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Although Armored Cav by Tom Clancy is liberally sprinkled with apocrypha and fervor, one statement he made in the book I've heard corroborated elsewhere by a guy I worked with who was in GW1: the Iraqi long rod penetrator rounds were made from local tungsten, not imported. While the guns were likely entirely identical to what was in Russian/Soviet tanks of the day, the ammo was most definitely not.
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For the non tankers on the list, a bit of background. There are two types of AT rounds, chemical and kinetic. An example of a chemical round is a HEAT warhead, this is a charge of explosive with a funnel imprinted into one end and usually lined with copper. Typically has a long tube pointing from the business end holding a stand off fuse. When the fuse hits the armor, the explosive is denotated forcing the copper from a metal and straight into a plasma state...this blast of molten hot metal burns through armor and spalls the interior of the vehicle with white hot fragments of armor...with the amount of ammo, fuel and other flammables stored inside a tank you almost always get a secondary explosion. Advantages is that with a direct strike, you almost always get a penetration, its easy to make, armor penetration is not affected by range. Disadvantages, its a heavy, slow round so the chance to hit at long range is badly degraded, its affected by cross-winds and it has to strike the armor at the right angle or you get a wonderful roman candle effect.
Kenetic rounds depend on the speed of the round. A AP round is simply a solid block of steel, this is the WWI/WWII primary AT round. You get penetration but thicker armor is more resistant. The Germans tried to get around this with the APHE round, penetration then a light explosive charge, but face-hardened armor stopped this. Then along comes the APCR, or taper-bore round, tungsten steel penetrator with a outer shell of aluminum, the force of firing squeezes the round into a smaller caliber, thus getting more speed. But shortages of tungsten (and the complicated manufacture process) caused this to be dropped by the Nazis. The British designed the first real advance in 1945 with the APDS. A tungsten steel penetrator with, at first a wooden shoe or "sabot" (later replaced with aluminum) that allowed the advantages of APCR without the manufacture issues.
The Soviets designed the first APDSFS with the introduction of the T-62 and its 115mm smooth-bore cannon. Fin Stabilized took care of a problem with APDS, that of the spin causing the round to drift a few mils to the right during long range engagements. This was the first kenetic round to be used out to 2,000 meters. Still used the tungsten steel penetrator. Sometime around 1978-79, the US started deploying the APDSDU round, replacing tungsten steel with depleted uranimum. DU seemed to be the perfect combination of light weight and high tensile strength. Armor penetration was several times greater than that of tungsten steel. Shortly afterwards the US started deployment of the APDSFSDU rounds. Since the M-60A1/A3 tanks used rifled cannons, there was a counter-rotating feature to allow for the full advantage of FS. This is also the main reason why the decision to go with the German 120mm came about. Yes it was poltical decision, but the lack of a native smoothbore design also played a major role. This allowed the APDSFSDU to be made more cheaply by getting ride of the counter-rotating device.
What Saddam chose to go with was native manufacture of his tank rounds, he didn't have the technology to make DU rounds, and he lacked enough tungsten to make penetrators (since tungsten is also used in tools, he was faced with the same choice as the Nazis....being able to make tools, or make ammunition). He was forced to use stainless steel to make his armor penetrators and since his quality control was for shit, he wasn't able to make good quality stainless steel....this is why you hear so many stories of Iraqi AT rounds shattering on impact or just penetrating armor. The Iraqi Army depended on HEAT rounds to a great extant, but thus doomed them to except an engagement range well short of what the Allies could do.
During Desert Storm, M-1s and Challengers were able to engage with APFSDSDU to 4,500+ meters, the longest range shot was by an M-1 of the 1st Armored Division that hit a T-55 at 5,250 meters. When you consider that the Iraqis did not engage anything over 1,200 meters, you begin to understand just how demoralizing it was to go up against M-1s. The lethality of the APFSDSDU round was shown when a 2nd ACR M-1 nailed a T-72 at 2,100 meters, shooting through a protective berm 15 meters thick and still penetrating the turret ring.
There is also a confirmed story of an M-1 that was stuck in a bog and left behind for maintenance to recover. While waiting, the M-1 was attacked by three T-62 tanks. In the engagement that followed, the M-1 killed all three T-62s, for the expediture of four rounds of main gun ammo, and was hit by five 115mm APDSFS rounds. There was no penetration of the M-1's armor, one sponson box on the turret was damaged and the M-1 was fully operational and rejoined its platoon later that day.
There is also a lot of BS about how the Iraqi tanks where not of the same quaility as those used by the Russians. This has already been noted by a couple of other users and I repeat, this is nothing more than utter hogwash! The Iraqi's did not then, and do not now have the heavy industry to make their own tanks. They purchased directly from the builder, in other words, these tanks were taken directly from the Red Army's own production lines, this was Russian front line equipment. Where the Iraqi's dropped the ball was in the purchase of those little extras, like tank ammunition. In addition, the Soviets did not sell their latest ballistic computers and laser rangefinders, thus dooming the Iraqi Army to a fight that they couldn't win.