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Well-Known Member
News organizations are obsessively gushing over the details of U.S. war equipment--cutaway engineering drawings of Apache helicopters, graphics showing how to grip an assault rifle during street fighting--yet everyone's missing what appears to Best Laid Plans to be a significant military technology story: Two U.S. Abrams M1 tanks have been knocked out by Iraqi forces, the first Abrams ever lost in combat.
The Abrams was invincible during the 1991 Gulf war--destroying hundreds of Iraqi tanks, including the modern, expensive Russian-built T72, without a single loss on our side. In other deployments as well, the Abrams has performed as though surrounded by a Star Trek energy shield. Bullets, artillery, and anti-tank rockets have bounced off its 70-ton shell, especially the highly sophisticated glacis plate at the front of the tank. The Abrams glacis plate includes, among other materials, "depleted uranium," a non-radioactive form of the metal that numbers among the densest known substances.
Now two Abrams tanks have been knocked out near An Najaf by the AT14 "Kornet," a new Russian-built, soldier-carried anti-tank rocket somewhat similar to the new U.S. "Javelin" weapon. Kornets are laser-guided for accuracy and employ an advanced kinetic penetrator (extreme speed, not explosive power, is the key feature) to break through the layered, "composite" armor used by the Abrams and other advanced tanks.
In both cases of Abrams hit by Kornets, the tank was disabled but the damage was limited enough that crews got out unharmed. (Most American anti-tank munitions are designed to set the insides of tanks on fire, leading to hellish death for crews.) At any rate, Iraq now has a weapon that can knock out an Abrams. This may mean trouble as U.S. and British forces approach Baghdad. It also means that other dictatorships around the world will hear the news and line up to buy this Russian product.
Because the Kornet was first fielded in 1994, obviously Iraq obtained it in violation of the U.N. embargo. A large shipment of Kornets was sold by Russia to Syria in 1998, so peace-loving Syria may be the violator. Some intelligence sources maintain that a few Kornets were also aboard the Karine A, the weapons ship intercepted on its way to the peace-loving Palestinian Authority. If Kornets find their way into the hands of the Palestinian Authority, Israeli tanks will no longer be able to roll with impunity through the West Bank and Gaza.
Meanwhile, lost in the data-crawls on CNN was that the Pentagon announced this morning that about 5,000 bombs and missiles have been employed so far against Iraq. This is the reverse of shock and awe--5,000 sounds like a lot, but in military terms, it's slack and awe-shucks.
U.S. forces expended some 22,000 bombs and missiles in the Afghan campaign, though the majority of them impacted against the sides of mountains during the battle of Tora Bora. One thousand bombs dropped was typical for a single raid in World War II. Maybe it makes sense, given the desire to avoid killing civilians, for the United States to proceed gradually with bomb totals. But the impression being given to the world, by the U.S. media as well as the Arab and European press, is that Iraq is being subjected to an astonishing, unprecedented assault. It's not.
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=iraq&s=easterbrook032803.1
The Abrams was invincible during the 1991 Gulf war--destroying hundreds of Iraqi tanks, including the modern, expensive Russian-built T72, without a single loss on our side. In other deployments as well, the Abrams has performed as though surrounded by a Star Trek energy shield. Bullets, artillery, and anti-tank rockets have bounced off its 70-ton shell, especially the highly sophisticated glacis plate at the front of the tank. The Abrams glacis plate includes, among other materials, "depleted uranium," a non-radioactive form of the metal that numbers among the densest known substances.
Now two Abrams tanks have been knocked out near An Najaf by the AT14 "Kornet," a new Russian-built, soldier-carried anti-tank rocket somewhat similar to the new U.S. "Javelin" weapon. Kornets are laser-guided for accuracy and employ an advanced kinetic penetrator (extreme speed, not explosive power, is the key feature) to break through the layered, "composite" armor used by the Abrams and other advanced tanks.
In both cases of Abrams hit by Kornets, the tank was disabled but the damage was limited enough that crews got out unharmed. (Most American anti-tank munitions are designed to set the insides of tanks on fire, leading to hellish death for crews.) At any rate, Iraq now has a weapon that can knock out an Abrams. This may mean trouble as U.S. and British forces approach Baghdad. It also means that other dictatorships around the world will hear the news and line up to buy this Russian product.
Because the Kornet was first fielded in 1994, obviously Iraq obtained it in violation of the U.N. embargo. A large shipment of Kornets was sold by Russia to Syria in 1998, so peace-loving Syria may be the violator. Some intelligence sources maintain that a few Kornets were also aboard the Karine A, the weapons ship intercepted on its way to the peace-loving Palestinian Authority. If Kornets find their way into the hands of the Palestinian Authority, Israeli tanks will no longer be able to roll with impunity through the West Bank and Gaza.
Meanwhile, lost in the data-crawls on CNN was that the Pentagon announced this morning that about 5,000 bombs and missiles have been employed so far against Iraq. This is the reverse of shock and awe--5,000 sounds like a lot, but in military terms, it's slack and awe-shucks.
U.S. forces expended some 22,000 bombs and missiles in the Afghan campaign, though the majority of them impacted against the sides of mountains during the battle of Tora Bora. One thousand bombs dropped was typical for a single raid in World War II. Maybe it makes sense, given the desire to avoid killing civilians, for the United States to proceed gradually with bomb totals. But the impression being given to the world, by the U.S. media as well as the Arab and European press, is that Iraq is being subjected to an astonishing, unprecedented assault. It's not.
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=iraq&s=easterbrook032803.1
