Another interesting tank factoid...

[kato13]

pmulcahy 04-29-2008, 09:25 PM I am currently reading a book called M-1 Abrams at War by Michael Green and Greg Stewart. At one point, in a part of the book describing the ammunition stowage of 120mm-armed M-1s, there is an interesting fact:


When an Abrams tank turret bustle is penetrated and the main gun rounds stored within detonate, the propellant and primers normally take a minute or two to go off. However, Abrams tank crews learn in training that some HEAT and MPAT rounds take as much as an hour to cook-off...


That would make an interesting part of an adventure in T2K! You knock out an enemy tank, but not totally destroy it; after the fight, you go to strip or salvage the tank, and it blows up in your face!


Does anyone know if this is true of other calibers of ammunition, or other countries' ammo? Jess, do you have any input here (that you can talk about in a public forum like this, that is)?


BTW, this book (so far as I have gotten in the book) shows nine interations of the M-1A1 alone; does anyone know what the Australians bought?


And, another BTW -- I am working on an update to the M-1 entry on my pages that is getting a bit large...

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Targan 04-29-2008, 11:39 PM BTW, this book (so far as I have gotten in the book) shows nine interations of the M-1A1 alone; does anyone know what the Australians bought?

I have an Australian Defender Magazine issue at home with the qrite up on the arrival of Australia's M1A1s and I'm pretty sure it doesn't descrice exactly what series they are but as they were stripped out and completely and thoroughly refurbished before being shipped it seems likely they could be considered a new version all to themselves.

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Targan 05-01-2008, 09:28 AM Oops it wasn't Australian Defender it was actually Defence Today Magazine November/December 2006 edition. The article about the first batch of 59 Abrams delivered to the Australian Army, 41 of which went to 1 Armd Regt, says the following:


"The tanks come complete with a number of 'Applied Improvements' which bring them up to a standard almost identical to the latest US Marine Corps M1A1 AIM Abrams. These include a biocular image control unit, a TALIN far target location system, a Defence Advanced GPS receiver, a Blue Force Tracker vehicle movement tracking system transponder, a driver's vision enhancer and an internal mount for the commander's F88 Steyr assault rifle.


External modifications include a NATO slave connector box, rear-mounted infantry tank telephone, an extended rear bustle rack and fittings to enable the attachment of a snorkel for deep river fordings and amphibious landings. A turret roof-mounted umbrella, crew fans and a portable electric fridge are also provided.


1 Armd Regt will take delivery of the remaining 41 M1A1 AIM Abrams in March 2007 at their new home in Robertson Barracks outside Darwin."

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pmulcahy 05-01-2008, 10:51 AM ...and an internal mount for the commander's F88 Steyr assault rifle...


Mount as in storage rack, or mount as in a pintle mount or something that can be fired from inside the tank? (The latter would be very interesting!)

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Targan 05-01-2008, 11:32 PM I assume it is just a storage rack.

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Hangfire7 05-02-2008, 02:17 AM The info I know about the Abrams was gleened from destroying a tech manual when I worked in the CMS vault. That info like so much other I have chosen to forget.


Now, my take from an educated guess and from working and reading about other ordinance is as follows:


Ammo and explosives are chemical compounds right?


And from Mr. Warfels 6th grade science class he said a chemical reaction happens when one of three things happen, mix them, add water, or heat them.


So, heating the warehead, primer, propellant is what fits this scenario right?


What happens when you head a chemical or more likely in this case a chemical compound? How do you clearify butter, smelt ore etc? What is it your are doing? Seperating the chemicals right?


End result you end up with something that was not designed to be.


Paul I forget, were you a mortar maggot?


Anyone ever deal with "OLD" demo? Leaking demo? Or explosives or ordinance?


As rounds heat their chemical composition changes, and they become unstable. Or the stabilizers change or become nulified. And that can be the cause of the rounds to explode, they are heated, altered, then there is a chemical reaction to some of the other components that made the piece of ordinance that were not designed to be which adds to the instability or even creates a time bomb and cabloooey! I am not a chemist, heck I won't be taking chemisty or phsyics until next semester, but that is my guess. Some kind of breakdown and chemical reaction result that cause the round to blow.


Now, think about this,


The PCs have an antitank gun, or even a tank or a T2K version of a tank destroyer, and they aquire some rounds on the blackmarkets. They go to use them and find they were rounds from a burnt out tank, as the round is loaded it explodes, or it is a dude, a hangfire or even explodes in handling.


Toss in something else to make your PCs paranoid.

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Brit 05-08-2008, 12:19 AM Not wanting to (I think it is) 'threadjack but also not wanting to start a thread over it...


Does anybody know anything about this turret system?

http://www.specops.com.pl/technika/wachowski/wieza_falcon/wieza_falcon.htm

It's all in Polish (I think!) From one of the photos it looks like this is the casement turret fitted to the Tariq tank on Paul's pages. http://www.pmulcahy.com/tanks/jordanian_tanks.html


As an not-expert, it looks a bit tall and slab sided to me...


Any help, etc.

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pmulcahy 05-08-2008, 02:01 PM I started my career as a mortarman -- but disposing of duds wasn't part of the MOS. We simply VERY carefully removed them from the barrel, VERY carefully took them to the dud pit, and VERY carefully stacked them there. The only places I've fired live rounds is on ranges, at NTC, and one live-fire at Stewart. Even then we dug a dud pit, deep, with sandbags in it and around it. We never actually ended up with many dud rounds -- I've personally had to help extract only one, and I've only actually seen four. (Oh, and when you're done with the live fire, you VERY carefully stack two layers of sandbags over the duds.) Actually disposing of the duds was EOD's job. I never went to combat as a mortarman, but the unofficial procedures for dud rounds was a pit, hole or ditch, one you don't need to actually dig, that you put the rounds in as gently as possible in the heat of battle; if you don't have that, put something heavy and disposable (and not likely to produce fragments) over the duds. Put the disposal point as far away from you as the tactical sitation allows.


However, there is a really fun part of martar gunnery -- after the live fire, you get to destroy the unused charges! You always end up with LOTS of those! Again, you dig a large, deep pit (but you don't even use sandbags), throw in all the unused charges. Depending upon charge type used, you then can ignite them using a blasting cap and wire, a thermite grenade, or a bunch or burning whatever-you-have. Then run. Again, depending upon the type of charge, you'll get a sudden boom (rare), a slow-burning fire (also rare), a nice, big, rapidly-burning bonfire (more likely), or a sudden, massive ignition that sounds like a jet engine and looks sort of like the Vietnam-era foo gas, lasting for a few seconds (especially true of 4.2" mortar "cheese charges").


Hmmm...kinda gives one an idea for an improvised defensive weapon...

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pmulcahy 05-08-2008, 02:03 PM Not wanting to (I think it is) 'threadjack but also not wanting to start a thread over it...


Does anybody know anything about this turret system?

http://www.specops.com.pl/technika/wachowski/wieza_falcon/wieza_falcon.htm

It's all in Polish (I think!) From one of the photos it looks like this is the casement turret fitted to the Tariq tank on Paul's pages. http://www.pmulcahy.com/tanks/jordanian_tanks.html


As an not-expert, it looks a bit tall and slab sided to me...


Any help, etc.


That's a version that used to be called the Tariq 2; I guess they gave it another name. Supposedly, the Jordanians gave up on the idea, but maybe they revived it.

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Targan 05-08-2008, 11:50 PM I started my career as a mortarman -- but disposing of duds wasn't part of the MOS.

I set set off a few meaty explosions when I was a civilian powder monkey. Dealing with missfires was always a hairy time. With regards to good things to put on top of dud rounds or any kind of explosive set on the surface to smother blast and shrapnel we used blast mats made of cut up sections of truck tires wired together. I know that isn't the sort of thing which is likely to be lying around in a battlezone but I just thought I'd mention it as a likely EOD tool.

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copeab 05-09-2008, 02:48 AM I set set off a few meaty explosions when I was a civilian powder monkey. Dealing with missfires was always a hairy time. With regards to good things to put on top of dud rounds or any kind of explosive set on the surface to smother blast and shrapnel we used blast mats made of cut up sections of truck tires wired together. I know that isn't the sort of thing which is likely to be lying around in a battlezone but I just thought I'd mention it as a likely EOD tool.


Although there likely are to be tires shredded by mines or autocannons.


Brandon

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Targan 05-09-2008, 04:54 AM Although there likely are to be tires shredded by mines or autocannons.

For sure. Making a blast mat would be easy but lugging one around with you would be a hassle. Surprisingly effective though (they last longer than you'd think as it takes something like a shaped charge or a very fast burning, high temperature or just really big explosion to cause any significant damage to a blast mat).

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pmulcahy 05-09-2008, 08:02 AM I set set off a few meaty explosions when I was a civilian powder monkey. Dealing with missfires was always a hairy time...


Just about any vet you meet will tell you that duds are a major source of explosives for insurgent and guerilla forces -- often, all you have to do is stick a bit of C4 with a blasting cap on the fuze of the round, or if the fuze is bad, remove the fuze and put the C4/blasting cap into the fuze well, and you have an IED. (IEDs are nothing new; they've probably been around as long as gunpowder itself.) Or you can remove the explosives (often by rather crude means -- I read somewhere about an SF raid on a Viet Cong explosives "factory" where the raiders observed the Viet Cong literally sawing open a dud 250-pund bomb with a hacksaw).


Makes me wonder how many insurgents and guerillas have blown themselves up in the process...

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copeab 05-09-2008, 12:35 PM For sure. Making a blast mat would be easy but lugging one around with you would be a hassle. Surprisingly effective though (they last longer than you'd think as it takes something like a shaped charge or a very fast burning, high temperature or just really big explosion to cause any significant damage to a blast mat).


An alternative, which might be available for looting in larger cities, are ballistic blankets, which police use to cover explosive devices when they can't be deactivated immediately. They are heavy, but shouldn't be a problem if the PCs have a motor vehicle. In fact most come with grommets, so one could be secured over the hood or roof of a car or truck as improvised armor, or laid on the floorboard to give some protection vs mines.


Brandon

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pmulcahy 05-14-2008, 10:22 AM I have an Australian Defender Magazine issue at home with the qrite up on the arrival of Australia's M1A1s and I'm pretty sure it doesn't descrice exactly what series they are but as they were stripped out and completely and thoroughly refurbished before being shipped it seems likely they could be considered a new version all to themselves.


Researching on the Web, I've run into numerous references saying that the Aussie M-1A1 AIM SA's don't have the DU mesh armor inserts of the M-1A1HA or M-1A1HA+. The weight would seem to conform roughly with M-1A1HA levels, but I just can't confirm that with any certainty. Anyone here know whether or not the Aussie M-1A1's have DU mesh inserts or not?

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Hangfire7 05-14-2008, 09:22 PM You answered the part of the question I had asked, but alas, I got sidetracked typing to add why I asked about mortarman etc.


Not just dud rounds, but alot of the roads we used in Oki, well we had aa truck load of 60mms one time most were from the post WWII/Korean Era vintage, and well, the rounds we less than pristine. <This should also answer a question of how old ammo can be that has been floating around the last couple days, Ammo from the late 40s/early 50s fired in 1992/3>


Anyhow, old ammo can change color, leak, etc, from mortar rounds to rifle cartridges, especialy when it has had less than idea temp and humidity conditions, anyone ever see ammo with green growing on the primer where it touches the casing, or the copper bullet jacket and the casing?


I recall when I lived in Oregon when they had a ffeature on the chemical weapons depot iin the eastern portion of the state that stored such weapons, most ammo was so old it no longer had any means of launching them in the US Arsenal. However, alot of the ordinances propellants were degrading, oxidizing and leaking and corroding the housings.


If a GM had the inclination, he could find out the internal schmatics of the types of rounds and see what components would be damaged by fire. Maybe the fire wasn't too hot but it caused the explosive to liquify and melt <like wax> so now the hollow cone for the shapped charge is now filled, and there is a cavity of air on one side of the round as it lay on its side, then after the fire the explosive soldified once more, although it changed loosing some of its chemical stabilizer so its a bit dangerous to handle, but the PCs don't know this of course, and when it fires well the round will be off ballanced and go wild.



Or, some of the internal parts are gummed up from whatever is inside that melted and they fail to operate, causing a dud, or a hangfire.


This should be the case with ALOt of the rounds that have electronics in them. As heat on electrical components is a bad thing.


Oh, here is a bad idea for the PCs,


A multi componented round, the kind that have submuntions. The propellant charge fails, but arms the projectile and submunitions. Isn't that evil?


Here is another idea, instead of a tank burning, and I got this from a discovery channel program, on Rebuilding a Panther, where some guys in California got a Panther tank from Polant or Latvia, it had been blown up in a river and they where trying to figure out what happened to it. After all the PCs will be in Alaska, N. Europe or Korea, all cold with lots of rivers and streams to cross.


A tank could bee bogged down and abondoned, or sink in a deep water hole, or a russian tank crossing on a underwater brigde and it went off course, or a tank while using a snorkel that failed. Or just engaged while crawling in a river or swamp and being at the disadvantage got hammered.


End result, the tank or vehicle is submerged in water for weeks, months or even years until it is found again and stripped of all that can be salvaged and then those goods used, bought, traded or otherwise end up in the hands of the PCs. Alas, the tank rounds and auto cannon rounds had some seepage into the propellant charge resulting in hangfires, slow fires and duds and reduced charges in the rounds.



Paul, as for the bad round on the mortar range, lol,well I was thinking of a one particular instance when I came up with my screenname for this group


But, really as the saying goes "it ain't nothing but a thang." Thats how I always looked at such events.






I started my career as a mortarman -- but disposing of duds wasn't part of the MOS. We simply VERY carefully removed them from the barrel, VERY carefully took them to the dud pit, and VERY carefully stacked them there. The only places I've fired live rounds is on ranges, at NTC, and one live-fire at Stewart. Even then we dug a dud pit, deep, with sandbags in it and around it. We never actually ended up with many dud rounds -- I've personally had to help extract only one, and I've only actually seen four. (Oh, and when you're done with the live fire, you VERY carefully stack two layers of sandbags over the duds.) Actually disposing of the duds was EOD's job. I never went to combat as a mortarman, but the unofficial procedures for dud rounds was a pit, hole or ditch, one you don't need to actually dig, that you put the rounds in as gently as possible in the heat of battle; if you don't have that, put something heavy and disposable (and not likely to produce fragments) over the duds. Put the disposal point as far away from you as the tactical sitation allows.


However, there is a really fun part of martar gunnery -- after the live fire, you get to destroy the unused charges! You always end up with LOTS of those! Again, you dig a large, deep pit (but you don't even use sandbags), throw in all the unused charges. Depending upon charge type used, you then can ignite them using a blasting cap and wire, a thermite grenade, or a bunch or burning whatever-you-have. Then run. Again, depending upon the type of charge, you'll get a sudden boom (rare), a slow-burning fire (also rare), a nice, big, rapidly-burning bonfire (more likely), or a sudden, massive ignition that sounds like a jet engine and looks sort of like the Vietnam-era foo gas, lasting for a few seconds (especially true of 4.2" mortar "cheese charges").


Hmmm...kinda gives one an idea for an improvised defensive weapon...

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Targan 05-14-2008, 11:43 PM In my campaign there have been numerous instances of the PCs suspecting that ordnance was dodgy and putting it to one side. Given how deadly my campaign tends to be they very rarely fire ordnance they think may be faulty. Sometimes they use it to manufacture IEDs.

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sladethesniper 05-29-2008, 08:27 PM Ah, the burning of the cheese charges...the most fun part of gunnery...


As for cookoff's in damaged/destroyed vehicles...the vehicle is usually burning...and once on fire, armored vehicles tend to burn for a long ass time. I've seen a Brad burn for three days, cookoffs going for at least 4 to 5 hours...and when it was all done burning, it was three road wheels, the driver's hatch and a misshaped mass about 4 inches high...


If the vehicle does NOT catch on fire, then there is little danger. Plus, M1's ammo storage is designed to blow out panels on the turret and not into the vehicle thereby saving the crew.


-STS

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pmulcahy 05-29-2008, 10:10 PM Yeah, but thinking of the PCs standing on the blow-off panels when the HEAT rounds blow just warms the cockles of my evil heart...


(BTW: What the heck is a cockle anyway?)

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Targan 05-29-2008, 11:48 PM I have always thought a cockle was a kind of shellfish but maybe it is a region of the cardio-pulmonary system which tends to be cooler than the rest? Perhaps cardiologists refer to pacemakers colloquially as 'cockle-warmers'?

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O'Borg 05-31-2008, 06:48 PM I have always thought a cockle was a kind of shellfish but maybe it is a region of the cardio-pulmonary system which tends to be cooler than the rest? Perhaps cardiologists refer to pacemakers colloquially as 'cockle-warmers'?

Your Google-Fu is weak, old man...


A possible explanation (http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-coc2.htm)

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pmulcahy 05-31-2008, 09:44 PM Your Google-Fu is weak, old man...


A possible explanation (http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-coc2.htm)


OK, O'Borg -- I have a challenge for you! Come up with Twilight 2000 v2.2 rules for Google-Fu!

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Targan 06-01-2008, 06:31 AM Your Google-Fu is weak, old man... Well I thought a cockle was a shellfish and the link you provided says that a cockle is a... shellfish. I didn't think a cockle was a shellfish because I looked it up through Google, I just somehow picked it up sometime in my life. So my Google-Fu may be weak but my general knowledge-fu is strong.

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Hangfire7 06-01-2008, 07:19 PM I recall seeing many a destroyed soviet designed vehicle with oridnance all over the ground after they where blown up. And that is what got me thinking. How much would anyone want to use ammo they just picked up outside a burnt out hulk of a APC?



Ah, the burning of the cheese charges...the most fun part of gunnery...


As for cookoff's in damaged/destroyed vehicles...the vehicle is usually burning...and once on fire, armored vehicles tend to burn for a long ass time. I've seen a Brad burn for three days, cookoffs going for at least 4 to 5 hours...and when it was all done burning, it was three road wheels, the driver's hatch and a misshaped mass about 4 inches high...


If the vehicle does NOT catch on fire, then there is little danger. Plus, M1's ammo storage is designed to blow out panels on the turret and not into the vehicle thereby saving the crew.


-STS

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pmulcahy 06-01-2008, 07:51 PM I recall seeing many a destroyed soviet designed vehicle with oridnance all over the ground after they where blown up. And that is what got me thinking. How much would anyone want to use ammo they just picked up outside a burnt out hulk of a APC?


Desperation? The world would be a pretty desperate place in T2K...

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sladethesniper 06-01-2008, 08:29 PM Hey, if you're desperate enough, you'll use it. Plenty of insurgents do, and although it is nice to kill a few with some duds, apparently, it can't be that dangerous, since some of these guys have been playing with it for a while!


-STS

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Hangfire7 06-02-2008, 12:22 AM Paul that is true, Slade, the question is, and I think Paul gets it.


Sure you can use the rounds to make improvised stuff, but using them as they were intended, that is the thing. Taking a round that has scortching and ruse on it and shoving it in the breach of you tank. Talk about a crap shoot. Will it fire, will it hit and explode, will it hit and alert your target you are there, will it not fire, will it fire and the round explode in the gun, will it just fizzle and put your system down? What a wonderful way for an evil GM to stick it to his PCs.

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sladethesniper 06-02-2008, 01:18 AM Well, it is most definitely a crap shoot. I have fired damaged 25mm rounds and they worked just fine, which was good, since it was all I had at the time...(chain guns are so very tolerant of ammo condition)


But then again, I've seen a "good" round detonate in a kids hand (the primer and the powder) while being re-linked after a mission (unloading the 25mm is a biatch)...


Miraculously, the hand was fine (well, minus half a pinkie), but the kid got a HUGE vertical scar on his face from piece of the casing.


The round was inspected and after a full investigation...no cause was found...


Of course, that proves nothing except that rolling the dice sometimes works and other times, not so much...


-STS

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pmulcahy 06-02-2008, 08:07 AM Paul that is true, Slade, the question is, and I think Paul gets it.


Sure you can use the rounds to make improvised stuff, but using them as they were intended, that is the thing. Taking a round that has scortching and ruse on it and shoving it in the breach of you tank. Talk about a crap shoot. Will it fire, will it hit and explode, will it hit and alert your target you are there, will it not fire, will it fire and the round explode in the gun, will it just fizzle and put your system down? What a wonderful way for an evil GM to stick it to his PCs.


Sort of reminds me of that bar scene in one of the Mad Max movies -- one of the women at a settlement gave Max three 12-gauge shells that she had been carefully saving and hiding. He used two of them at a bar -- the first one gave him a bad spread, and the second looked like the powder charge burned slowly instead of in the near-instantaneous way rounds are supposed to work.

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Brit 06-03-2008, 12:29 AM According to this site the Vickers Mk. 7 uses / used the hull of the Leopold 2 with a new / different turret... http://www.military-today.com/tanks/vickers_mk7.htm


The turret looks a tad Challenger 1 too.


Edit: From this:

http://www.arrse.co.uk/cpgn2/Forums/viewtopic/printertopic=1/t=41311/start=0/postdays=0/postorder=asc/vote=viewresult.html

It seems like the turret is more Challenger 2.


"The Valiants were all scrapped. They survived until about 5 years ago when Vickers cleaned out one of their factories and scrapped them all".


That was typed on a message board in June 2006 so... anybody adventuring in England in around 2001 and who needs a tank... or needs to stop somebody else getting one... You know where to go.

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Brit 06-05-2008, 01:37 AM Interesting T2K related string on The Guild modelling website (although you may have to register...)


http://www.guildwargamers.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=2680

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chico20854 06-12-2008, 03:20 PM List of inactive (museum/display) AFV's in the US:


http://216.176.86.154/afv/USA_AFVs.pdf


Fodder for local warlords, although some of these wouldn't be available in a Twilight scenario!

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