reloading a M1 Abrams Tank

[paperwork351]

Loading while moving. Do you strap in?

 

[willtill]

Loading while moving. Do you strap in?

You would be surprised how smooth a tracked vehicle is while running over rough terrain; as compared to a wheeled vehicle.

 

[Mark K]

OK... I was an Army armor officer in the 1970s. Granted I got to give the fire commands, except for the Caliber .50...

And I was on M60A2s. (Anyone remember those? 152mm main gun, Shillelagh missile, and/or big-ass HEAT rounds with fragile fully-combustible casings.)

But I'd been trained on M60A1s, and learned how to load "mere" 105mm rounds. It wasn't easy even at that.

But I remember that on the A1 the breach block would drop open automatically after firing and stay open; with the brass casing ejecting out the back. "All" the loader had to do was ram another round in (yes, with his knuckles and the heel of his hand, so he doesn't lose his fingers when the breech closes); the breech would slam shut by itself; and the loader would then have to disengage the safety each time and give the "Up!" report.

So on an M1A1 and -A2, with the 120mm main gun, the loader has to open the breech first...?

And it looks like that breech closes awfully slow, needing some help from the loader...

 

[willtill]

OK... I was an Army armor officer in the 1970s. Granted I got to give the fire commands, except for the Caliber .50...

And I was on M60A2s. (Anyone remember those? 152mm main gun, Shillelagh missile, and/or big-ass HEAT rounds with fragile fully-combustible casings.)

But I'd been trained on M60A1s, and learned how to load "mere" 105mm rounds. It wasn't easy even at that.

But I remember that on the A1 the breach block would drop open automatically after firing and stay open; with the brass casing ejecting out the back. "All" the loader had to do was ram another round in (yes, with his knuckles and the heel of his hand, so he doesn't lose his fingers when the breech closes); the breech would slam shut by itself; and the loader would then have to disengage the safety each time and give the "Up!" report.

So on an M1A1 and -A2, with the 120mm main gun, the loader has to open the breech first...?

And it looks like that breech closes awfully slow, needing some help from the loader...

We had M60A3's @ Ft Bliss, TX (Heavy Co 2/3rd ACR), I was there when we turned them in and received the first M1A1's

 

[lazarus]

OK... I was an Army armor officer in the 1970s. Granted I got to give the fire commands, except for the Caliber .50...

And I was on M60A2s. (Anyone remember those? 152mm main gun, Shillelagh missile, and/or big-ass HEAT rounds with fragile fully-combustible casings.)

But I'd been trained on M60A1s, and learned how to load "mere" 105mm rounds. It wasn't easy even at that.

But I remember that on the A1 the breach block would drop open automatically after firing and stay open; with the brass casing ejecting out the back. "All" the loader had to do was ram another round in (yes, with his knuckles and the heel of his hand, so he doesn't lose his fingers when the breech closes); the breech would slam shut by itself; and the loader would then have to disengage the safety each time and give the "Up!" report.

So on an M1A1 and -A2, with the 120mm main gun, the loader has to open the breech first...?

And it looks like that breech closes awfully slow, needing some help from the loader...

At guess on the last, probably to reduce the number of loaders' fingers headed down range with the shell.

 

[Mark K]

We had M60A3's @ Ft Bliss, TX (Heavy Co 2/3rd ACR), I was there when we turned them in and received the first M1A1's

Ha! I hope I'm preaching to the choir, but -A3's were just modified -A1's. Basically same turret and gun system.

Man, I'm talking M60A2's.

This was my tank, A11 of 2/64 Armor, 3d ID, stationed in Schweinfurt, West Germany. REFORGER '78 I think, somewhere west of Munich. Me in the cupola, my drug-addict loader sitting on my Caliber .50, and my driver with a cigarette butt dangling from his mouth getting ready to assassinate me with his .45...

Maneuvering a six-tank platoon on-line through a German corn field, corn stalks and cobs a'flying'. Then the farmer's wife coming out and serving us lemonade, 'cuz they knew they could apply for maneuver damage payments. Those were the days.

 

[Pinecone]

I was in the Navy. Where we have real guns.

I am unimpressed.

https://youtu.be/MTW_xpK-Twc

[YouTube]MTW_xpK-Twc[/YouTube]

wtf. WTH is wrong with this site.

Un****it

The You Tube embed tag is YT.

[ yt ]

 

[hosspower]

Awesome machines!

 

[PowPow]

This was my tank, A11 of 2/64 Armor, 3d ID, stationed in Schweinfurt, West Germany. REFORGER '78 I think, somewhere west of Munich. Me in the cupola, my drug-addict loader sitting on my Caliber .50, and my driver with a cigarette butt dangling from his mouth getting ready to assassinate me with his .45...

 

[Mark K]

Well, yeah. We'd gotten an order from Battalion to assault in-line down into the valley where the village was. OK, screw it; orders are orders. My on-line six-tank platoon (I was responsible for the Company Commander's tank, while he tooled around in an M151A1 jeep) completely destroyed a corn field with stalks up over the tank fenders -- a swath of damage probably 100 meters wide. We were roaring up to a fence, getting ready to crash through it still on-line; when the farmer's wife came running out waving her arms (and shouting, I suppose; but we certainly couldn't hear over the roar of the diesels, track noise, and radio chatter through our CVC helmets). She then ran over to a gate in the fence, opened it, and frantically motioned for us to move through there. So I put the platoon into column and we did that, and she shut the gate behind us; re-formed in line, and roared into the village.

Turned out there was a battalion of Canadian tanks in the treeline on the other side of the valley, and the umpires decided all our tanks were killed. Hence the assassination. Wasn't my fault, I was just following orders.

Parenthetically, M60A2's weren't designed for offensive assault. They were designed for hull-defilade defense...

 

[PowPow]

Turned out there was a battalion of Canadian tanks in the treeline on the other side of the valley, and the umpires decided all our tanks were killed. Hence the assassination. Wasn't my fault, I was just following orders.

Therein lies the power of the chain of command.

 

[Mark K]

Therein lies the power of the chain of command.

Well, yes... The Boss says "do it," you may be muttering "three bags full" under your breath, but you do it.

To be fair, we had seen a few Canadian tanks in the opposite woodline, which is why we did an on-line assault. I don't think we knew how many until afterwards. The umpires had to figure out how many losses on each side based on how many weapons systems, and how they were sited. No MILES equipment in those days yet...

We were the Aggressor Forces (you can barely see the paper Circled Trigon insignia taped to the tank's front slope), and according to the exercise script we were supposed to push the Blue Forces west to a point determined by the script. (We didn't know where, but I assume the umpires did.) Those Canadian tanks were part of the Blue covering force. So we reconstituted for a while (being served lemonade by farmers' wives with our 60-ton tanks idling on their front lawns), and then pushed forward again. Those were the days...

 

[GunBum]

In the late 80’s, they preferred us to drive across planted fields instead of driving across grass fields. Supposedly the corn, rye, wheat, or whatever was cheaper to pay maneuver damages on than grass. On the crops, the farmer lost one year’s harvest. On the grass, he lost several years harvest.

 

[paperwork351]

Does any tanker remember an alert in germany on new years eve? I seem to remeber a lot of distruction.

 

[Mark K]

In the late 80’s, they preferred us to drive across planted fields instead of driving across grass fields. Supposedly the corn, rye, wheat, or whatever was cheaper to pay maneuver damages on than grass. On the crops, the farmer lost one year’s harvest. On the grass, he lost several years harvest.

I didn't know that. I was in Schweinfurt Jan 1977 to Jan 1980. USAREUR and the Germans were becoming more and more reluctant to tolerate a lot of maneuver damage. We could only drive cross-country after the autumn harvest, or in the wintertime when everything was frozen -- that's why REFORGERs were always in the autumn. Other times of the year, we had to maneuver on roads (with flashing yellow lights). Yeah, that's realistic...

They were still letting you maneuver across fields in the late '80s?

 

[Mark K]

Does any tanker remember an alert in germany on new years eve? I seem to remeber a lot of distruction.

Which year? That never happened to us while I was there, '77-'80. But remember alerts were usually division- and lower-level, so it would have depended on which unit you were with.

A roll-out alert on New Year's Eve shouldn't have cause much damage, since everything would have been frozen or at least un-planted. Would have pissed the troops off, though...

 

[paperwork351]

Which year? That never happened to us while I was there, '77-'80.

I couldn't find any info on the web. It may have been a nato alert but with no info it didn't happen. It happened after your tour.

 

[U.S.SFC_RET]

I remember the REFORGERS as well. Regrouping Forces to Germany as I knew it. As a mechanic is simply meant that we would roll out and set up a maintenance site and they would bring in all the broke stuff.
We would turn wrenches day and night 24/7, get a couple of hours sleep and start once again.
I remember the earlier REFORGERS always having units and companies from the states as opposed the later REFORGERS not so much.
Those M60A3s were so loud that you could feel the vibrations through your chest 25 yards away coming off those 1790AVDS 12 cyl air cooled engines.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Mark K]

I remember the REFORGERS as well. Regrouping Forces to Germany as I knew it. As a mechanic is simply meant that we would roll out and set up a maintenance site and they would bring in all the broke stuff.

Well, kind of depended what level you were a mechanic for. Our battalion-level mechanics certainly weren't sitting in one place... Sounds like you were a track mechanic, as opposed to turret?

I believe REFORGER stood for REturn of Forces to GERmany. Let me check Wikipedia... Yup, I'm right!! We certainly didn't refer to it as anything but "REFORGER"...

The ones I participated in in the late 1970s definitely involved CONUS units flying over and drawing strategic pre-positioned stocks. That was the whole purpose for REFORGER. I always assumed the CONUS-based units would then be the Blue Force, doing what they'd be doing when and if the balloon went up -- falling back in panic -- er, carrying out a strategic withdrawal to the West -- what was called "trading space for time" until NATO could make the nuclear decision. And we USAREUR-based units were alwyas the aggressors.

Not sure where those dam' Canadians came from, but they were crazy...

 

[U.S.SFC_RET]

Well, kind of depended what level you were a mechanic for. Our battalion-level mechanics certainly weren't sitting in one place... Sounds like you were a track mechanic, as opposed to turret?

Mark K. I was a direct support mechanic assigned to the Third Armored Division 122nd Maintenance C Company Friedberg, Germany
OOPs on the Regrouping Forces to Germany thats a 19 year old kid listening to barracks lingo.

As far as Blue Forces vs Orange Forces I was too busy with 02:30 alerts, unit movements, set up and maintenance to even know the difference forgive me. I do remember trading small stuff like rans on your collar to kids for their German beer on their porch. Lol