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Subject: Why isn't the M1A1/M1A2 considered a tank destroyer?
Scrubber    4/6/2003 10:43:30 PM
The role of a tank destroyer is to "SEEK, STRIKE AND DESTROY enemy tanks in defensive and offensive action." That is the role of the M1A1 and M1A2. In fact it is so specialized in that role that it has given up the ability to fire HE rounds in order to increase it's ability to kill tanks. One of the major roles of tanks is to kill infantry, which the M1A1/M1A2 can really only do with it's MGs. Given this extreme specialization in killing tanks and extreme unsuitability to killing infantry isn't it really a tank destroyer?

Isn't it a big gap in a country's order of battle to have only tank destroyers, armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles and armored cars? No main battle tanks (we still have the M1 in the inventory and it can fire HE, but we don't use it), no light tanks, no assault guns?
For reference the British Challenger 2 can fire HE rounds, unlike the M1a1, M1a2
 
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PiersM    RE:Why isn't the M1A1/M1A2 considered a tank destroyer?   4/7/2003 3:03:51 AM
In essence, it isn't the job description but the vehicle itself which defines it. A tank destroyer can cover all sorts of things but in general if it has sufficient armour to slug it out with a tank, and has a gun system capable of destroying a tank in a fully rotating turret, it's a tank. Systems like the M551 Sheridan are either a 'light tank' or a TD if employed as such as the gun itself can't challenge a tank, but the missile could (although not well) and it didn't have the armour for a stand up fight. FYI, the 120mm gun on the M1A1 and A2 fires HEATMP-T which, while primarily an anti armour round, has a fragmentation sleeve which makes it a dual purpose round which is quite effective against infantry. It sacrifices about 10% of it's energy compared to a dedicated HE round, which makes it less effective than the British gun in that role, but more effective than the HE round fired from the 105mm gun in the M1.
 
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bsl    RE:Why isn't the M1A1/M1A2 considered a tank destroyer?   4/7/2003 5:43:56 PM
Tank destroyers were lower cost vehicles designed as *alternatives* to buying real tanks. When they appeared in WW2, they had lighter armor than tanks, which meant they could also use smaller engines. Their guns were large enough to take on tanks, but in non-traversing turrets, another major savings. They appeared during WW2 and got a bad reputation almost immediately. They were so much less capable than tanks that, essentially, they were dead meat in battle. They were good, mostly, for first shots from concealed positions. Otherwise, you'd need a lot of them to take on a much smaller number of tanks, and you'd expect to lose them, even if you *won* the engagement. I don't know if there are still any around, but there used to be modified M113 which carried a battery of antitank missiles which might have been considered a tank destroyer. In a sense, in the present age, first class APCs fill a similar role, although they do other jobs, too. A Bradley's missiles will kill a MBT. It doesn't want to get in a slugging match, though, for it's armor is far too thin. IOW, what, today, might be considered "light" tanks can do everything a tank destroyer can do, and more. There's not really a role for a dedicated tank destroyer in the old sense.
 
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fred79    RE:Why isn't the M1A1/M1A2 considered a tank destroyer?   4/8/2003 11:58:37 AM
also remember that most tank destroyers had open tops. the american tank destroyer, that came in WW2 to support the very under armed sherman, actually did have a good reputation and also had a rotating turret but was a open top vehicle with light armor and very high speed relative to shermans or tigers.
 
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Nasty German Idiot    RE:Why isn't the M1A1/M1A2 considered a tank destroyer?   4/8/2003 3:23:37 PM
I think a good example for a tank destroyer would be the "Jagt-Tiger". It had a very good armor and shape, and was almost impossible to destroy from the front. The Problem was that it was Introduced too late in the war and was still vulnerable too allied air power. As tanks are today too ...
 
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bsl    RE:Why isn't the M1A1/M1A2 considered a tank destroyer?   4/8/2003 6:05:24 PM
I'd call the Jagt-Tiger a "heavy tank" in the WW2 sense, rather than a "tank destroyer". It was a real tank. It was too slow and heavy to use in manuever warfare, but this was common in that era, when there were (at least) three kinds of tanks: light, medium, and heavy. Light tanks were, more or less, light cavalry. Useful for scouting and screening flanks. Some meeting engagments. But, not slugging with heavier tanks or assaulting prepared defenses. Heavy tanks were mobile pill boxes. Slow, heavily armored. Designed to cross battlefields under fire and support assaults. More or less what tanks had been invented to do, back during WW1. Support the infantry. Medium tanks were the workhorses of manuever warfare. They had a balance of speed and armor which allowed them to engage in deep penetrations and flanking manuevers while providing enough protection to function on almost any battlefield. These were the basis of the blitz. After WW2, heavy and light tanks faded away, and medium tanks became MBTs. Later, still, the APC appeared. At first, it was, essentially, nothing more than a battlefield taxi, designed to move infantry against rifle and machine gun fire, and protect them against shell fragments. Over time, though, heavier and more capable weapons began being placed in APCs, and we got hybrid vehicles like Bradleys and BMPs which are really combined APCs and light tanks, in one hull. Indeed, the American design concedes this. The M-2 is the infantry version, but the M-3 is a cavalry version, which is intended as an armored fighting vehicle, and not to carry troops. It's a(n oversized) light tank in everything but name. The other big difference between modern light tanks and WW2 era light tanks (besides size) is that the modern versions can and usually do carry weapons which can kill MBTs. bsl
 
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Horse Soldier    RE:Why isn't the M1A1/M1A2 considered a tank destroyer?   6/19/2003 9:24:30 AM
>>I don't know if there are still any around, but there used to be modified M113 which carried a battery of antitank missiles which might have been considered a tank destroyer.<< The M113 with the cherry picker TOW turret was the M901 Improved TOW Vehicle (improved since the earlier version featured a guy standing in the troop hatch firing the TOW). Great vehicle once you had it sited in, concealed, and ready to rock and roll, but prone to accidents (top heavy) and sluggish even compared to an M113. Various comparable vehicles in service elsewhere -- the UK has the Striker APC with Swingfire ATGMs, the Germans have the Jaguar 1 and 2 with HOT and TOW respectively, then you've got the various marks of Soviet BRDMs equipped with fire AT-3s, -4s, -5s, plus some newer 'tank destroyer' type missile carriers. Pretty popular idea, though as people have noted missile armed IFVs and tanks Not sure on the status of the foreign counterparts, but in the US Army, the M901s started going out of service around the time of Desert Storm. I think the mech infantry units deploying over there with Bradleys still had M901 equipped AT companies in their MTOE, but my understanding is they were left state-side or in Germany since the M901 can't keep up with M1s and Brads in a mobile fight. I'm pretty sure the M901 is almost entirely out of service now, except for those few National Guard infantry units still waiting to get issued Bradleys.
 
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joe6pack    RE:Why isn't the M1A1/M1A2 considered a tank destroyer?   6/19/2003 2:27:12 PM
About the M1 and anti infantry rounds for the main gun. I'd have to argue its about space. Modern MBTS have much larger guns than their WW2 counterparts. Biggers guns means bigger rounds. An M1 can only carry so many main gun rounds I think around 40. I was a ground pounder so this number may be off some. Just about anything can kill infantry. A lot of things can kill infantry way more efficently than the 120mm gun on an Abrams. So I'd go with the idea that a tank crew doesn't want to be stuck with some AP (anti personel) rounds and run out AP (armor piercing) rounds and be unable to engage tanks. You can always default to the machine guns for infantry. By the way, the M1's I got to take a peak in from time to time were generally packed with machinegun ammo. As long as there are some Bradleys around, the chain gun on those is much better suited to blazing away at troops.
 
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bsl    RE:Why isn't the M1A1/M1A2 considered a tank destroyer?   6/19/2003 6:43:19 PM
There's been a role, for quite a while, now, for an indirect fire, anti-tank guided munition. Something which could be fired from a reverse slope, or over the horizon, which could home in on targets as Hellfires and TOWs do. This would allow light vehicles to engage heavy armor, but without exposing themselves to fire they have no hope of handling. Ideally, the weapons would be fire and forget, so you wouldn't need someone lasing targets. This would increase the utility and survivability of light armor and unarmored vehicles, while allowing them to be used against heavy armor.
 
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Horse Soldier    RE:Why isn't the M1A1/M1A2 considered a tank destroyer?   6/19/2003 7:14:05 PM
The 105mm armed M1 carried 55 main gun rounds, if I remember right. M1A1 has 40 rounds of 120mm, while the M1A2 somehow increases this to 42 rounds. I have no idea on actual ammunition load-out over in Iraq, but HEAT and MPAT were the primary rounds used, since there wasn't a lot of Iraqi armor to worry about. All versions, again if I'm not mistaken, carry around 11,000 rounds of belted 7.62mm (2800 in the coax ready box) and 1000 rounds of .50 cal.
 
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Heorot    RE:Striker - to Horse Soldier   6/20/2003 3:35:52 PM
Re: Striker APC with Swingfire ATGMs. They have be still in service with the British Army; I saw one being used in Iraq on a BBC news item.
 
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StymiestxBlitz    RE:Why isn't the M1A1/M1A2 considered a tank destroyer?   7/6/2003 7:58:12 PM
thats why we have artillery and bradleys :) the machinegun mounted on the M1A1 would rip apart any infantry in secs
 
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