The Miracle Tank Of Legend

strategypage.com ^ | December 3, 2008 | NA

[DieHard the Hunter]

> Watching a typical older US or British tank *brew up* with fuel and ammo aboard is spectacular: after a half minute or so the poweder in the main gun rounds begins to burn off and a jet of flame 20-30 feet high roars out of the turret hatches like a rocket engine or giant blowtorch.

Wow! Thanks for the explanation. There would be alot of civilians out there that believe the US fires depleted uranium at the enemy just to be extra-nasty and pollute them with nuclear waste. It would never occur to them that DU is actually ideal for piercing the enemy’s armor.

Cheers for that!
*DieHard*

[archy]

I’m thinking the antitank weapon of the future will be something like the A-10 gatling gun. Fire a stream of depleted uranium bullets at the exact same spot, each one weakening the armor a little more, until they start penetrating.

The term used by the boffins for the effect you describe is ablating, chipping away bits of the armour a chunk at a time, hopefully at a high rate of fire.

During the late 1960s our tank battalion was equipped with four M114 recon tracks that were amphibious, unlike the M48 and M60 tanks of the period. Though there was no AT weapon fitted on the M114, a power turret was developed for the M114, allowing its .50 caliber machinegun to be aimed using optical sights and with power traverse and elevation. This was known as the M114A1, which suffered from having an ammo supply of only 105 rounds for the .50. The "improved" version was the M114A1E1, which mounted a 20mm automatic cannon, which meant that it could give a good account of itself in an encounter with a bad guy armoured car or light tracked vehicle. Unfortunately, the M139 autocannons suffered from feed problems that were never worked out, and the vehicles in our outfit had plain old .50 M2 Brownings fitted. There's not much wrong with that.

Except that our tanks then carried the M85 .50 MG, appreciated by tank crews for its quick-change barrel and switchable hi-low rate of fire suitable for giving pesky helicopters some serious problems. The only thing wasm the links for the tank gun ammo were different from those in the scout APCs, who worked alongside us. And if they shot off their ammo [which they were supposed to do first, since they were scouts hopefully screening us from and nasty surprises] they couldn't just borrow a couple of cans of ammo from us, but had to break it out of the links and rebelt it. Unhandy.

My bright-guy suggestion was to mount an M85 gun in the power mount of an M114. Come to think of it, since the mount was designed for the weight of that cannon and ammo, two M85s could be carried up there, side by side...and the M85 can be fed from either side. After a bit of tinkering, we found that a third gun could be fitted, mounted in the center forward of the other two. that meant that after the twin guns ran empty, the third could be in reserve until reloading could take place. We even came up with somne oversize ammo cans made from scrapped 5-gallon gas cans that held 225 rounds per gun instead of only 105. We submitted photos and sketches to higher headquarters, who approved the modification on a limited test basis and provided 12 extra guns for our four tracks. And they wanted us to demonstrate the modification during a firing test.

The German tank range at Grafenwohr had a number of scrapped target vehicles on it, mostly 2½-ton trucks that had been in mountain road rollovers or headons. But there was a former French M24 light tank, still complete with its fenders, tracks and main gun, though the optics and headlights had been long gone, removed or shot away.

The shoot took place at dusk. Like good little boys, the scout crews pinged short bursts out until they were bouncing tracers off the old tank hull about 400 meters out. Then they put on a nice, disciplined show of raking the tank and nearby trucks with neat 10-round bursts, totalling 20 rounds each from the twin guns. It came time to reload, and yep, they kept that center gun ready for any sudden order to resume firing. The other three scout tracks pulled up alongside the first [the engines on the beasts were Chrysler Hemis, as I recall] and they too loaded their guns up, all of them, and with the big, unofficial ammo cans we'd knocked together, 675 rounds of .50 per vehicle, 4 tracks in a row. And then they switched the guns over from the low rate of fire to high rate, from 500 shots per minute, to 1000 +. And waited for the order to let fly. They got it.

Braaaaaakkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

The noise was not the usual chatter of a M2 .50, much faster, and with a dozen of them going, noisy as all get out. Tracers zipped off the old tank, but the belts were only 1-in-5 tracer, the others being .50 Armour-piercing incendiary. They chewed the fenders away, cut through the track links and set fire to the rubber track pads, and tore into the turret hydraulics until the tank's main gun dropped down with a clunk. And then somebody hit one of the 5-gallon cans of water-contaminated gasoline they'd placed inside, and the thing went up like a bonfire.

In the light of the next day we got a good look at the remains of the little M24, with holes torn through- ablated- through it's turret and engine compartment.

Of course all that was back around 1967. We could do much better with some of the guns and ammo available now....

[Badeye]

Unmanned armor vehicles will be the ‘next thing’ in my view.

[RightWhale]

A description from an old style tank: The driver said the round hit the front armor, did not penetrate, and the front wall of the tank glowed cherry red for a while.

[AmericanVictory]

Bump!

[B4Ranch]

>I was real interested in other things going on at the time,<

I can appreciate that concern.

[B4Ranch]

“Glowed red” while everyone inside looked upwards and gave a quick thanks.

[Lurker]

Depleted Uranium (meaning it's depleted of radioactivity) is much more dense than lead. Therefore it carries more mass. More mass means more kinetic energy delivered to the target.

It has no explosive properties of its own and no, it does not glow in the dark.

LOL.

Best to you my friend.

L

[E=MC2]

Depleted Uranium (meaning it's depleted of radioactivity) is much more dense than lead.

No. Depleted uranium refers to uranium that has been depleted of the U-235 isotope leaving the U328 isotope. Depleted uranium is generated when enriched (in U-235) uranium is generator for nuclear reactors or weapons.

[Lurker]

Thanks for the correction.

[E=MC2]

Here’s a “stupid-civilian” question: what’s the deal with “depleted uranium”? What does it do that plain ordinary lead doesn’t do? Does it glow in the dark, or explode-on-impact, or what?

Natural uranium contains about 99.3% U-238 and about 0.7% U-235 isotope. They are chemically the same but U-235 is fissionable in reactors or weapons. U-238 is fertile, meaning that if placed into a reactor, it will become Plutonium-239 which is also fissionable. Since U-235 and U-238 are chemically the same, it is very expensive and hard to separate (enrich) the U-235 but it is done for reactors and weapons. What is left, is depleted uranium (depleted in U-235 isotope). U-235 has a shorter half-life than U-238 so it is slightly more radioactive.

[archy]

>I was real interested in other things going on at the time,<

I can appreciate that concern.

You shoulda seen me the time my ghillie suit caught fire. Speaking of which, did you know that the engine exhaust from a CH47 $hi!hook helocopter is real, real hot on either side of the rear exit ramp?

[Lurker]

You shoulda seen me the time my ghillie suit caught fire.

Did you know that one careless Marine can set another one on fire just by standing next to him with a lit cigarette?

Have you ever seen a Gunnery Sgt laugh so hard he literally couldn't speak?

Do you know that it's a cast iron bi*** to repair a burned Ghillie suit?

I carried the nickname "LCpl Johnny Flame" for months.....

L

[neverdem]

Better late than never. Thank you archy.

[E=MC2]

What does it do that plain ordinary lead doesn’t do?

If left long enough, it becomes ordinary lead! U-238 >>> Pb-206 and U-235 >>> Pb-207.

[archy]

Why not just throw democrats at them?

Because The Boss says we're supposed to use them for something else.

[archy]

Have you ever seen a Gunnery Sgt laugh so hard he literally couldn't speak?

Nope. But I have been on fire and been quite annoyed at my pals who were not getting a fire extinguisher from the helo crew, but instead were digging around in their rucks for cameras.

The next topic I expected to get to lecture the troops on was fire safety. Nope. I got light and sound discipline....

[B4Ranch]

Yes, I was aware of it. I would imagine that’s due to the rotor directing it that way. Sure wouldn’t want it coming down on the ramp.

[snippy_about_it]

I’ve put the ping list on my FR page. I also removed the duplicate names inside the post, I don’t know when that happened.

Anyway I’m more than happy to have either of you post it if you can’t find me. I’m working long hours lately!