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They would say " Well Bradleys destroyed tanks at Desert Storm!" I once had a commander tell me that if a Bradley kept shooting at a T-72, eventually it would get through

That seems to be quite correct. After all the Iraqi T-72s did not have ERA packs and the best armor they thus had were combined armor arrays. Hence if you took a Bradley and repeatedly shot at a T-72 there would come a time the rounds would go through and mess up the tank.

However my question is this: What if the T-72 crew decides to not just sit there and have a Bradley fighting vehicle fire its Bushmaster at it? What if the crew of the T-72 decides to fire back an APDS, HEAT or HE-FRAG round at the Bradley?

Basically i do not think that is prudent. However let me also add that i am not a tanker and my knowledge of tank logistics and tactics is basically limited to secondary sources. I also know the current M2/M3 series of Bradley also has a TOW BGM-71 anti-tank missile pod. However during the Gulf war the M-113 mains armament was the chain gun! And while i respect Chain guns i do not think they were made to go against tanks packing HEAT rounds! And we are talking about commanders in the Gulf war trying to send M-113s to waltz with MBT's. Hence i still stand by my thoughts that telling a Bradley crew to go out there and keep shooting at T-72s with the knowledge that 'eventually something will go through' would be quite worrisome to me.

T-72s are nothing when matched to an Abrams. However to a Bradley an APDS shot fired from the T-72's 125mm main seems likely to seriously reorganize the body parts of any marines inside the Bradley. And i do not think the T-72 would have to shoot with the hope 'eventually something would go through.'

I wonder why the commanders were saying such stuff? And were they serious or was it some inside joke non-tankers like me cannot get? And if they were serious why send a Bradley when an Abrams (or an Apache or even the Warthog) can do the job with perfect efficiency and no chance of getting even damaged (i hear the T-72 shots had no chance penetrating the Chobham armor of the Abrams).

Why send in the Bradleys? Especially Gulf war M-113s? (And by the way even though the current M2/M3s come with the BGM-71 TOW i still think that when going against opposing MBTs we should utilize our M1A2 Abrams).

They were serious as a heart attack. At Combat Maneuver Training Center in Hohenfels, Germany, it was quite common, when attacked for Bradleys to attempt to take on the force. Remember that the Bradley has two TOWs ready, and more in storage (assuming you last that long). Those have ranges a little shy of 4000m. The OPFOR tanks had main gun ranges of 2000m. All is well, right?

Not quite. In the desert, being able to shoot 4000m and beyond is wonderful, and vital to survival. In normal terrain (such as Europe, or most of the planet, for that matter), engagement ranges sub 800m are common, because you can't see all that far. So you could very easily be destroyed, because of the lack of standoff capability.

My personal belief (and I was not there, I only have anecdotal evidence) is that, because the units were arrayed "task force on line" (basically every vehicle shoulder to shoulder moving and shooting), it was very difficult to determine who shot what, and I think there was a misconception on the effectiveness of the Bradley's gun. If not, why did the Abrams get an even bigger gun after Desert Storm?

The main problem with all these discussions is that they keep leaving out the essential problem behind designing a rapidly deployable U.S. Armored force.

The M1 is great, but getting it into the theater where it is needed is the problem. Even in Europe, in the face of The Warsaw Pact, we had to pre-deploy the equipment of follow-on forces due to the lack of air and sea-lift. Unless we can build forward depots in potential hot spots for our M1s and Brads we still have the problem of bringing significant fire-power to bear quickly.

This is why the Army has obsessed on being able to build something that can fit into a C-130 or C-17. But, short of some revolutionary technology breakthrough in lightweight armor, we are never going to have enough airlift. What we need to do is develope a rapid sealift capability that can move Army Batallion or Brigade sized armored unit in a single pop, using a drive on/off design capable dropping straigt onto a secured beach.

We are far closer to this capability than we are to developing an all-purpose tank/apc that can be airlifted in a C-130. Even so, we still need something that can go in by airlift, because some of the places we may need to go (like Iraq) will be essentially land-locked and may not have a friendly (to us)neighbor with suitable beaches or port.

It must also be pointed out that we are the only ones that really have this operational problem. Most other armies are designed for self-defense or bullying their neighbors. Few, besides us and perhaps Britain, has a need to project power over long distance. This is the real quandry we are in, as opposed to which vehicle is best going up against the others. We can have the best tank in the world, but if we can't get it where we need it in a timely fashion and support it once it there, the point is moot. As long as we are the ones that have to travel 2 or 3 thousand miles to the fight, we are always going to face the dilema of arriving too late to do any good, or of facing a superior force with light or no armor.

Infantry, fully supported in the air, can handle most armor threats. But it takes close cooperation between service and an understanding on the part of the air assets that they serve at the behest of the ground-pounder - which usually goes against their grain (that's why the Marines insist on their own air arm). It also requires complete air superiority and suppression of AA to be fully effective.

In my humble opinion, forget about airlifting armor. Develop sealift that can handle main battle tanks and IFVs. Develop and enhance the airborne assets and give them FAVs. Support them on the ground with A-10s on call till the armor shows up.

As for the Bradley, it is not meant to go against MBTs unless it has to. The TOW gives it the ability to kill one when the need arises and it can get the shot off without compromising its position. When you fire a TOW, anyone looking in your direction can see the launch and then fire on you while you are directing the missle, including the intended victim. When a Bradley fires a TOW it must displace or run the risk of being destroyed by other tanks that saw it fire, or the intended victim if the missle doesn?t kill it.

As for the Bushmaster cannon on the Bradley, it can score a mobility kill by taking out the tracks of a tank or getting in behind an MBT and possible taking out the engine where the armor is thinner, but it cannot do this at long range (i.e. ranges equal to that of an MBTs main gun or the range of a TOW). A bunch of Bradley?s set up in an armor ambush, which is primarily what the TOW is for, can deal a lot of destruction to a force of tanks. As I recall, the doctrine in for the Bradley in Europe was to fight from prepared postions with the Bradley behind improvised berms for extra protection. If attacked by armor, they would let fly with the TOW?s and kill as many tanks as possible in the first salvo. If they started taking hits from tanks they were to displace and move to new positions before becoming fully engages with enemy armor. The Bradley?s main foe was considered the BMP and BMD APCs used by Soviet armored infantry.