Mission-kill. Put two quick rounds into the 5" turret. Then the Abrams can take its time blowing the missile launchers into scrap, or demolishing the command centers. If the destroyer can’t get away, then it is done for. The tank shoots first, remember? At least that is what was posited for the Suez Canal scenario.
So it takes out the 5 inch gun, sure, but then it gets blinded by the 25mm autocannons and .50 caliber guns. Now what? The tank is mostly useless, except for perhaps some inaccurate manual weapons fire, and while this is happening the destroyer crew have boiled up some lovely oil for the tank to relax in. They attach a vat of oil to the chopper and fly over the tank, dousing it in boiling oil. The end. Not to mention the destroyer is on a coral reef, which gives it plenty of cover. Maybe the tank should get a blow-up tank decoy or something to make it fair.
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As far as “armor” on an Arleigh-Burke goes, I found this link: fas.org link
“Mission Kill” on the DDG? I can buy that.
Outright sink? Dunno. There may be enough reserve buoyancy behind armor to keep the ship afloat.
Riiiight. From a cold start, the tank could take out everything the destroyer could bring to bear before the crew could figure out what was going on. Five shots and the destroyer is weaponless, effectively. The main gun takes out the turret and 20mm while the CROWS takes out the Bushmaster. 30 seconds, tops. The helicopter is a non-starter, so no air attack to worry about.
Another incident to refer to which is relatively recent infantry anti tank weapon fire on an unarmored warship is the Royal Marines v the Argentine corvette Guerrico in the invasion of South Georgia in 1982. The damage to the Argentine ship was exaggerated in British accounts of the time and some English language sources stick to this, but it was still essentially ‘mission killed’, temporarily at least, by machine gun and AT rocket fire less than what a tank could do. A detailed Argentine account:
The ship in turn didn’t have much to shoot at initially. Eventually the RM’s were forced to surrender though by renewed bombardment outside the range of their weapons once their general position was known. And while the whole scenario isn’t so likely, it’s only totally ridiculous (1620’s ship v modern DDG) if you say the tank must position itself where it has no cover whatsoever. Why? Even along the Suez Canal there are folds in the ground deep enough for a tank to fire from a hull defilade position (only the turret in the line of fire) or even back up to completely defiladed position (not visible at all) if things get too hot, and a tank unit commander with half a brain will find those locations by route recon before engaging a ship. That’s one of the reasons unarmored ships don’t want to tangle with field army forces, artillery or tanks or infantry within the range of the the ground forces’ fire. There’s no place for the ship to hide, whereas using cover is a basic element of modern ground combat.
On other anti-armor questions, the 20mm rounds of Phlananx couldn’t come close to penetrating the frontal armor of a well protected modern tank, 25mm either, even 25m APFSDS (sabot) rounds which exist but ships don’t usually carry them. And there are no AP rounds for the 5". It fires relatively thin walled HE shells not even as capable of armor penetration as the 5" ‘common’ type of WWII (there wasn’t a widely used AP per se for USN 5" even in WWII). It’s best to not even try to set if for delay against a tank or the round might break up and have a low order detonation. The best bet is instantaneous nose fuse and try to mission kill the tank with shock, damage to the tank’s fire control, damage to running gear etc. and the smaller weapons could peck away to a mission kill that way also. But penetrating the tank’s frontal armor isn’t going to happen, again except perhaps AT versions of Hellfire launched by the ship’s H-60 helo.
Excellent post. Also noted that unless the helo is already up and loaded, it’s a non-factor because the CROWS would chew it up in a heartbeat. If it is aloft and armed, most likely with ASW weaponry, it might be able to get a mission-kill with an anti-sub missile if they get a direct hit on the top of the M1. Even then, they’ll have to dodge the CROWS while doing so. Advantage - still tank.
Why not just go full on retard, lets say Battleship
Then the question is exactly how long can the M1 evade 16" shells before it bites it.
You dont take on large gunned navy ships in a tank, not unless you have some hope of backup and a good damned place to snipe from.
Your M1A2 tank has to remain in LOS of the ship.
It’s like a big rolling rifle with armor, it shoots high velocity ammo on a flat trajectory.
You got to see it to shoot it.
And it really needs to be within about 4km meters
The ship on the other hand does not necessarily need to keep LOS on you
Your large navy guns are more like artillery, and you can drop the rounds over and behind things and reach out and touch someone from up to 41km if you are firing 16" guns
Now if we limit to just a destroyer and 5" guns 25km is the reach out and touch someone range if you are firing 5" guns so being in LOW does not matter to the destroyer…
So the crew can sit on deck and wave at mr tank, and fire a nice lazy 20 rounds per minute at him from far outside his range, why the tanks driver curses the manufacturer for not putting enough reverse gears in the thing.
The problem is not the tank piercing the ship, it can pierce it fine, the ship is not an AFV of course.
The problem is the ships arms is a hell of a lot longer than the tanks, the ships fist is a hell of a lot bigger than the tanks.
You dont bring a tank to this fight, you get your airforce, you’d probably have better luck with a well crewed and well placed M110.
In the scenario we’re working with, the tank absolutely cannot mission-kill the destroyer, for the same reason that you can’t burn ash. The only way we can even make it a fight at all is to assume that the destroyer is already immobilized close to land, and if that’s the case, it’s already mission-killed.
In the Suez Canal scenario, the tank has other advantages as well. You just wait until the destroyer has passed your position, then scoot to the bank and shoot it in the ass. You will be out of the arc of fire of the 5" gun, so your first two shots are HEAT rounds into the helos. Now they have a fire on the rear deck to deal with. Round three takes out the rear Phalanx, Then send a couple of KEP rounds into the rear Mark IV VLS. Boom goes floaty-thing.
As for the OP’s reef scenario, same-same. It’s not like a coral reef would protect you from land-based weapons.
The only way the destroyer wins this is in real-life, where it would be well off-shore, with armed helos active, and dropping 5" fire into the tank and surrounding areas to either drive it off or break something. Even then, the tank might get a few hits in before it skidaddles.
Tank lives by simply driving out of range of the destroyer’s guns. Of course, without a spotter, those naval guns aren’t going to hit much of anything, anyway.
In all probablity; It really depends on whether or not the tank hits a critical system early - The destroyer might eventually burn to the waterline and sink - but probably not before the tank is on the recieving end of a LOT of five inch shells. Phyrric victory? Pyro victory?
Assuming that they’re within the tank’s operational effective range (tank shells are flat-shooting, but they lack the elevation to get real serious range), Both look to be losers, depending on the ship’s crew’s skills at damage control and depending on how fast the tank can reload. The tank gets clobbered, but not before it starts some nifty entertaining fires.
There are all kinds of caveats, though - is the tank manevering (shoot-n-scoot)? I’d expect them to be! Is the tank crew proficient, and do they know where the vulnerable spots are? What’s the weather like? Is the destroyer rockin’-n-bobbing? How well-drilled is the ships crew (twin 5"/54 guns at max rate of fire can move a LOT of ‘bang’ downrange!)
Bottom line: I dunno, but it’s going to be a mess.
5"/54 gun has about a 15 mile effective range. Not only do Destroyers often carry helicopters, but they also have gunnery viewfinders and such high up on the superstructure for the specific purpose of seeing a long way. Driving away isn’t really an option.
Yes, it is. 16 miles inland, destroyer can’t touch the tank. Appropriate use of terrain, and tank gets far enough inland easily. Destroyers aren’t well suited for killing tanks, especially not those taking evasive action. Pretty much the only way the destroyer kills the tank is if they get lucky and disable the tank in the first couple of rounds. Otherwise, buildings, hills, etc. will make excellent cover for the tank.
How long does it take to drive evasively, 16 miles? REcognizine especially as at more extended ranges, the naval gunfire becomes plunging fire, eliminating many of the defensive features of terrain. Sustaned rate of fire is ~12 rounds a minute. Two guns. That’s a LOT of shellfire to drive though. Nope. The tanks best chance of survival is to stay close (making naval gunfire more direct-fire, and use masking terrain whilst shooting-n-scooting.
The problem with boiling oil is then what is left to make french fries and chicken nuggets? The crew would mutiny. Nobody wins.
I remember WWII tanks being used as makeshift artillery. While the gun cannot elevate much, it is possible to move the tank up a slope. Do modern tanks have the fire control means to be used as artillery?
Can the destroyer’s SAMs and AShMs have a man-in-the-loop when firing? Could they operate in semi-active radar guidance mode with the ship illuminating the tank? Could they lock onto a tank using active radar, IR, image recognition?
Just hitting a lot of different pieces from a retired tanker:
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Fighting the hypothetical, US doctrine has the smallest element being the tank section, 2 tanks. We even refer to the wingman concept. If you’ve ever seen Top Gun you know “never leave your wingman.” If you lose your wingman the platoon then fights as a 3 tank platoon. The question would be more realistic if it was about 2-3 M1A2s fighting a destroyer.
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There are only 18 main gun rounds in the ready rack. The rest are in “Semi-ready” storage. Semi-ready aren’t as ready as the term makes it sound. It takes time. Getting into the semi-ready ammo behind the TC also isn’t something you do tool free. “I thought you had the allen wrench?!?”
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Berm drills. Assuming some kind of rolling terrain the tank crew is trained to use them to limit exposure. The primary sights are on the top of the turret for a reason. With the tank mostly hidden you start crew drill with not much more than the sight and M2 exposed. You pull up just far enough to expose the gun, fire, and then back down. When you pull back up the goal is to not have it be in the same place as you exposed yourself the last time. Aside from maybe specifying every tank pull up at the same time for a first round volley, each tank does it separately. Those 2-3 tanks, that are a more realistic scenario, will be popping up individually across a stretch of terrain to breathe fire before hiding again. From the other side it’s a bit like whack-a mole …against heavily armed moles.
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“Stripping the external sensors.” Without going into them one by one in boring length, they are designed to be relatively durable in environments where there lots of small arms and artillery shrapnel flying around. Degraded mode gunnery is also part of crew qualification and it’s trained against much smaller targets than a destroyer. It’s not as easy to accomplish or as debilitating as some of the assumptions here make it sound.
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Helicopters are relatively easy targets to hit with the main gun. Engaging them is included in both tactical and gunnery training simulators.
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A side issue but it was brought up. For all but the largest trees, you don’t need some special treatment for a tank to run them over. Trees slow things down. Trees cause other tactical issues for mechanized forces. Trees also die in large numbers if tankers decide to go into the forest anyway.
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A lot of the advantage in the M1A2 over the earlier A1 is the mission command system. That includes the ability to very quickly submit a digital call for artillery fire. Are we assuming the tank is for some reason way beyond any artillery coverage? I know my initial engagement, if I wasn’t seen while turret down, would be calling for fire and only pulling up to fire as the artillery impacts. I wouldn’t even care if the artillery damages anything. It’s mostly about hiding the start of my engagement inside the chaos.
Great post, sir! But feel free to go into boring length if you want to.
Side note: I’ve heard of this being a capability before. Has it ever actually been done to the best of our knowledge?