Serious IED Kills M1A1 Tank

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A homicide truck bomb ripped through a line of vehicles waiting at a checkpoint Friday in Fallujah and killed at least seven civilians. Authorities in the capital discovered the bodies of six men who were blindfolded, handcuffed and shot in the back of the head, police said.

www.foxnews.com...

The image of a US manned M1A1 tank burning from a "truck" bomb provides some serious brain power thoughts about IED's.

Looks worse that it was actually. The tread was blown off and the outside caught fire, but the crew all escaped unharmed.

Saying that though, it must of been a fair sized bomb, and been extremely close to do that amount of damage!

This type of shaped charge bomb was first used by the IRA here in the UK in the early 1970's, after training in middle east camps ie Libya / Syria. Strange to see the same pattern migrating through the world isn't it? Just shows that all terror groups are one and the same in their methods and training.
Glad the crew escaped unharmed.

Originally posted by MadGreebo
Looks worse that it was actually. The tread was blown off and the outside caught fire, but the crew all escaped unharmed.

Saying that though, it must of been a fair sized bomb, and been extremely close to do that amount of damage!

This type of shaped charge bomb was first used by the IRA here in the UK in the early 1970's, after training in middle east camps ie Libya / Syria. Strange to see the same pattern migrating through the world isn't it? Just shows that all terror groups are one and the same in their methods and training.
Glad the crew escaped unharmed.

Any guess as to the amount of "overpressure" to cause this kind of damage?

PS...Truck sized "shape" charge?

I trained in 1994 with the Infantry, and there was a a video showing the types and effects of anti armour weapons / road side IED's, because of there common use in NI.

Now most road side bombs were only effective against soft targets ie jeeps, trucks and foot patrols. In the early 1970's when the IRA went into top gear against the UK Forces, they trained in Libya and other middle eastern camps. Then came the shaped charge IED's. These were of the same style as being used now ie the main weapon, and a 'daisy chained' secondary / tertiary device to actually kill the EOD guys working to defuse the main bomb.

The tank track is actually very vunerable to destruction because it very nature of being seperate pieces linked in sequence. heres one thought though. a minimum of 10 pounds of plastic would have to be used to destroy a modern track - and it would have to be almost on top of it to be effective. The over pressure stats? I have no idea of though. either way it was a medium sized weapon that did this. a 1000 lb bomb close up and shaped would of ripped the tank to shreds.



[edit on 10-3-2006 by MadGreebo]

The crew may have escaped unharmed this time but there goes another million dollar US vehicle lost to a $200 bomb; and of cource you don't hear about all the equipment the US military is wasting over there..and most of the injuries..just that 1 or 2 get killed everyday..clearly an unwinnable war of attrition.

Wait a second, if it was just the outside that caught fire, how come smoke is pouring out of the top hatch?

Some rounds cooking off?

Anyway, IEDs have 'killed' a number of these suckers in Iraq. Why is this coming as a surprise? In fact, isn't there some Pentagon rule stating you can't disseminate or publish images of incapacitated or destroyed M1A1s because of the effect it has on morale? Something like that..I seem to remember anyway.

Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think most pictures of blow'd up abrams' are kept from the prying eyes of the public. So, while we don't see these things in the news everyday, they are getting knocked out.

I think I read somewhere there have been 20 tanks utterly destroyed, and I'm not sure how many incapacitated or otherwise removed from service. I'd guess about four times the number destroyed have been seriously damaged, and probably several hundred more have been damaged to the point of needing urgent repairs to maintain operational efficacy.

In any case, sorry for the tangent, it's probably not important anyway.

[edit on 12-3-2006 by WyrdeOne]

These bombs the insurgents are using are huge... Theres a video on a site of one being detonated as tanks roll past... its an absolutely massive explosion and the tanks screwd real bad. Watched it today and the explosion...man it was terrible.

Im not going to post a link because the web sites an adults only (Non-Porn!) and extremely graphic with many many terrible pics and footage on it.

www.aeronautics.ru...

Just look at the carnage of this this road side bomb...click on the arrows...this web sites chock full of US tanks anihilated!

[edit on 12-3-2006 by MadGreebo]

[edit on 12-3-2006 by MadGreebo]

Yeah, some of those things are several hundred pounds of explosives. You'd be hard pressed to design a tank that could withstand that kind of punishment up close and still be light enough to move.

Maybe the military should look into this stuff.

Blast Wrap

Seems like a solid idea. The pockets are filled with perlite and extinguishant, so when a blast goes off nearby, the perlite absorbs the pressure wave and the extinguishants soak the flames. The stuff is only good for one explosion, obviously, but it appears to be effective.

Originally posted by MadGreebo
Looks worse that it was actually. The tread was blown off and the outside caught fire, but the crew all escaped unharmed.

Saying that though, it must of been a fair sized bomb, and been extremely close to do that amount of damage!

This type of shaped charge bomb was first used by the IRA here in the UK in the early 1970's, after training in middle east camps ie Libya / Syria. Strange to see the same pattern migrating through the world isn't it? Just shows that all terror groups are one and the same in their methods and training.
Glad the crew escaped unharmed.

Do you know what your talking about? Shaped charges are IEDS that fire projectiles of at targets, this was a truck bomb totally different. Also if there wasnt US forces around to evacuate those soldiers in the tank i would think they wouldnt have much chances of surviving.

Do you know what your talking about? Shaped charges are IEDS that fire projectiles of at targets, this was a truck bomb totally different

Shaped charges don't fire projectiles generally (if by projectiles you mean shrapnel). Shaped charges can be mounted on a truck just as easily as they can be mounted on a pylon or under a road bed. A shaped charge is just a maleable explosive cast into a wedge, like this:
____
/ X \

You can do other shapes too, but that's the basic idea.

They probably mount them in the grill so the detonation is as close as possible to the tank. The blast has nowhere to go but into and around the tank, so the amount of energy brought to bear on the target is much greater.

Most semi-modern anti-armor mines are shaped charges, and they're responsible, more than anything else, for tanks lost.


[edit on 12-3-2006 by WyrdeOne]

Just what kinds of shaped charges have they been using? Don't cummulative rounds suffer standoff distance problems when used in such way?

Besides, all you need to waste an Abrams is a couple of M109 howitzer rounds as has been atested to in November 2004 when such a roadside bomb wentoff killing the tank driver and badly damaging the tank. But anti-tank mines still remain the most effective weapons, albeit a bit more tricky to inconspicously use. If I remember correctly back then in 2003, one of those riped through an M1A2 Abrams killing two crewmembers and seriously injuring a third.

Hell, even a RPG-7 grenade can cripple an Abrams, if properly used. The new grenades can penetrate almost 600mm of steel! Dozens of tanks were disabled in this way. Almost all of the crews survived (which is a testiment to it's excellent protection), but still the tanks were damaged to incapacitation.

You could in theory get a M (Mobility) Kill on most modern tanks with a simple molotov cocktail if used it in the right spot. Though you would want to use something a bit thicker than straight gasoline ( and there are plenty of recipes for improvised gelled gasoline floating around). Any such Molotov cocktail on the engine deck could be bad news for any tank.

Setting fire to the engine and you get a M Kill on it and its pretty much useless until fixed. You would have to be extremely lucky and could very well get killed before you even got close enough to use such a weapon on a tank but it could happen.

All tanks are far from invincible