Bradley vs T-72

[Az]

I thought that the 25mm was a AGL, not a cannon nor a chaingun.

[Zylka]

I too thought it was mainly AGL, but able with mini HEAT rounds

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Kramerman


you know how that was destroyed, outa curiosity?

Looks to me like it was abandoned and destroyed in place. It isn't cooked off (the rear of the turret would be blown off), the burn damage seems limited to one side, commanders hatch is open, as are the access panels to the gunners site, but they have clean paint inside, so the turret clearly didn't cook forward of the ammo storage area.

There's no distribution of debris under the burned out track on the right side, so no evidence of an external impact.

[spiritof1202]

Sounds like a mobility hit, primarily.

[Ted Striker]

what's a mobility hit?

[Az]

the vehicle is left immobilized. A track is hit, maybe.

[Ted Striker]

oh okay. thanks

[Az]

That's IIRC.

[Ned]

I don't know whether this was reported earlier, but I saw the report and the interview with the Captain of the Apache troop of the 7th Cav. He stated that the Badley's 25mm gun took out the T72's.

Here's more 7th Cav. news:

No U.S. unit was engaged with the enemy earlier or more often in the war's first week than the 7th Cavalry Regiment, the screening force for the main elements of the 3rd Infantry Division. As the first unit into the Shiite town of Samawa, the 7th was introduced early to the complexities of this war, and to the perils of urban combat. Welcomed as liberators coming into town, the Americans were dodging increasingly intensive enemy fire on the way out.

"Samawa was odd, because we saw a lot of joyous people waving and cheering us, and then suddenly 20 yards away, someone in robes and civilian garb who looked just the same as everyone else would pull out an AK-47 and start firing away at us," said Chief Warrant Officer Randy Godfrey, an OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopter pilot for the 7th. "And that's the way it was the rest of the way toward the bridge on the outside of town-the farther north we pushed, the more intense the fire. The whole time, we never saw anyone in uniform."

Capt. Darren Griffin, another Kiowa pilot with the 7th, says that Samawa left a lasting and bitter impression with him about the nature of urban warfare. "What really surprised me was how fast things can turn very bad, with fire coming at you essentially from 360 degrees. That was a real eye-opener. And then when the dust storm blew in, we had to batten the helicopters down for the weather, and we heard our ground element that crossed the Euphrates was in a close and intensive firefight. That was the last we heard from them for about 24 hours, which really worried us. We're all about that plane ticket home, and trying to make sure everyone in the unit gets one."

After crossing the Euphrates River on the night of March 24, lead armored elements of the 7th Cavalry almost failed to claim their return tickets. Essentially on a feint to make Iraqi forces orient their guns toward the land between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, and away from the Karbala Gap that was always the main U.S. objective, the 7th got into the equivalent of a close-in knife fight in the midst of the sandstorm. With the advanced optics of their M-1 Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles largely blinded by the impenetrable dust, the 7th lost two M-1 tanks and an M-113 armored personnel carrier to dismounted Iraqi infantrymen armed only with rocket-propelled grenades. With the help of reinforcements, the unit pulled back across the river without suffering serious casualties. It was a lesson, however, that U.S. commanders said the Iraqis would remember as they attempted to coax U.S. maneuver forces into dense urban settings east of Karbala in the Euphrates River valley. That conclusion placed even more importance on the Army's ability to successfully penetrate the Karbala Gap."

http://www.us7thcavalry.com/ActiveUnits/

[Kramerman]

Originally posted by Azazel
I thought that the 25mm was a AGL, not a cannon nor a chaingun.

its a chain gun. whats an AGL?

[Az]

Automatic Grenade Launcher.

does the projectile carry an explosive charge?

[MichaeltheGreat]

There's a recon and light infantry Humvee variant that carries a Mk. 19 AGL, and I think there's also an M-113 hull based vehicle that carries a Mk. 19

The grenades used by the Mk. 19 are the same type of 40mm grenades used in the old, Vietnam era M79 grenade launcher and the current M203 underbarrel grenade launcher.

The 25mm gun on the Bradley has dual feeds, so the gunner can rapidly switch back and forth between AP and HE rounds, plus switch from single shot to three round burst mode.

BTW, another indication that the M1A1 in the Iraqwar.ru photo was abandoned and destroyed by friendly forces is that the commander's and loader's MGs have been salvaged off the vehicle.

The Iraqis wouldn't care - who'd go on a partly destoyed tank with main gun ammo in Allah knows what condition, to get MG's that may not work and take ammo calibers you don't use?

A US crew bailing out of a hit tank, or one that burned due to mechanical failure (suspension hydraulics, most likely) wouldn't bother, but if you were going to destroy the tank internals to prevent intel loss to the enemy, you'd clear out those readily usable guns and their ready ammo so you didn't cook them off and have rounds randomly going everywhere. Same thing with the gunner's thermal site - an expensive, but easy to remove item if you weren't in a hurry.

It's just not near as much fun as the cooked off BMP-1 they claim was one of ours.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat

During the ground phase of GW1, particularly on D+2 and D+3, visibility was pretty poor due to haze and sand kicked up by wind and vehicle movement. We didn't engage at those ranges out of choice, it was just that visibility of hull down vehicles was about 1000 meters, so that's where it started. By 500 meters, the Brads would have used both TOWs, and been firing their chainguns. Even if it didn't penetrate, one of those things knocking on your door would tend to distract you.

No doubt about that. My question was really aimed at the comparative effectiveness of the new generation MBT's at longer gun ranges (>2000M). Visibility was almost always the biggest lmiting factor to the distance tanks could engage one another. In europe it was mostly 2000M. Given whay you've said about the engagement distances in GW because of the same limitation, I'm wondering if there is any evidence to suggest that the added expenses of allowing tanks to fight out to 4000M are justified. An analogy here is rifles like the .303 Lee Enfield, a weapon with accuracy well beyond what was needed in battlefield conditions.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by SpencerH


No doubt about that. My question was really aimed at the comparative effectiveness of the new generation MBT's at longer gun ranges (>2000M). Visibility was almost always the biggest lmiting factor to the distance tanks could engage one another. In europe it was mostly 2000M. Given whay you've said about the engagement distances in GW because of the same limitation, I'm wondering if there is any evidence to suggest that the added expenses of allowing tanks to fight out to 4000M are justified. An analogy here is rifles like the .303 Lee Enfield, a weapon with accuracy well beyond what was needed in battlefield conditions.

An M1A1 in GW1 had a confirmed kill of a T-72 at something like 4900 meters. The Iraqi tank thought it was out of range, and repositioned. The tradeoff is not just accuracy, with KEP rounds, it's also armor penetration at range. Another couple of interesting tank kills confirm this - in one, a sabot round from an M1A1 penetrated a T-72 in the hull left side near the drivers position, exited intact on the right about mid-turret, killing that tank, and the sabot continued on, penetrating the side and killing another T-72 close behind the first.

In another kill, an immobile M1A1 that wasn't abandoned by it's crew got bounced by three T-72s, and killed the first two at ranges from 1000 to 400 meters. Both Iraqis tanks got turret frontal hits on the M1, the 400 meter hit produced a shallow groove in the turret armor. The third T-72 ducked behind a sand berm some 12 feet high and 60 feet wide at the base. The M1A1 used it's thermal sight to see the heat from the engine deck exhaust in the air above the berm, compensated manually, and fired a sabot round through the berm, killing the third T-72.

[Az]

a sabot round from an M1A1 penetrated a T-72 in the hull left side near the drivers position, exited intact on the right about mid-turret, killing that tank, and the sabot continued on, penetrating the side and killing another T-72 close behind the first.

Get the **** outta here!