KILLING TANKS

the satement about killing tanks should be ammend to read;

anyone with guts and the right weaponry can kill a tank without infantry
support.

otherwise, they had just hunker down and let the tank go by unmolsted.

the taliban cavalry charege vs tanks is a fluke event.

i suspect that a detailed examination of this action will disclose that the
tanks (all or most of them) had had their machine guns removed and being used
elswhere.

this would mean that the crew, if they remained buttoned up, would be
forced to fire their AKs down the gun-tube to try for a machine effect
on attackers

any living horse/man team or man on foot can outrun a POWER traversing
tank turret-they do not move about as fast as the turrt on an aircraft

and hand cranked turrets move even slower....

if the crew unbuttons to get better fields of fire for their small arms, they
lose the benefit of the tank armor and provide plenty of opportunity for the
attackers to use hand grenades or improvished
anti-armor weaponry.

i also suspect that the tanks had only limited amounts of HE rounds, and the
attack was lauched so that it provided short areas of aproach for the
attackers and limited arc of fire to the tankers.

how many of the tanks were mobile?

the attack might have even been a complete surprise to the taliban crews.

lots of things to look at here to see why this worked.

dawgie, who wonders how afghan tankers and their floppy clothes are

> the taliban cavalry charege vs tanks is a fluke event.

Ron you have been in a track, you know how loud those things are, the crews
were probably inside brewing coffee on the deck...and the horses rode right
by...)

> i suspect that a detailed examination of this action will disclose

VERY TRUE DON!

i did overlook the noise that a track generates.

and i am sure incompetence played a large part too.

i also think you are right about them going back to their old nasty and
familiar habits too....

> i also think you are right about them going back to their old nasty
Ron, Well in that regard they are not much different from my North Welsh our
my Cherokee ancestors..... Mountain people are great horse,cattle, or sheep
thieves (pick your favorite bovine) and it is also where the art of feud and
vendetta are supreme. It must be from that splendid sense of isolation, or the
thin air...)

[quoted original message omitted]

On Sun, 27 Jan 2002 21:47:24 +0100 KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de
> (K.H.Ranitzsch) writes:

Amen to that!