[OT] Fwd: NEWS ITEM

Anyone hear anyhting about this?

--- Scott wrote:

> 
> ARMY TIMES
> 
> `Something' felled an M1A1 Abrams tank in Iraq – but
> what?
> Mystery behind Aug. 28 incident puzzles Army
> officials
> 
> By John Roos
> Special to the Times
> 
> 
> Shortly before dawn on Aug. 28, an M1A1 Abrams tank
> on routine 
> patrol in Baghdad "was hit by something" that
> crippled the 69-ton 
> behemoth.
> 
> Army officials still are puzzling over what that
> "something" was.
> 
> According to an unclassified Army report, the
> mystery projectile 
> punched through the vehicle's skirt and drilled a
> pencil-sized hole 
> through the hull. The hole was so small that "my
> little finger will not go =
> 
> into it," the report's author noted.
> 
> The "something" continued into the crew compartment,
> where it 
> passed through the gunner's seatback, grazed the
> kidney area of the 
> gunner's flak jacket and finally came to rest after
> boring a hole 1½ to 
> 2 inches deep in the hull on the far side of the
> tank. 
> 
> As it passed through the interior, it hit enough
> critical components to 
> knock the tank out of action. That made the tank one
> of only two 
> Abrams disabled by enemy fire during the Iraq war
> and one of only a 
> handful of "mobility kills" since they first rumbled
> onto the scene 20 
> years ago. The other Abrams knocked out this year in
> Iraq was hit by 
> an RPG-7, a rocket-propelled grenade.
> 
> Experts believe whatever it is that knocked out the
> tank in August was 
> not an RPG-7 but most likely something new — and
> that worries tank 
> drivers.
> 
> Mystery and anxiety
> 
> Terry Hughes is a technical representative from Rock
> Island Arsenal, 
> Ill., who examined the tank in Baghdad and wrote the
> report.
> 
> In the sort of excited language seldom included in
> official Army 
> documents, he said, "The unit is very anxious to
> have this 
> `SOMETHING' identified. It seems clear that a
> penetrator of a 
> yellow molten metal is what caused the damage, but
> what weapon 
> fires such a round and precisely what sort of round
> is it? The bad guys 
> are using something unknown and the guys facing it
> want very much to 
> know what it is and how they can defend themselves."
> 
> Nevertheless, the Abrams continues its record of
> providing 
> extraordinary crew protection. The four-man crew
> suffered only 
> minor injuries in the attack. The tank commander
> received "minor 
> shrapnel wounds to the legs and arms and the gunner
> got some in his 
> arm" as a result of the attack, according to the
> report.
> 
> Whatever penetrated the tank created enough heat
> inside the hull to 
> activate the vehicle's Halon firefighting gear,
> which probably 
> prevented more serious injuries to the crew.
> 
> The soldiers of 2nd Battalion, 70th Armor Regiment,
> 1st Armor 
> Division who were targets of the attack weren't the
> only ones 
> wondering what damaged their 69-ton tank.
> 
> Hughes also was puzzled. "Can someone tell us?" he
> wrote. "If not, 
> can we get an expert on foreign munitions over here
> to examine this 
> vehicle before repairs are begun? Please respond
> quickly."
> 
> His report went to the office of the combat systems
> program manager 
> at the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments
> Command in 
> Warren, Mich. A command spokesman said he could
> provide no 
> information about the incident. 
> 
> "The information is sensitive," he said. "It looks
> like [members of the 
> program manager's office] are not going to release
> any information 
> right now." 
> 
> While it's impossible to determine what caused the
> damage without 
> actually examining the tank, some conclusions can be
> drawn from 
> photos that accompanied the incident report. Those
> photos show a 
> pencil-size penetration hole through the tank body,
> but very little sign 
> of the distinctive damage — called spalling — that
> typically occurs on 
> the inside surface after a hollow- or shaped-charge
> warhead from an 
> anti-tank weapon burns its way through armor.
> 
> Spalling results when an armor penetrator pushes a
> stream of molten 
> metal ahead of it as it bores through an armored
> vehicle's protective 
> skin.
> 
> "It's a real strange impact," said a source who has
> worked both as a 
> tank designer and as an anti-tank weapons engineer.
> "This is a new 
> one. … It almost definitely is a hollow-charge
> warhead of some sort, 
> but probably not an RPG-7" anti-tank
> rocket-propelled grenade.
> 
> The well-known RPG-7 has been the scourge of lightly
> armored 
> vehicles since its introduction more than 40 years
> ago. Its 
> hollow-charge warhead easily could punch through an
> M1's skirt and 
> the relatively thin armor of its armpit joint, the
> area above the tracks 
> and beneath the deck on which the turret sits, just
> where the mystery 
> round hit the tank.
> 
> An RPG-7 can penetrate about 12 inches of steel — a
> thickness far 
> greater than the armor that was penetrated on the
> tank in Baghdad. 
> But the limited spalling evident in the photos
> accompanying the 
> incident report all but rules out the RPG-7 as the
> culprit, experts say.
> 
> Limited spalling is a telltale characteristic of
> Western-manufactured 
> weapons designed to defeat armor with a cohesive jet
> stream of 
> molten metal. In contrast, RPG-7s typically produce
> a fragmented jet 
> spray. 
> 
> The incident is so sensitive that most experts in
> the field would talk 
> only on the condition that they not be identified. 
> 
> One armor expert at Fort Knox, Ky., suggested the
> tank may have 
> been hit by an updated RPG. About 15 years ago,
> Russian scientists 
> created tandem-warhead anti-tank-grenades designed
> to defeat 
> reactive armor. The new round, a PG-7VR, can be
> fired from an 
> RPG-7V launcher and might have left the unusual
> signature on the 
> tank.
> 
> In addition, the Russians have developed an improved
> weapon, the 
> RPG-22. These and perhaps even newer variants have
> been used 
> against American forces in Afghanistan. It is
> believed U.S. troops 
> seized some that have been returned to the United
> States for testing, 
> but scant details about their effects and
> "fingerprints" are available.
> 
> Still another possibility is a retrofitted warhead
> for the RPG system 
> being developed by a Swiss manufacturer.
> 
> At this time, it appears most likely that an RPG-22
> or some other 
> improved variant of the Russian-designed weapon
> damaged the M1 
> tank, sources concluded. The damage certainly was
> caused by some 
> sort of shaped-charge or hollow-charge warhead, and
> the cohesive 
> nature of the destructive jet suggests a more
> effective weapon than a 
> fragmented-jet RPG-7.
> 
> A spokesman for General Dynamics Land Systems, which
> 
> manufactures the Abrams, said company engineers
> agree some type 
> of RPG probably caused the damage. After checking
> with them, the 
> spokesman delivered the manufacturer's verdict: The
> tank was hit by 
> "a `golden' RPG" — an extremely lucky shot.
> 
> In the end, a civilian weapons expert said, "I hope
> it was a lucky shot 
> and we are not part of someone's test program. Being
> a live target is 
> no fun." 
> 
> John Roos is editor of Armed Forces Journal, which
> is owned by 
> Army Times Publishing Co.
> 
> 
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