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Gee, and a 105 mm gun wouldn't be useful in a short-range knife fight like Najaf? They may be classified as "obsolete" for tank-on-tank combat, but they would probably do some good in urban combat. Again, the question is NOT whether a tank can be adapted to fight in that type of enviornment, because it certainly can, although many of the changes needed to make it "invulnerable" in such situations would make it incapable of carrying out it's primary objective: taking out other tanks. The question is "Is a technological development necessary to make such operations safer for our troops?". The answer to that is NOT a new tank or a new vehicle, or perhaps even new technology. The answer is in better (perhaps more brutal) tactics with EXISTING weapons systems.

I could give a rat's behind about how many dead we leave behind in street fighting in Najaf, so long as they weren't AMERICAN dead. To do that you flatten the place and return it to nature. You do not spend several billion dollars on new tanks. Money that would be spent on the upgrades/changes you suggest would be better spent on research on the next generation of MBT's or perhaps in better training/prtoection for our infantry (of which, we are critically short).

The current "War on Terror" missions you're talking about are not difficult because we lack a killer weapon, but because we lack boots and the stomach for dirty fighting. If you think differently, I remind you that there have been at least 3 cease-fires in Najaf and the other side has used the time to regroup before attacking again. New tanks do not solve that problem. Destruction of the enemy does.

It's a different mindset that's required.

"Gee, and a 105 mm gun wouldn't be useful in a short-range knife fight like Najaf? They may be classified as "obsolete" for tank-on-tank combat, but they would probably do some good in urban combat."

Even if using anti-personnel beehive rounds, the problems with the 105mm cannon include not being able to fire off a round when friendly troops are nearby as well as the vastly slower reloading speed of the manual 105mm loader versus the automated 30mm gattling cannon.

This is why A-10 attack fighters use the GAU-8 gattling cannon for anti-personnel missions instead of being equipped with a 105mm cannon loaded with beehive rounds.

I want that same A-10 anti-personnel firepower on the ground. I want it in what are now our "obsolete" and mothballed M1 tanks, and I want those GAU-8 tanks where ever our troops are located.

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"be better spent on research on the next generation of MBT's or perhaps in better training/prtoection for our infantry (of which, we are critically short)."

What I'm proposing is *entirely* for infantry support.

Call it the M1A10, because it is the A-10 fighter parked on the ground right next to our troops, protected by M1 armor.

5 Legislative Days Left Until The AWB Expires