233 Attacks on US in Last Week Alone

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=34366&d=30&m=10&y=2003

BAGHDAD, 30 October 2003 — In a dramatic upsurge in attacks, resistance fighters destroyed an American tank north of Baghdad and wounded seven Ukrainians in the first ambush of multinational troops stationed south of the capital, US and coalition officials said yesterday.

US policy in Iraq suffered another setback when the international Red Cross announced it was reducing its international staff in the country, two days after a deadly suicide car-bombing at its Baghdad headquarters.

Secretary of State Colin Powell had urged the Red Cross and other non-government organizations to remain in Iraq because “if they are driven out, then the terrorists win.”

The latest attacks — 233 over the last seven days according to the US military — have driven the combat death toll during the occupation over the number killed before President George W. Bush declared an end to active combat on May 1.

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[nadinbrzezinski]

1. but, it is all progress

just ask bush... if this is progress I really fear what success
will really look like

[alcuno]

2. What can destroy a tank?

I'm just curious. What would they use?

[evworldeditor]

3. Tank disabled by land mine

... according to reports I've seen.

[NNN0LHI]

4. Anti-tank mine using this technology

http://www.llnl.gov/str/Baum.html

IN early 1997, Lawrence Livermore successfully tested a shaped charge that penetrated 3.4 meters of high-strength armor steel. The largest diameter precision shaped charge ever built produced a jet of molybdenum that traveled several meters through the air before making its way through successive blocks of steel (Figure 1). A shaped charge, by design, focuses all of its energy on a single line, making it very accurate and controllable. When size is added to that accuracy, the effect can be dramatic. The success of this demonstration at the Nevada Test Site's Big Explosives Experimental Facility would not have been possible without the combination of reliable hydrodynamic codes and diagnostic tools that verify one another.

A shaped charge is a concave metal hemisphere or cone (known as a liner) backed by a high explosive, all in a steel or aluminum casing. When the high explosive is detonated, the metal liner is compressed and squeezed forward, forming a jet whose tip may travel as fast as 10 kilometers per second. Shaped charges were first developed after World War I to penetrate tanks and other armored equipment. Their most extensive use today is in the oil and gas industry where they open up the rock around drilled wells.

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[alcuno]

5. Thanks. It seems like they'd have a lot of them.

I hadn't heard of any tanks being blown up recently.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

6. Nope. It was probably an anti-tank mine using THIS technology:

Three soldiers were killed and two wounded, one moderately, when a Merkava Mk III tank drove over a powerful mine on the Karni-Netzarim road in the Gaza Strip yesterday morning.

Tank crewmen Sgt. Rotem Shani, 19, of Hod Hasharon, and Staff-Sgt. Matan Biderman, 21, of Karmiel, were killed; the name of the third crewman has yet to be released for publication.

Shani was buried last night in the Kfar Saba Military Cemetery. Biderman will be buried in the military cemetery in his hometown at noon.

The wounded tank commander and a tracker, who was wounded when he was walking ahead of the tank, were airlifted to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba.

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Fatah's al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade both claimed responsibility.

The attack occurred less than 100 meters from the spot where three soldiers were killed and a fourth wounded when an 80-kilogram mine exploded underneath their Merkava Mk III last month. All the soldiers belong to the Sufa armored battalion, which has served in the area for a number of months.

At 6:30 a.m., an army tracker was walking in front of two tanks, with a unit of Givati Brigade soldiers on foot in the rear, to secure the road leading from nearby Netzarim, when the mine exploded underneath one of the tanks. Officials think the terrorists hid behind a mosque near the roadside and detonated the mine by remote control.

The force off the blast blew off the tank's turret, throwing the tank commander into the air and wounding the tracker.
http://info.jpost.com/C002/Supplements/CasualtiesOfWar/2002_03_14.html

In other words, given enough high explosives, ANY tank will be destroyed. In the case of the Merkava Mk III it was 80 kilos of C-4.

[quaker bill]

7. On the way onto Baghdad

they found one munitions depot full of stuff including anti-tank mines. The American commander surveying the scene was quoted as saying "I am glad they didn't deploy this stuff, it would have caused real problems"

Perhaps they are deploying it now?