Dead Iron

[Gorka L. Martinez-Mezo]

 

Looks like large caliber ATGM hits on that M60A1 turret. The tank dates from 1958, the ATGM from 1970, effectively. Nothing stands still.

photo have signature "AT-3 Sagger hit"

 

I understand this was during the Yom Kippur war, right?

[Gorka L. Martinez-Mezo]

Anybody ever fire and hit a tank with an ATGM in combat back then? That's my meaning of "effectively." It took 1972 Easter Offensive in VN [Cobra delivered TOW] and the 73 Yom Kippur [sagger] to reveal to the world what the ATGM was all about. Otherwise there was SS-10, Dart and ENTAC back in the early days, but of little matter.

 

IIRC, the Cobra did not received TOW capability until later, the TOW launchers during the easter offensive being modified Hueys.

 

The early AT-3 should have been as effective as the SS-10/11 or ENTAC, being all of them manually guided. The Israeli had some half track tank destroyers armed with SS-11, but never read about their activities in the 1967 and 73 wars if any.

[bojan]

Anybody ever fire and hit a tank with an ATGM in combat back then? That's my meaning of "effectively." It took 1972 Easter Offensive in VN [Cobra delivered TOW] and the 73 Yom Kippur [sagger] to reveal to the world what the ATGM was all about. Otherwise there was SS-10, Dart and ENTAC back in the early days, but of little matter.

 

Israelis used SS-10 in 1967 war, and Egyprians used 2P26/AT-1 in the same, managing to KO at least 3 Israeli Centurions in one engagement.

[methos]

it's not red part, it's cut of frontal angled plate (you get cut wrong, it's not in center of tank)

Then the drawing is very bad, because the glacis plate is rectangular, so it would show two cut dimensions at the same time.

 

However:

[Ken Estes]

 

Anybody ever fire and hit a tank with an ATGM in combat back then? That's my meaning of "effectively." It took 1972 Easter Offensive in VN [Cobra delivered TOW] and the 73 Yom Kippur [sagger] to reveal to the world what the ATGM was all about. Otherwise there was SS-10, Dart and ENTAC back in the early days, but of little matter.

 

Israelis used SS-10 in 1967 war, and Egyprians used 2P26/AT-1 in the same, managing to KO at least 3 Israeli Centurions in one engagement.

 

 

Good to know, Bojan, thanks for that. Nobody seemed to pay much attention at the time, right?

 

Gorka, thanks for the correction, I knew it in the day but it slipped.

[DKTanker]

Israelis used SS-10 in 1967 war, and Egyprians used 2P26/AT-1 in the same, managing to KO at least 3 Israeli Centurions in one engagement.

 

Which boggles the mind that the IDF was so utterly unprepared to defend against AT missile warfare in 1973.

[Panzermann]

 

 

Israelis used SS-10 in 1967 war, and Egyprians used 2P26/AT-1 in the same, managing to KO at least 3 Israeli Centurions in one engagement.

 

Which boggles the mind that the IDF was so utterly unprepared to defend against AT missile warfare in 1973.

How many ATGM have been fired and with how much success? Maybe they made a bad show making general staff underestimating them?

 

this 2P26 is in the Batey ha-Osef Museum

 

 

So they were aware of it.

[DKTanker]

 

How many ATGM have been fired and with how much success? Maybe they made a bad show making general staff underestimating them?

 

this 2P26 is in the Batey ha-Osef Museum

 

So they were aware of it.

 

Oh they were aware, I think, if pressed, they would admit to more than a little arrogance as well.

[bojan]

Oh they were aware, I think, if pressed, they would admit to more than a little arrogance as well.

 

Best/worst irony? They put captured 2P26 launchers into service ASAP after 1967.

To be fair, it was not ATGMs that surprised them, it was scale of deployment, which was a lesson Soviets learned from 1967.

 

Locally, pre-1967 plan was 12 portable launchers per infantry brigade or 6 ATGM vehicles per mech/armor Bde.

Post 1967 portable ATGMs were increased to 4 per Bn for + 12 portables at Bde level + 12 ATGM vehicles at Bde level for infantry Bde.

Mech got 2 ATGMs per company + 6 ATGM vehicles per Bn + 12 ATGM vehicles at Bde level.

So number of launchers went from 12/6 to 24+12 (inf) or 18+30 (mech/armor). I think Egyptians did pretty much the same.

Edited March 27, 2016 by bojan

[bojan]

 

 

Good to know, Bojan, thanks for that. Nobody seemed to pay much attention at the time, right?

 

Soviets did, mainly noting that ATGMs need to be handled down to Bn level. That was implemented, and result was 1973 big ATGM circus. Also, Egyptians used Sagger during War of Attrition, but never massed it. IMO Israelis were probably thinking that ATGM fire would not be too concentrated and the rest became history.

Edited March 27, 2016 by bojan

[bojan]

 

How many ATGM have been fired and with how much success? Maybe they made a bad show making general staff underestimating them?

 

 

So they were aware of it.

 

One sucesful (for for Egyptians) engagement is know where 3 Cents were KOd. Israelis also had at least one sucesfull engagement, managing to KO two tanks and APC. But in both cases ATGMs were Bde asset, which was too few to have big influence.

Edited March 27, 2016 by bojan

[zaarin7]

I've read in more than one place that what happened was the armor units mobilized first before the mech infantry and artillery so that's why they made unsupported attacks on the Egyptian infantry lines.

[DKTanker]

I've read in more than one place that what happened was the armor units mobilized first before the mech infantry and artillery so that's why they made unsupported attacks on the Egyptian infantry lines.

IMO, goes back to arrogance. Let us suppose that it is true, that infantry and artillery units couldn't be mobilized as fast as armor units. Without asking why that was, we can still observe that the IDF had time and was not imminently threatened by Egypt's canal crossing and certainly could have waited for at least artillery support before doing a 20th century charge of the light brigade across the Sinai desert. It was arrogance, the IDF learned some bad lessons from 1967, namely that armor needs little to no support in the offense because Arabs will run away at the first sign of a tank.

[billman]

Would Infantry support help at all in this case? I mean the atgm teams could spot and fire there missiles way before the Infantry could get close enough to suppress them. Artillery would be very useful for obvious reasons.

[bojan]

Infantry comes with mortars, mortars can shoot smoke which limits ATGMs, especially manually guided with large dead zones.

[DKTanker]

Would Infantry support help at all in this case? I mean the atgm teams could spot and fire there missiles way before the Infantry could get close enough to suppress them. Artillery would be very useful for obvious reasons.

Infantry also would have been helpful when they closed the range and started coming under attack by Egyptians toting RPG7s.

Edited March 27, 2016 by DKTanker

[alejandro_]

Any idea on location/cause of this photo?

 

[JWB]

Normandy and 75mm.

[DKTanker]

Training HEAT

[erwinl]

Normandy and 75mm.

What would the smaller hole on the lower left (from our position) be?

[Damian]

Training HEAT

 

AFAIK it was APAM HE round.

[JWB]

 

Normandy and 75mm.

What would the smaller hole on the lower left (from our position) be?

 

Didn't see that at first. Could be Panzerfaust.

[erwinl]

 

 

Normandy and 75mm.

What would the smaller hole on the lower left (from our position) be?

 

Didn't see that at first. Could be Panzerfaust.

 

Ah. Didn't think of that possibility.

First hit, which disabled the tank and the 75mm to finish it off?

 

Funny by the way, how the angle in which we see the 75mm holes seem to suggest the frontal armour isn't more than about a finger thick. It's thicker than that, I know, but it looks that way in this photograph.

[DKTanker]

The Burned out M4 with six 75mm penetrations and two by some type of HEAT and then towed to the position the picture was taken? I think it absorbed most of the penetrations post burnout. Would it be possible that the two HEAT penetrations are from 2.36" bazooka?

[zaarin7]

Crews trained in W W II to shoot until the target was burning according to everything I've read.