By “rifle” do you mean “barrel”? I thought “smooth bore” and “rifle” were mutualy exclusive.
The problem with many of these ideas reminds me of the “How do you bell the cat?” children’s story. While plugging up a gun barrel might work, you have to expose yourself an awful lot to do it.
Remember when the mice got together and decided that they could save their collective assess if only they knew the cat was coming, and a bell around the collar would be ample warning. All agreed; problem solved. Next question, “Who will put the bell on?”
The presentation Hermitian linked to mentions one being penetrated in the rear armor by a 25mm DU (depleted uranium) round. Two things I take away from that information: that must have been a US Bradley AFV, so either a friendly-fire accident or an attempt to destroy a disabled tank; and if the latter, the one hole implies penetration was unusual, as a 25mm cannon would normally fire many rounds.
I have no cite, but I recently read that, although for a long time no M-1 had been destroyed by penetrating enemy fire, two M-1s have now been lost to penetrating fire. What I read did not specify how (which may even be classified), but the author spent a lot of time talking about Kornet anti-tank missiles. I also read that in numerous attempts to destroy M-1s that they were abandoning, US forces were unable to penetrate, or in some cases penetrated only after multiple attempts, the newer armor supplemented by depleted uranium mesh, even at point-blank range using tank main guns. That’s really impressive.
If you haven’t already, you should watch The Beast.
I bet you could destroy one by suspending two enormous logs from rope slings and releasing them to simultaneously swing down and hit the tank from the sides.
OK, thinking out of the box here, take crescent wrenches and a socket set and just start taking the tank apart.
I suppose you could try to lure a tank into a trap of soem kind by pinging small arms off the turret on the assumption it would drive over to where the shooting came from.
One interesting point made in the presentation Hermitian linked to was that while in hostile country, the need to constantly traverse the turrets impacted maintenance and fuel consumption.
No cite, but I recently read that an M-1 set on fire during urban fighting was abandoned without recovering the driver’s body (too hot to go in there). When the wreck was recovered hours later, the driver was found alive and unhurt, having been protected by the automatic fire suppression system (and, I’d guess, by bottled oxygen) inside the flaming wreck.
So I conclude it would take a lot of flammable material to achieve this on an Abrams.
Yeah, the belt of fixed defenses (including anti-tank ditches, prepared gun posiions, and mines) was a hundred miles deep at Kursk.
Oh, damn, it’s METRIC!
:smack:
To expand - drive up in a truck labelled “roadside tank repair”? 
A cat is pretty good at detecting, and defending against, attackers approaching from pretty much any direction.
Is the same true of a tank?
Can a tank crew shoot at individual soldiers approaching from the sides or rear? Can the tank crew respond rapidly if it’s an ambush (e.g. a soldier jumps out from behind a tree as the tank rolls by, and splatters it with ink)? What’s the small-caliber machine gun like on a tank? Is it a remote-controlled thing that might take a second or two to whirl around and zero in on such an attack, or is it a tank crew member who pops out of a hatch with a handheld weapon? If the former, does it have a limited range of elevation, such that it might be difficult to target a soldier standing/crouching right next to the tank?
Chicks! The mechanics should be hot chicks in tank tops (duh!). From what I’ve seen of soldiers, the crew might be happy to let them crawl around, bending over gearboxes and handling tools.
This could work!
Not if they are Marines. Jarheads handle their own tools.
It could certainly do to fulfil the “minimum” requirement - “minimum” of clothing, that is.
I think we have the answer …
In the 1956 uprising in Czechoslovakia, I seem to remember some modest success by the revolutionaries against Soviet tanks, yet the rebels were poorly supplied, so it wasn’t due to sophisticated weapons. What little I can find:
However, it is possible that the tanks were less “captured” than handed over by sympathetic troops.
Heh, I remember reading in a book of urban legends about a wide-spead one involving some rebels somewhere painting a potato to look like a grenade, dropping it into the open hatch of a tank - causing the crew to flee in panic & allowing the rebels to capture the tank …
It seems to me that there’s a lot you can do to a tank if you can get close enough, and that the tank’s defenses against such attacks mostly consist of making sure the enemy doesn’t get that close to begin with. Which is fine if you’re fighting on a big open plain, but could present a problem in urban fighting, where the enemy can get close enough just by stepping out a doorway.
Lone tanks are considerably more vulnerable than tanks that are supported by other tanks and by infantry. A friend of mine who served in an armored unit in WWII told me about tanks hosing each other down with machinegun fire to “scrape off” attacking foot soldiers.
get the crew drunk.
In my (limited) experience the cat learns how to stake out bird encampments and pounce. This eliminates the utility of the bell as the birds don’t hear the cat coming-the cat is already there.
Along these lines, I suggest pointing your fingers at the tank and saying “bangitty-bang-bang!”
No, wait … that’s already proven not to work by definition.
Gah! Ewoks! Run away!
If the OP didn’t want to get bogged down in the details of the actual capabilities and limitations of the M1 Abrams for his game, he could just posit a fictional type of tank, and describe it as he saw fit. May I suggest the M2A1 Chamberlain…?