M1 Abrams in recent conflicts

It sounds like the discussion is suggesting that the M1 is problematic because some get damaged or destroyed. Never thought they were supposed to be a 'silver bullet'. Perhaps it's important to note that 'most' US weapons platforms are designed to work within US doctrine - which includes eliminating the war fighting capacity of the enemy. JSTARS, Helicopters, artillery, C2, etc. seem integral to force projection. Not knocking the M1 just considering that the US Army doesn't send M1's out by themselves. If anything, the M1 and other platforms are probably going to be more survivable with the advent of APS.
 
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Not sure why that guy seems to think you need a penetration below the bustle? Most likely the blowout panel itself was penetrated.

AIUI the main cause of M1 bustle rack detonations are FPV drones anyway.
 
Kat Tsun said:
Not sure why that guy seems to think you need a penetration below the bustle? Most likely the blowout panel itself was penetrated.

AIUI the main cause of M1 bustle rack detonations are FPV drones anyway.
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And as long as the ammo door is shut at time of kaboom, the crew sees the "ammo rack fire" alarm and stays inside the tank till it goes out.

I suspect that an ammo racked Abrams can be put back into action in a couple hours.
 
Scott Kenny said:
And as long as the ammo door is shut at time of kaboom, the crew sees the "ammo rack fire" alarm and stays inside the tank till it goes out.

I suspect that an ammo racked Abrams can be put back into action in a couple hours.
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It depends on the ammo load and how many rounds are detonating.

The bulkheads are only rated for something like two (or three or four i.e. "not many") detonations of ammunition rounds at once. If there's a substantial ammo that is hit by a shaped charge, the entire fighting compartment can die, and the bulkheads are only fire rated for a brief period of 20 minutes or so. B/3-66 AR's command tank had something akin to this happen in Desert Storm. Good news is, that if that happens, you don't need to destroy the interior with the thermite grenades at least.

IM propellants make this really unlikely these days tbf, but those are probably a minority of 120mm rounds in inventory still, and didn't exist in 1991 in any case. It would probably take a day or two for BDAR to fix an M1 with destroyed ammo racks from penetration to re-crewing.
 

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