M1A2 Abrams knocked out by enemy fire in Iraq. image - Tank Killer Lovers

This photo as well as many other say quite the opposite :/ By my research there have been at least 7-8 Abrams tanks lost in Iraq. That said half were destroyed by US forces when withdrawing since those tanks were disable & to badly damaged to be salvaged & repaired.

Tanks destroyed by US forces always have their turrets backwards in towing position as regulation requires them to be. Thus this tank was obviously knocked out by a well executed ambush by well trained insurgents/partisans.

All 8+ tanks lost to date were hit by friendly fire? By my records only 1 was lost to friendly fire at the beginning of the conflict but the rest were disabled by enemy fire.

This one was definitely knocked out by enemy combatants due to the fact that its treads are clearly melted dude to thermine IED/mines hitting them. The crew survived n bailed out since the hatches are open but the tank was clearly knocked out & possibly destroyed. Its burning from the inside so that indicates that the thermite melted its way through the floor of the tank lighting it on fire from the inside.

There are videos of insurgents armed with Russian RPG-29 AT missiles knocking out British Challenger mark 2 tanks through the frontal armor.

Since The Challenger & Abrams use the same CHABRAM armor in the front I wouldn't be surprised if an RPG-29 in the right circumstances could also kill an Abrams.

Thats not really a problem in urban & forested environments. & its always best to ambush armored vehicles in well executed attacks & teams with 3-4 man squads. For example a armored vehicle collom is moving down a certain urban street. Before the enemy approaches dig under the local buildings or even dig right next to the paved road & then tunnel under the road. plant some thermite IEDs or AT mines & then fill in the tunnel & hole.

Wait for the collom to arrive & hit the 1st vehicle with the IEDs via remote or pressure sensors. this will block their front path & stall the collom while simultaneously sapper teams & support squads attack the collom from the sides & rear.

Support squads cover the sappers from any ground infantry while the sapper teams target the rear vehicle 1st & then move their way up the collom. targeting the rear vehicle 1st will trap the rest of the collom & everything else after that is fairly simple. The bigger the collom the more men required.

An example would be a collom with 2 tanks, 2-3 APCs, & 2-3 transport trucks. Total 6-8 vehicles + infantry. You would need 30+ decently armed guys to properly ambush such a collom. If well trained & equipped the collom can be eliminated in under 5-6 min.

standard AK round can punch through a rail road tie (track) at 800 meters buddy. I think an AK will do the job. & as an added measure use AP dum dum AK rounds. But again that could only work while in dense forested or urban environments.

Also the only down side of the iraqi T72s is their fire control systems. they fire the same type of AP ammo as the abrams IE depleted Uranium SABOT. the issue ultimately came to range in that conflict in that the Abrams had better longer rage fire while the T72s didn't. T72s 125mm guns have good projectile rage but in combat without proper fire control systems the Iraqi tankers had limited effective range.

And you know this how? Dum Dum are regular hollow point rounds that are more or less AP due to their mass & shear kinetic energy on impact. They aren't that hard to buy you know. I have a case with 2,000+ round of em in 2 metal tins.

Well train marksman can hit out to a 1000. I know I do this on a regular basis at my rage in Indiana with my AKs. that said you need a decent variant to do this as cheap rifles wont cut it. Chinese Norincos for example, complete POS rifles when compared to its European counterparts and unsuited for this task.

Yes & in thos engagements the Abrams tanks used their one main advantage & that was the longer rage of their main guns. The Iraqi T-72s weren't fully modernized with adequate fire control systems nor equipped with longer range & more accurate rifled main guns.

Their T-72s fired similar DU AT SABOT rounds but lacked the range & accuracy to engage a formation of Abrams tanks effectively. They thought that they could uses their superior numbers & rush the Abrams tanks which was a good idea but their range gap to the Abrams tanks was just to great (2+ miles by some accounts).

To take on a group of Abrams tanks & or similar tanks in the open is open suicide with such out classed equipment. The Iraqi tankers must have known this & yet they still attempted to fight back -_- poor bastards had balls of steel to charge Abrams tanks from that distance & in the open knowing full well what would happen.

yea i never said that was their main tactic i was only describing that one incident. Iraqis couldn't really mount a massive coordinated counter attack since their formations, radar installations, & communications among other things were bombed back to the stone age thx to US F-117s which also were responsible for destroying entire Iraqi formations. Its really due to coalition air power that came after the 1st wave of US F-117s that sealed Iraq's fate.

yea there's a 1st for everything :P Still they are quite hard to knock out & or disable & at least its not a Ronson lighter like the Sherman was :/

indeed. Id prefer the Russian T-90 & Germany's new Leopard 2A5. The Russian Black Eagle prototype also intrigues me.

yea they recently had a joint development project with the Chines for a next gen main battle tank. the prototype wasn't adopted by either nation but the program did yield interesting results tosay the least.

still im glad to know they got out in one piece.

sadly mainstream media is nothing more than state & corporate owned propaganda at this point & they are no longer reliable sources for relevant information.