YaATW2KT: The Second Mexican-American War

[RN7]

Originally Posted by Raellus

The myth of the M1/MIA1 Abrams' invulnerability to second-gen ATGMs has been busted for quite some time. Most recently,

http://warisboring.com/what-destroyed-this-abrams-tank/

Spoiler: It was either a Milan or a relatively old Chinese ATGM.

Massed RPG fire killed an Abrams during the 2003 "Thunder Run" into Baghdad.

Bottom line, the Abrams was the best tank of its generation, but, even in its heyday, it wasn't unbeatable.

Raellus you are aware that all current U.S. Abram's have depleted uranium (DU) armour, and that export Abram's don't?

Abram's exported to Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Morocco and Saudi Arabia do not have DU armour, but are fitted with the Chobham armour package. Chobham was cutting edge in the late 1980's, but is now considered fairly average. The British Challenger 2 tanks use the far more effective second generation Dorchester armour.

Officially the Abram's exported to Australia also lack DU armour, but is believed that Australian Abram's have been fitted with DU due to the 68 plus ton weight of their tanks.

The Chinese HG-8 is an amalgamation of technology copied from American TOW, Franco-German MILAN and British Swingfire anti-tank missiles. There has also been 12 improved models that followed the original HJ-8 missile of the 1980's, designated HJ-8A to HJ-8H, each incorporating improved features over the previous model. The later models of the HG-8 have an armour penetration (HEAT) of 800-1,100 mm, which is similar to modern versions of the MILAN (MILAN 3 and ER) missile but still not near enough to penetrate a U.S. M1A1/A2. The MILAN 1 used by the Mexicans had an armour penetration (HEAT) of 350mm.

Bottom line is the Abram's was never the best tank of its generation, but it was one of the best and remains so. The frontal armour of the baseline M1 was not unbeatable, but the Mexicans had nothing that could realistically penetrate its armour at the time in real life. The frontal armour of the M1A1 was to all intensive purposes invulnerable to anything Mexico had, and most things the Soviets had.