BLAH

That's a logical fallacy (appeal to authority). One needn't experience to be able to comment, or to be correct. SAA said the gunner and commander bailed due to sights being damaged. Other than direct blast damage to the external sights when there's no armor perforation, internal damage to batteries and wiring is one of the other causes I've heard of; albeit, I've only read about it on one M1 that lost power from a non-perforating FFAR hit to the rear of the tank. By all means provide another explanation for their statement. The pictures shows the GPS intact in comparison to other pictures that have shown it destroyed. SAA implied that the gunner and commander were at fault; whilst "noob" might seem offensive to you, it's not to me. If I panicked and bailed, I wouldn't mind anyone calling me one. Your implication that you need direct experience to comment is again, an appeal to authority. If all we did was limit discussion to "to those with experience", such as crewmen, direct engineers, or factory workers, then we'd have a far smaller userbase than we already do. RE: M1A1M with different barrel. The video implied they were the same. There's nothing saying the barrel could have been replaced when it was undergoing repairs; it gave no time frame. They could also be different tanks, which is something I never implied couldn't be the case.

Might be another Leo 2A4 hit (looks like one in this frame grab); Metis-M hit where the black smudge is:

Blah

Come now, chickenhawk fallacies aren't an argument, and willy measuring contests are juvenile. SAA source says tankers panicked when sighting devices were gone -- they make the qualifier that their own tankers are noobs in this case. Said sighting devices aren't gone. GPS trashed would be a likely reason for the gunner to panic if the SAA source is correct. The GPS isn't trashed.

Black smoke pouring from hatches = something bad happened, and the internals will be cooked. Whilst they might not be total losses, especially if recovered, you can say they're killed insofar as what defines a killed tank on the battlefield. That account is fishy simply because it begins with a false statement that the sights are damaged. That you can verify. You can't verify the supposed hit that wounded the driver.

DEATH BEFORE DISMOUNT

There's video of 2 smoking after ATGM hits. That's as good as you get can get for confirmation. The 3rd hit on video is the frontal TOW hit, which was recovered and repairable. That account doesn't make much sense simply because you see no damage to the turret front and sighting devices. The gunner's sight looks fine, which is generally the one you don't want to go down, and could cause a noob to panic and bail.

There's been 2 that were left smoking after ATGM hits; they probably had a high chance of being beyond repair.

Looks to me more like a typical large caliber HEAT channel at a shallow angle with the edges pushed in than something akin to a thin skinned vehicle with its armor fully caved in. You see this on target tanks where the ATGM fuses at high angles. Gunner and commander would probably be fine IMO.

They could have replaced the guntube at the shop, yes? If the perforation was around the gunner, it very well could have messed up the gun. That'd be reason for a new gun tube. The accompanying text from the video implies they're the same tank, though. So, that's all I've got.

Shades of Lebanon. The M48 + ERA and M111 gave the Soviets are good look into Western tech.

Apparently, it's before and after.

Looks like it's in pretty good shape considering it had an ATGM shot through the roof. Crew compartment wouldn't be burnt out as the angle of impact missed the bustle. Loader probably would have been wounded/killed, but I think it was empty when it was hit.

It was apparently repaired; I doubt there would be much in the way of internal fire simply because combustibles in the fighting compartment would be easy to extinguish if lit up by the jet/spall; it's only ammo/fuel that's the problem when hit:

Something that made them abandon it; the hit doesn't look too bad, but they probably had no means to recover it: