henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (10/12/89)
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) >From: chenj@cmcl2.NYU.EDU (James Chen) >I read in Insight that the M16 rifle & M-1 Abrams tank got a >lot of bad press early in their development. They have, however, >turned out to be excellent weapons and the early fears unfounded. This depends on who you talk to. M-16 reliability has gone from superb (original Stoner AR-15) to dreadful (US Army "improves" design to produce original M-16) to barely passable (later variants). I haven't heard a recent report on the M-1. Do remember that the Army has a large vested interest in portraying its decisions as correct and its weapons as great. It's not uncommon for off-the-record interviews with actual users to tell a very different story than that found in the official press releases. Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
gwh%typhoon.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (George William Herbert) (10/13/89)
From: gwh%typhoon.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (George William Herbert) In article <10145@cbnews.ATT.COM> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: re. Reliability > >This depends on who you talk to. M-16 reliability has gone from superb >(original Stoner AR-15) to dreadful (US Army "improves" design to produce >original M-16) to barely passable (later variants). I haven't heard a >recent report on the M-1. Do remember that the Army has a large vested >interest in portraying its decisions as correct and its weapons as great. >It's not uncommon for off-the-record interviews with actual users to tell >a very different story than that found in the official press releases. The M-16A2 is MUCH better, as good as the AR-15. Or so I hear, and this is from people who used or were exposed to both. The M-16 (usaf variant) was a renamed AR-15; the M-16A1 was the army 'improved' variant which caused a lot of problems. It didn't help that they told the soldiers at first that the gun didn't need cleaning. (It needed MORE than the M-14 it replaced...) This was an institutional failure more than a equipment one, but the -A1 model did have more problems. The Abrahms M-1 and M-1A1 (120mm sans 105mm main gun) are now fairly reliable. Except for certain problems inherent with moving a tracked vehicle as fast as the M-1 moves, it's as reliable as any other Main Battle Tank. There were some breaking-in problems, but those have been ironed out. A lot of the disagreements in reliability can be also attributed to lack of connectiveness in what each side is testing. For instance, the recent Bradley snafu was mostly caused by a fundamental lack of understanding about what it was. People often fail to realize thet the armed forces will put an improvement in reliablility as good, even if the baseline of comparason was poor... **************************************** George William Herbert UCB Naval Architecture Dpt. (my god, even on schedule!) maniac@garnet.berkeley.edu gwh@ocf.berkeley.edu ----------------------------------------
major@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Mike Schmitt) (10/19/89)
From: ssc-vax!shuksan!major@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Mike Schmitt) In article <10178@cbnews.ATT.COM>, gwh%typhoon.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (George William Herbert) writes: > The Abrahms M-1 and M-1A1 (120mm sans 105mm main gun) are now fairly > reliable. Except for certain problems inherent with moving a tracked > vehicle as fast as the M-1 moves, it's as reliable as any other Main > Battle Tank. There were some breaking-in problems, but those have > been ironed out. I was with the 3rd Infantry Division (Mech) in Germany when we received the first shipment of M1 Tanks. Yes, there were break-in problems... yes, it was a gas=guzzler, yes, it overheated, yes it broke track frequently, yes it would throw a track to the inside. Yes, the crews loved it! As soon as the crews figured out the tank wasn't designed to compete in the Indy 500 - they settled down and drove it like a tank (even tank battles evolve more slowly then you'd expect). Tanks require lots and lots of maintenance. As we gathered statistics on maintenance per hour of operations - it was common to have to conduct 3 hours of maintenance for every 1 hour of operation. The cost of operating a tank (fuel, oil, parts) was something like $15 an hour. Compare this to a 2 1/2 Ton truck: 1 hr maint for 5 hrs operating/$5 hr. Or to an M113 APC (one of the most maintainable tracked vehicles in the world): 1:1 maint/opn $6/hr. And one of the biggest budget items in Mech or Armor Divisions is new track. Now, what that translates to is 4-5 days of manuever training requires about 1-2 weeks of maintenance on a tank. And that's the biggest complaint of tank crews - they are either on the gunnery range or in the motor pool. Within a couple years - for the first time - a US crew in an M1 tank won the NATO Tank Gunnery competition (I forget the name) which in the previous years had always been won by the Leopard II. US Divisions in Germany were still receiving the M60A3 (Rise/Passive) tanks - mainly the Cav Squadrons - yet, the new M1 was THE TANK, everything else was a 'dinosauor'. Warning Order: Tank Attack "Hot chow, and dry socks, hey didddle diddle right up the middle, and don't trust the sonovabitch on your flank." major