Great Tank Battles

[RedArgo]

Anyone watching this show on Military Channel? It seems a lot like the Enterprise 360 and Patton 360 from History. Lots of CGI and interviews with veterans. So far, they've done Gulf War I, '73 Israel vs Syria and the battle of El Alemein (sp?), next week is the battle of the bulge.

[2ndACR]

Never watched the GW1 show, I was there. Don't need to watch it. LOL

Eagle 2/2 all the way!!

[ilovestrategy]

This reminds me of a tank video game with vector graphics I used to play at the arcade in the 80s, and I cannot remember the name of it. I remember you had the view of the gunner. It had a name like Battle Zone or something like that. I miss Tail Gunner, that game rocked. 

[cantona2]

Gulf War great tank battle?!??! Air supremacy vs tanks = no tank battle!

I suppose Prokorovkha was the only great tank battle and recently I have seen some revisionist stuff claiming it wasn't

As to El Alamein, it was more an artillery and minefield, infantry battle as opposed to a great tank battle

Your thoughts?

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: RedArgo

Anyone watching this show on Military Channel? ...

I am and its graphics are not nearly as gratuitus as the HC's 360 shows.

[bairdlander2]

ORIGINAL: cantona2

Gulf War great tank battle?!??! Air supremacy vs tanks = no tank battle!

Like shooting fish in a barrel.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: cantona2

Gulf War great tank battle?!??! Air supremacy vs tanks = no tank battle! ...

Actually it was the battle of 73 easting: Bradleys w/TOWs and M1 Abrams vs. stationary Soviet arm'd vehicles, and I don't recall that any "Warthogs" were involved.

[bairdlander2]

Sounds like the biggest live fire exercise with human targets.

[2ndACR]

Nope, no A10's. We actually fought (all of 2nd ACR) 3 brigades. 1 from Tawakana, 1 from Medina, 1 from Hamarabi divisions. Eagle 2/2 hit the stationary, but we also had Fox, Ghost and Hawk company engaged. Hawk tangled with a brigade that was fleeing the Brit's and 1st Cav and almost ran into our combat trains.

We lost a gunner in a Ghost troop Brad during the fight. Our M109 battery fired 2600 shells during the battle. Almost 12 hours long. Visibility sucked massively. Even with thermals. Towards the end of the battle we passed 1st Inf thru our lines during the battle at night. We then went into Corp reserve.

Our S2 recorded a broadcast from the radio that said "we have found, fixed and destroyed the 2nd ACR" and at that moment you can hear in the background our contact reports coming in.

[Dennistoun]

Yeah, the episode about the Arab/Israeli battle sure fuelled a renewed thirst for that Flashpoint ME game that we've been waiting for...

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: Joe D.

ORIGINAL: cantona2

Gulf War great tank battle?!??! Air supremacy vs tanks = no tank battle! ...

Actually it was the battle of 73 easting: Bradleys w/TOWs and M1 Abrams vs. stationary Soviet arm'd vehicles, and I don't recall that any "Warthogs" were involved.

I've read a study of that battle. It would be a pretty bloody battle for Americans if there weren't three factors involved:
1. The Iraqi didn't know how to dig in properly. They made sand berms instead of properly digging in their tanks. A properly dug tank "trench" should be deep enough to hide the whole tank with a part where tank can drive forward and show just a turret to fire at enemies.
Result: Americans could see the tanks and fire through sand berms.
2. A big part of Iraqi weren't in their tanks. They stayed outside from fear of air-strikes. A lot of tanks were destroyed without crew inside.
3. They didn't set up early warning posts that would warn them that Americans are coming and would allow them to get into tanks.

Apparently it's because the Middle East has a culture of treasuring knowledge for personal advantage and not passing it to subordinates.

[2ndACR]

Well, not bloody at all really. We took a mission kill M1a1 (engine took a hit and part of the track gone, missing 2 road wheels) backed a captured T72 about 400 meters away and shot it from the side. Did not penetrate the armor. Spalling would have hurt the crew. The Iraqi's were using home made in Iraq ammo for the tanks, they lacked the punch of true Russian tank rounds. Plus the Iraqi tankers really did not know how to fight their vehicles.

2nd Day of ground war, we rolled thru a bunker complex (thought it was abandoned), stopped to prepare to do a fast sweep, when up pops an Iraqi soldier out of a bunker, he dove back in, and you could hear the shouting, seconds later, all kinds of weapons were being thrown out of bunkers all over the place. 275 or so prisoners. Our Saudi interpreter said they had a report of us being 30 miles away about 2 hours before we got there. They figured we would arrive the next day. Never thought we could move that fast. But my memory is foggy after all these years. The distance could have been further.

After 73 Easting, when ever we came upon Iraqi armor (or any vehicles for that matter) we would pop a round nearby, the Iraqi would stop, bail out, run about 300 meters and plop to the ground, then we would destroy the vehicle. They learned that being in the vehicle was certain death. I honestly cannot remember if we ever had any air support outside our own attack helicopter squadron and the Apache Battalion we had assigned to us. We rolled thru areas that had been B52 strikes on them, and there were craters everywhere, but alot of times we never could figure out what they were hitting.

But the Iraqi's were terrified of the A10 and Apache. Not to mention any of our M1a1's or Brads. I know it is not politically correct, but I hold all Arab/Middle east armies in extremely low regard. Except the Israel army. All the others, well, I do not fear them in the least, at all.

[Fred98]

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR
I know it is not politically correct, but I hold all Arab/Middle east armies in extremely low regard. Except the Israel army. All the others, well, I do not fear them in the least, at all.

Iran would be different. They last saw combat 20 years ago but the senior genersl would not have forgotton.

Saddam was a dictator and it showed in the performance of the individual soldier. Iran is not a dictatorship and the soldiers will perform that much better.

Their weapons are nearly as good as the US and the Iranians would use them wisely.
-

[bairdlander2]

USA will never attack an adversary that they think will give them a bloody nose.

[2ndACR]

Nope, Iran would be no different. I highly doubt any ME country would even try to combat the US in a straight up fight ala GW1. What we saw with GW2 and the melting away of the Iraqi army is what we will see there. But now, they would have to fight the most battle tested army on earth. We can now fight it out either way they want to go.

Iran fought a lot of the Iran-Iraq war with human wave attacks......those went away in Korea. We have this thing called DPICM that would make very short work of that tactic.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: Perturabo

I've read a study of that battle. It would be a pretty bloody battle for Americans if there weren't three factors involved ...

An "if" to the 3rd power!

John Keegan predicted that although Iraq had held it's own during its war with Iran, no 3rd world army would pose a problem for a modern western army.

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: Joe D.

ORIGINAL: Perturabo

I've read a study of that battle. It would be a pretty bloody battle for Americans if there weren't three factors involved ...

An "if" to the 3rd power!

Except that that the "if" was about basic mistakes made by the enemy. Armies of Arab states are really scary (not as opponents, but as a show of human capability for stupidity). Stuff like intelligence spying their own generals instead of enemies, not sharing military knowledge because personal gains from having skills that others don't have is more important than victory, etc. are a norm there.

ORIGINAL: Joe D.

John Keegan predicted that although Iraq had held it's own during its war with Iran, no 3rd world army would pose a problem for a modern western army.

But did he predict that their refusal to give up would make wars with middle eastern countries very expensive?

[2ndACR]

Well, to go any further will dive into politics and that is not allowed. Because there is not a politically correct way to respond.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: Perturabo

Except that that the "if" was about basic mistakes made by the enemy ...

The winner of a game of chess is the player who makes the next to last mistake, but coalition commanders advancing into Kuwait and Western Iraq soon realized that the enemy couldn't co-ordinate its forces above the battalion level.

ORIGINAL: Perturabo
But did he predict that their refusal to give up would make wars with middle eastern countries very expensive?

I believe we billed the Gulf states for our expenses encurred during ODS; in fact, Saudi was willing to give each and every US soldier deployed to their nation $100 US, but Bush said we weren't mercenaries.

However, many of us still have our gold encrusted KLMs.

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: Joe D.

ORIGINAL: Perturabo

Except that that the "if" was about basic mistakes made by the enemy ...

The winner of a game of chess is the player who makes the next to last mistake, but coalition commanders advancing into Kuwait and Western Iraq soon realized that the enemy couldn't co-ordinate its forces above the battalion level.

What I have found bizarre was that it wasn't just a question of technology (and basically,in many books ODS was portrayed as purely war of technology - with stuff like stealth bombers, M1 Abrams tanks, etc. getting glorified and actual skill of US soldiers and horrible lack of skill of Iraqi soldiers being de-emphasised) but also a question of cultural flaws that make their military function completely irrationally.

ORIGINAL: Joe D.

ORIGINAL: Perturabo
But did he predict that their refusal to give up would make wars with middle eastern countries very expensive?

I believe we billed the Gulf states for our expenses encurred during ODS; in fact, Saudi was willing to give each and every US soldier deployed to their nation $100 US, but Bush said we weren't mercenaries.

However, many of us still have our gold encrusted KLMs.

KLMs? Also, I didn't mean the ODS. I meant the latter wars that actually involved a government change. It's almost like they threw all their cheap units at the coalition solely to make it spend more money on the war.