a class "A" armor thickness that is truly impressive. That whole "forging a small billet of copper" into a near plasma temperature blast that zips through steel like a hot knife through butter...leaving a hole you could cover with a quarter...but...
spraying the interior of the tank and its contents, controls, crew, ready ammunition, etc., with near plasma temp copper and BOOM! FINI TANK.

[Pogo]

I have a plasma cutter and it makes my gas cutting torch obsolete.

[4thIDvet]

An RPG7 is not a grenade. It is collectivly the shaped charge rocket used in an Rocket Propelled Grenade Launcher. The tube and the rocket together are an RPG. The 7 is the most modern launch tube and most improved shaped charge rocket/munition together.
i have never heard of an RPG hand grenade.
Anyone?

I think they have the RPG-10 now dinky?

MA-10 - Centre for Information Resilience

Hell the $100 a month we got the bullets zipping by were bad enough. But those damn RPGs really pissed me off besides scaring the piss out of me. 😀
Grenade? Ah hell I guess if yah drop it on someone's head and it goes off yah could call it a grenade? I read where the theory for the RPG was developed right here in the U.S. years ago and the govt. rejected it as a no go? The Ruskies liked it and the rest is history. Hit burn through and then go off? dink yah remember the heavy chicken wire in front of the tanks stationed on the sides of the roads?
They had the wire in front of all the bunkers at Pleiku. Now they have wire mesh on top of all the tanks to stop the drones.

[STG44]

RPGs Idea comes from ww2 Panzerfaust

[4thIDvet]

Interesting thank you STG44..

[dinkydow]

I saw, in the RVN, when US M48 and M41 ARVN tanks and M113 APCs would set up their NDPs they always had rolls of chain link fence to further protect their positions in the "hull down," positions.
I shot off a couple dozen rounds of HE using a Russian RPG...in the RVN. I found the Russian RPG? to be easy to use and pretty impressive. I saw where they went through an M48s turret armor and exploded inside the tank. Guys told me they penetrated the side of an M113 APC and out the other side. THAT I did not see the aftermath of.

[44044]

Tanks…Big Targets

[dinkydow]

Tanks…Big Targets

Big armored fast targets that are bristling with guns and technology. They are very intimidating especially at night. A SF camp was over run when a Warsaw pact PT77 APC, drove through the wire and cleared the way for NVA Infantry to breach the defenses. At that time it was considered impossible for enemy armor to enter the theater. The camps were not designed with armor probes in mind.
afterwards....LAW rockets were in good supply. The gooks could not hold the camp against the US Military. It was a teachable moment for some brass.

I saw an M151 jeep that was airlifted out of there. It had a recoiles rifle mounted. The flechetts from the helicopter gunships and the Cobras, 2.75 rockets had made Swiss cheese out of it and looking it over i doubt a quarter could have covered a spot of sheetmetal That did not have 3-4 flechete holes in it. Even the recklees rek had holes in the barrel....everywhere.

I kept three LAW tubes in my hooch after that.

[GARANDNUT]

Many of the drone videos showing the destruction of tanks with open hatches are tanks that are abandoned by their crews and being taken out to remove them so they cannot be recovered. If you notice in those videos the tanks are not moving and you do not see people inside the hatches. I would say many of those tanks are disabled by mines and the crew bails, then the drones come in and drops a charge in the open hatches.

If the tank is occupied and undamaged the video usually shows the drones hitting between the turret and hull at the turret ring or hitting the engine vents in the back of the tank.

[Johnny]

In Iraq I was a civil affairs officer. Prior to that, I was field artillery for 80% of my career. For me in Mosul, Iraq, tanks were used effectively to lead convoys. They were so big and heavy that they could simply roll over and crush most Iraqi IEDs. There was an intimidation factor as well. Insurgents didn't want to mess with tanks.

[dinkydow]

I heard on the radio that an EMP device was being field tested by the US Army. It kills drones as soon as it is within range of the drones. An EMP device "frys" silicon based electronics instantly.

[Johnny]

I heard on the radio that an EMP device was being field tested by the US Army. It kills drones as soon as it is within range of the drones. An EMP device "frys" silicon based electronics instantly.

I'm pleased to hear research on drone counter-measures are going forward at full speed. War is a terrible thing, but there's something unnatural about a fat kid on a couch being able to dispatch hardened combat soldiers with nothing but a game controller and a bowl of potato chips.