The U.S Military vs.

Factual Questions
41

OK. I had a good conversation with my brother, the 1st LT. in the U.S. Army.

Two weekends ago he showed me home video of a AT-4 rocket hitting a M-60 tank in the treads. The AT-4 is used against things like personnel carriers. The M-60 is old enough that none of the U.S. military uses it any more, so it was just a dead target to learn on. The tread not only didn’t come off, the wheels didn’t even look bad.

So, if you put up a current U.S. tank against a vastly inferior (Civil War) army, he says you have some things to think about:

There are 4 crew. Each has an M-16 - 211 rounds each, a 9mm pistol - 40 rounds. There is a .50 cal heavy machine gun - about 500 rounds - firing with the turret, and controlled by an unexposed crew member. There is a 7.64 mm medium machine gun - 800 to 1200 rounds, firing by standing exposed in the hatch. The main battle gun has 36 rounds, 120mm - some depleted uranium, some explosive. (He says that the uranium rounds were too effective against the old Russian tanks in Iraq, and the rounds were punching right through the far side without making a big splash of molten metal inside the tank. The Coalition crews went back to explosive rounds.)

So, this is armed to the teeth. BUT:

After the 2700 rounds of smaller ammunition are fired, this thing is really in a bad way. He says that there is home video of American crews fighting in close in Iraq from the hatches and doing very well, so we can assume they would kick major butt against muskets, but there is the ammunition problem. So they might cause about 1000 casualties or even more without the main battle gun. (It could probably be refueled with kerosene available even then.)

Without good infantry support, it eventually will be close to dead. Eventually there will come a time when the Civil War era soldiers will be able to get close to the tank. They are not idiots, and will soon hit upon ideas like he says have actually been used against American tanks.

He says that Bosnians managed to wedge rocks and pipes in the treads and keep the tank from moving or at least turning. With enough axes and men, you can eventually break the hinges on the hatches. Probably even faster, you can hack through the protective plate and fins around the engine in the back. Eventually you will reach wires and hydraulic lines. Break enough of those, and something critical will shut down. I assume that at this point the crew would surrender.

I guess the question is, “How many tanks would it take to scare the opposing army into general rout and surrender?”

42

I don’t know, I think a better question would be, “How many soldiers would a tank have to run over before they figured out how to kill it?” Don’t forget a modern tank can travel at speeds close to 60 MPH, so out running it isn’t going to be much of an option, and trying to figure out how to kill a fast moving demon machine when it’s turning your brothers in arms into jelly, and headed your way is going to be difficult to say the least.

43

Well, the thing I left out is that he also said the current tanks can only run the engines for about 12 hours, and that’s at idle, not blasting at 60 mph. Eventually they’re going to have to make for a refueling point, and after that, the CW era soldiers are going to learn that the beast machine drinks petroleum. They’ll either hide or spill the stores and let it run out of gas. They do have the telegraph to spread the word around.

It seems to me that even if the CW army just lets the tank run around, scared of the firepower, they will be able to cut its fuel supply. Eventually even battle-tested soldiers will surrender from hunger. You don’t have to kill the tank, just immobilize it and give it a wide berth as you march forward around it. It’s kind of the island-hopping strategy: refuse to give immobile enemy troops the opportunity to kill you by just never engaging them.