Photos of destroyed abrams and etc - Iraq 2003

[Grenadier]

Photos of destroyed abrams and etc - Iraq 2003
many photos:
http://truewar.fateback.com/

[Helly]

Photos of destroyed abrams and etc - Iraq 2003
many photos:
http://truewar.fateback.com/

The pictures drive home the point that while the Abrams are great for tank against tank battles fought in wide open areas, it sure as hell ain't made for an urban guerilla war.

I've no love lost for Saddam Hussein and his regime but I must say that the Iraqi soldiers and/or guerillas knew what they were doing when they fired on those Abrams. Most shots were into the rear (engine) compartment, the side skirts, and in a couple of cases, the top of the turrets, areas where the armor is at its thinnest. None of the shots were fired to the frontal area. Say what you want, those RPG-7s can still wreak a lot of havoc (Black Hawks in Mogadishu and now choppers, Humvees, APCs, and Abrams in Iraq). There were reports of the Russian-made (and Syrian-supplied) AT-14 Kornet anti-tank missile being used on some of those Abrams but those reports turned out to be false.

The "Cojone EH" series of pics is especially interesting. The pictures basically jives with the news reports about that incident. An RPG-7 set alight a fuel cell after it struck the tank. The crew tried to extinguish the fire to no avail so they abandoned the tank. The tank was bombed by a coalition aircraft to avoid being captured which explains the damage to the tank and the bomb crater near it (which appears in the later pictures). You gotta wonder why that tank was all alone in that bridge though.

I'm not even going into the whole "disabled" vs. "destroyed" debate. I'm gonna say this though: urban areas are not the Abrams best friend. ;-)

Here's a few links to articles about disabled/destroyed Abrams, etc. in the past few months:

http://www.janes.com/defence/land_forces/news/jdw/jdw030620_1_n.shtml
http://www.phoenix158.org/iraq/Documented%20Coalition%20Losses.cfm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030410-m101.htm

~Helly

[Mortimer]

also those humvees have melted!

lol it reminded me at the bushfires they had at the main army base in sydney, there was a whole yard filled with melted land rovers and uni-mogs...makes you wonder how they would go against an RPG or 20,000lb bomb....as we saw in the FF incedent and with those humvees in iraq.

Are they made of aluminium?

MELTED!!

[Helly]

also those humvees have melted!

<snip>

Are they made of aluminium?

Yup, normal bodywork is made of aluminum alloy. The armored variants have fiberglass doors with composite (material similar to Kevlar) reinforcements and polycarbonate windows. Even more armor in the "Up-Armored" variants (duh). The same company that makes the armored limos that the US Presidents ride in (O'Gara-Hess) is contracted for the M1109/M1114 Up-Armored Humvees.

From the website: http://www.ogara-hess.com/mil/m1114.htm

"Armoring Specifications:
7.62mm Armor Piercing Perimeter
155mm Airburst Overhead
12lb. Front Underbody Blast
4lb. Rear Underbody Blast
White Glass Transparent Armor
Passed U.S. Army Live Fire and Blast Testing"

The Iraqis have demonstrated that RPG-7s can disable even a main battle tank like the Abrams. What more a Humvee? I guess the best solution is to kill the person aiming the RPG before he has the chance to fire.

~Henjie

[Antepilani]

No one has died in an Abrams from enemy causes. The only thing the RPG's can do to the ABRAMS is to shoot through the Grill and screw the engine up which is what happened to the ones that look chared and they can shoot through the skirt and knock out the treads. No abrams have been penetrated into the Cabin.

Disabled means it can no longer operate.

Destroyed means the tank is blown the hell apart and everyone inside is dead.

These tanks are disabled.

[specialairservice]

No one has died in an Abrams from enemy causes

I thought the Abrams that fell of the bridge and drowned the crew was because the the driver was shot by a sniper.

[Scrim]

Pretty sure that was just a rumor.

[Helly]

Pretty sure that was just a rumor.

Nope, that was true. Read through some of the links I posted above, the report is there somewhere.

[Helly]

No one has died in an Abrams from enemy causes. The only thing the RPG's can do to the ABRAMS is to shoot through the Grill and screw the engine up which is what happened to the ones that look chared and they can shoot through the skirt and knock out the treads. No abrams have been penetrated into the Cabin.

Disabled means it can no longer operate.

Destroyed means the tank is blown the hell apart and everyone inside is dead.

These tanks are disabled.

Read through the links in one of my previous posts. There were a number of troops inside Abrams tanks that were killed due to enemy fire.

It's true that no Abrams have been penetrated into the cabin though. But there are a couple of instances where the tanks were destroyed due to the ammo cooking off.

The Abrams isn't invincible, but it's probably one of the best, if not the best (and certainly most battle-tested), main battle tank in the world today.

~Helly