Marine Corps armor during Desert Storm

[DRB]

I recently purchased the book SEMPER FI The Definitive Illustrated History of the U.S. Marines. I learned that the only Marine Unit out there with the M-1 Abrams tank was a reserve unit. They performed very well. They were Bravo Company, 4th Battalion, 4th Marine division. They were attached to the 2nd Marine division out there. I guess I was shocked there were no regular Marine units equipped with the Abrams. Most still had the M-60 MBT. Anyways Bravo went on to destroy 59 tanks, 32 APCs, 26 non armored vehicles, and a arty gun. They did this without taking any losses. I must say this is very impressive for a reserve unit or any unit for that matter. By the way, the book states the Marines destroyed 1,040 tanks,APCs,and 432 artillery pieces during the 1st Gulf War.

[SGT7477]

Sounds like a good book I will have to get, Semper Fidelis.

[Carpshooter]

I have purchased this book "Sermper Fi " also , and it is a good illustrated history of the Corps , for those like me who never knew or cared until now . ;)

It's worth buying !:iwo:

[Zulu 36]

I read that 2d Tanks (active duty) was fully equipped in-theater with M1 tanks, and 4th Tanks (Reserves) was only partially equipped. The rest of 4th Tanks, 1st Tanks, and 3rd Tanks, had M-60s. Not like it made a difference since the 105mm gun still ate up the Iraqi armor whether it was on an M-1 or M-60.

I read (somewhere, years ago, but not long after Desert Storm) that the Reserve M-60s actually engaged and destroyed more Iraqi armor than the active duty units did. Luck of the draw in op areas, I guess.

The Army was just getting the 120mm gun systems themselves at the time, so Marine M-1s with 105mm systems wouldn't be unusual (redheaded stepchild syndrome in action, as per SOP).

[Carpshooter]

I think the big advantage that the M-1s had was being able to shoot and hit moving targets while moving themselves . Have heard that later built M-60s could do that , but don't know as the M-1 s had a larger smooth bore and a longer range than the Soviet built tanks of the Iraqs .

Maybe some really knowledgeable Marine can fill us in ! :confused:

[Zulu 36]

I think the big advantage that the M-1s had was being able to shoot and hit moving targets while moving themselves . Have heard that later built M-60s could do that , but don't know as the M-1 s had a larger smooth bore and a longer range than the Soviet built tanks of the Iraqs .

Maybe some really knowledgeable Marine can fill us in ! :confused:
The M-60 series carried a rifled 105mm main gun. The 120mm gun on the M-1 series is smooth-bore.

The M-60A1 had a half-assed stabilization system that could only keep the main gun trained in the general direction of a target while on the move. It had to stop for aiming to be fine-tuned and the round fired. The M-1 series has a full stabo system fully capable of accurate fire on the move (as we've seen in many news vids).

The Iraqis had a number of problems with their tanks as compared to ours. First was training. Ours was far better. Second, the Iraqis had several problems with the tanks themselves.

Their tanks were mostly Soviet "export" versions. Their armor was not of the same quality as those on "domestic" Soviet tanks.

Another problem was many Iraqi gun tubes were worn from use in training and/or the Iran war and had not been replaced (evidently Saddam had a palace building program that was more important). The ammo was either Soviet-made ammo long past the use-by date, or Iraqi-made with poor quality control.

U.S. tanks had good gun tubes and freshly made ammo of higher quality. U.S. 120mm guns and ammo out-ranged anything the Iraqis had anyway, even if in good shape. 105mm ammo also out-ranged Iraqi guns for the most part, mainly because of the tube wear/ammo quality issues. Army tankers fighting the Republican Guard reported a lot of short rounds from Iraqi main guns, even when the U.S. tanks were technically well within the spec ranges of Soviet made guns and Soviet quality ammo.

Had the Iraqis had good tubes and fresh Russian-made ammo, they might have had a little better showing. The end result wouldn't have changed, just our casualty list.

Also, Iraqi T-72 tanks had some problems with their automatic main gun loaders, probably due to poor maintenance in the desert climate for whatever reason. The main gun could not be manually loaded if the auto-loader broke, so it was bail out and run like hell time.

Lastly, because of how Soviet tanks are made (turrets to hulls), and of their ammo storage inside with the crew, a solid hit with an AT round often resulted in spectacular catastrophic kills, with the turrets flying through the air (also seen in news vids). Zero crew survival.

M-1 series tanks should not explode so spectacularly because ammo is not inside the tank proper, and turrets are mounted with "baskets" underneath making the whole turret assembly heavier and more difficult to dismount entirely (although this has partially happened once in Iraq Part Deux).

To date, no M-1 tank has lost it's whole crew to enemy action. I believe no more than two crewmen in any M-1 crew has ever been killed at once and those were due to massive IEDs in Iraq. Only a couple have ever been totally destroyed and one of those was intentionally done by U.S. forces to an already seriously damaged tank, and it still took a bunch of stuff to do it in.

[MOXEE]

I was there, 4th tanks, and yes we had 120mm all of us all 14 tanks and wiped out the 3rd armored Iraqi Division... 93 t-72s in 8 min and 12 sec this tape was confiscated at departure.

[DRB]

I was there, 4th tanks, and yes we had 120mm all of us all 14 tanks and wiped out the 3rd armored Iraqi Division... 93 t-72s in 8 min and 12 sec this tape was confiscated at departure.

I have not been on this site in over a year. That is interesting Moxee. Thanks for sharing.

[Tom parker]

I was with 1/8 caat that had 4th tanks attached to us, They performed well, though they were kept behind us. I think we had an equal number of tow kills, cpl sweeney had 10 tow kills himself.

Tom

[MOXEE]

I was with 1/8 caat that had 4th tanks attached to us, They performed well, though they were kept behind us. I think we had an equal number of tow kills, cpl sweeney had 10 tow kills himself.

TomYes we were behind you most of the time ,but in the last few days our COs talked and they decided it was best to put the tanks up frount. and on that famous morning battle it all went down quickly ,,,, and hey 1/8th brother whats up!! we chewed the same dirt that day . It was nice that it was a reltivly clean battle 1/8th and 4th were unstopable that day we all should get the PUC. Oh and 2 F-18s when the sun came out lol.

[Tom parker]

moxie, I've got some pictures if i can figure out how to scan and post. A couple of the abram,s and amtrack we lost in the minefield, one on the rush to kuwait city with an abram's next to me with a cobra hovering over it.
Tom

[MOXEE]

Cool !!! that was one of our tanks,, 3rd platoon,,, my Buddie Siebens was in that tank.......... after we got them out,,, I asked him how was it? he said it was no louder than shooting the main gun,,,,, he said they barely felt it. If i remember correctly they got most of there track blown off lol..

[Tom parker]

yes , the only damage looked like the track.

[LionsFace]

I was with Bravo Company in Desert Storm in a TOW Section. It was a "us or them" mentality.

May God bless you and your families this Memorial Day weekend.

Always Faithful,

Theodore (Teddy) Butenas
Master Gunnery Sergeant
USMCR

President of LionsFace Consulting LLC

[Steve Norman]

I was wpns plt, Aco 1/8, I can confirm that 4 tanks B co was in M1A1s, and kicked serious ass. So did our tow gunners, I was digging in hard when Sweeney popped those tanks. Saw the whole thing go down. Saw the lost tank in the breech as well, I remember the driver getting out and kicking the track lol. When we heard we were inf support for reservist we were upset. Yall proved us wrong. I have nothing but respect and pride for your unit.

[29palms]

We shipped over in December of 1990 to the Port of Al Jubail, M60A1 Tanks. This was on the Maritime Prepositioning Ships. Took the ships back supposedly to Norfolk, but got diverted to Antwerp, where the U.S. Army took over our ships to load up with M1A1's Abrahams and haul them to Jubail. This went back and forth for a few months, eventually furnishing the MPS, around 13 ships, with M1A1's. That was the first time I had seen these tanks. When I returned in April of 1991 to get our equipment back, there were no more M60A1. Alll M1A1's . Also, in Saudi Arabia, they modified our Turrets of the AAV's. To the ones that look like they do now.

[29palms]

And we carried reservist from a South Carolina tank unit on board our ship from Moorehead City, NC to Rota Spain, then picked up like 150 Marines in Rota and shipped them to Al Jubail.

[LionsFace]

Thanks Steve. It is good to meet a brother from that place. I joined the reserves after doing 4 years with the 7th as a Dragon. I met some of the finest Americans I have ever served with in that unit. People have a hard time believing that we did all that in Desert Storm. Take care ~ Teddy