Posted on 11/18/2013 7:18:23 AM PST by C19fan
In 24 months of brutal combat, Syrian opposition fighters have eliminated a fifth of Pres. Bashar Al Assad’s Russian-made tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, according to estimates.
That’s no fewer than 1,500 T-55, T-62 and T-72 tanks plus BMP fighting vehicles exploded, burned, disabled or seized by rebels—with potentially thousands of crewmen also being killed, injured or captured.
The destruction of so many of the government’s heavy vehicles by relatively lightly armed rebels is, for the regime, a painful reminder of the vulnerability of even the most thickly armored tanks in close urban fighting—and especially when the vehicles aren’t protected by nearby infantry.
(Excerpt) Read more at medium.com ...
Right-O and your key point as I understand it is that the populace is equiped with rifles and other small arms but nothing larger so that the DHS vehicles would have free reign.
I wonder what percentage of such police-type APC vehicles are vulnerable to .50 Barretts?...or even .338 Lapua?
Regarding the lack of combined arms teams by Syrians: This tells you something about their infantry. By comparison, look at how we deployed a combined arms team in the Second Battle of Fallujjah.
How many were taken out by IED`s?
Don't forget about General Mud and General Winter. Those two can wreak havoc on mech units.
Yes. Exactly. M113's supposedly are vulnerable to .50 side and back. I also read somplace that MRAPS are designed to resist 14.5mm. Since this has about twice the energy of a .50 cal I would also suspect that they could defeat a .50 cal.
Set traps, set fire, cook contents. Repeat as necessary.
We won't have anti-armor ordinance anyway. Trap 'em, burn 'em.
Yes - that is the point I'm making. We DON'T have that ability due to decades of gun control.
Trap 'em, burn 'em.
A lot harder than popping up and firing an RPG.
I know the Russians are supplying Assad with weapons and training but I wonder how much they are helping on the repair end of things. I assume the warranty on a T-55 expired back when everything I knew about tanks came from playing Combat on my my Atari 2600.
“Reading about Patton’s WW2 team, they were like race car pit crews when it came to tank repair.”
Recalled from an uncle/tank commander’s tale telling: “Generally, a tank battle would be three or four tanks on each side, would range over three or four square miles, and would last three or four days. We’d hide from their bigger guns, only coming out to irritate them with our little guns. After a few days their tanks would break down or run out of fuel. They’d light them on fire and walk home. When our tanks broke down, they’d be fixed on the spot.”
I’m reading a neat book by Brig Gen Al Irzyk (”He Rode Up Front for Patton”)
His tank was hit in the turret from behind by an AP round in the Bastogne battle. The round cracked the structure but failed to penetrate, and the maintenance crew welded it up overnight, and he was back in it the next day. Impressive.
We won’t have anti-armor ordinance anyway. Trap ‘em, burn ‘em.
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heavy equipment would be nice , maybe wheeled loaders... and thermite , lots of thermite.
Assad is not an Islamist. He protects the Christians in Syria as his father did as well. This is ancient Christianity.
sez 1500 tanks is (was) one fifth of Syria’s force, or 7500 tanks total. The figure is nonsense. If however the various other armored vehicles (and heavy military vehicles of other kinds) are added in, they might add up to 7500.
Urban renewal in the third world includes demolishing narrow streets and putting the new buildings well away from where tanks might be used — tanks could otherwise be buried by blowing out a building foundation, leaving the tankers immobilized and trapped.
http://www.janes.com/article/26112/chemical-weapons-used-against-civilians-in-syria
Must have come as a blow:
The Syrian government has said little about the attack in which he lost his life. An official told us only 22 were killed when rebels tunneled under the military vehicle maintenance centre at Harasta last Sunday. But rebel video posted online shows such a huge blast it seems impossible that so few should have died.
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