4 Abrams at 50 Million Dollars… I’d Say Modern Armor AND Infantry are Obsolete For Now

Greetings Me Droogs N Droogettes!
So this apparently is one it’s way to Moscow for the May Day Celebrations:

Now, one of you Dissidents requested a breakdown of what -I- thought happened to this particular Abrams. Now, I haven’t had much luck in finding out which one of the 4 that Ivan has smoked that this particular one is. My source that I check regularly said this is actually #4 that caught it during the recent fighting around Berdychi:

The Red Arrow indicating Avdiivka which is that last BIG battle where Ivan slugged it out… shortly after, reports came out stating that the 47th Brigade refused to go into a support role, which caused panic and a retreat. Which is why as of this past week or so, Ivan went in and took Berdychi. Anyways… reading the Ministries of Propaganda and Lies, you’d think that this was a ‘win’ for the Krainians, however, IRL pulling back, and losing territory? Yeeeeeah, not so much IMO… but I’m here to talk armor and the damage to that thereof.

Part of the mad damage to it on the tracks and rollers is because Ivan pretty much just ‘hooked it up’ and dragged it’s dead ass out on it’s blown out tracks and road wheels: LINK HERE

They dragged it using two T-55 variant Tank Recovery Vehicles, another thing that the Krainians are in short supply of, and it shows how heavy and damaged the tracks and rollers were to need two recovery vehicles to move that pig.

Now, more pics:

Right Rear
And then:

Left Rear
Now, I’d say that whatever this tank went through, because of the massive amount of damage to the TUSK package (that’s those large reactive armor boxes strapped to the side skirts) on the left side, I’d say this was probably a mobility kill. The left side is missing #5 road wheel (that’s the big donuts on the bottom) as well as maybe even #4.

What I find extraordinarily interesting is the Rear Sprocket cover:

Those have NOT been in use with -any- US Abrams since OMFG I can’t even name the timeframe… reason being is that they were originally intended to help ‘scrape’ the mud off the tracks when the Tank was maneuvering in the soft mud of Europe… Now, maybe they put them back on in the Krain because our shit (the US Tracks and APCs and Strykers) have been getting purely bogged down there… I know the the US took them off as yeah, they scrapped the mud off, BUT

They loved getting concertina wire/barbed wire and shit hyper tangled up in the sprocket… from my understanding, it was a hell of shitshow that damned near required a recovery team to get things unfucked… so seeing those I was like:

So, to continue…
I know Ivan hasn’t had any head-to-head kills on an Abrams. Least that I’ve heard of… no “pop-topping- like the T-72/80s seemed to like to go “BOOM” in an exceptionally violent manner…

I think ALL of them (the M1’s) have been mobility kills, followed up by a massive amount of punishment-til-KIA’d via Drones.

In this case… Oof…

That’s the top deck.
The Tank Commander’s hatch/M2 on the left, Loaders Hatch on the right, both sort of open…Now, the circle steel plate on the lower right, that’s where the A2 sight would normally be put on, so, no this’s definitely not a new model… and lets check the ammo bustle while we’re on top:

Yep.
The Right side blew out completely. Even the right side cover blew out, but the bustle ammo rack is still in there, so my guess is that the left side was empty… probably no shells or that would have gone up like a roman candle as well. Now, lets look a bit at the Loader’s hatch before we go inside:

OK, the loaders M240 looks ok, a bit scorched on the handles, but I’ve seen and worked on worse… the red discoloration though on the back of the hatch? Let’s see:

Oh yeah…
NO QUESTION that there was some serious heat coming from that hatch… if you look at the traversing ring for the 240, you can see that it’s warped and curled so hard as to be off track and you couldn’t close and secure the hatch, as it’s warped so badly as to be in the way.

This tells me that the Ammo Loading Bay Door was probably wide the fuck open. So, let’s go down to the front slope, and check the drivers hole:

Jeeeeez
TBH I hope the fucking crew bailed because man, if not? somewhere in all that wreckage and shit is the remains of a four man crew… like maybe if they weren’t atomized. So yeah, that damage was NOT caused by a drone on it’s own… that me Droogs n Droogettes is what happens when 20-40 rounds of HEAT or AT 120mm cook off all at once… Reason I know this? Well… this’s what the driver’s hole should look like:

And, as you see, there’s a gate that when the turret is forward, that the driver can not get into the turret… which means that gate? Yeah… it’s gone… and to prove that the flamed out pic is the drivers hole? Well Here’s a comparison with arrows pointing to the Fire extinguisher and Turret Hatch rack and pinion, and the other arrow points to what’s left of the head rest:

May not like the Krains, but damn!! As a fellow tread-head, I hope the Hell they weren’t on board when this fucker went and got shmoked like a Havana.

Now, to the substance… meat and ‘taters if you will.

We’ve seen how drones are the Infantry’s worst nightmare:

AND we also know that they take out Armor like a champ too.

Per the Krainians themselves:

The Lancet has to be considered to be a dangerous smart weapon. Each drone costs $30,000–$35,000, and it can easily destroy or pout out of action multi-million dollars’ worth of a tank, artillery piece or air defense system.

Kiev Post

The cost of ONE M1A1 (and mind you, these are in 1990 dollars) was $4.3 MILLION Dollars. At the very most, even if Ivan used TEN Lancets to take out ONE M1A1, they win… Like they Win to an insane degree. $17,200,000.00 USD turned into smoking heaps at a maximal cost of $1,400,000.00.

That, by the way, is why Russia, or I should say the USSR lost the Cold War. We bankrupted them. We had them literally spend through everything they had in trying to keep up with us in ALL the races, and in the end, they caved… literally AND metaphorically.

Now, they’re doing it to us and our Clownworld Retards have NO IDEA, mainly BECAUSE they’re Clownworld Retards.

I mean the average cost of training a US Infantryman?

Current Soldier System costs are based on the individual infantryman of a Rifle Squad in an Infantry Company (Light) (TOE 07-017LOOO). Total estimated annual cost for the current Soldier System is $138.3K per year

“Analysis of Current Light Infantry Soldier System Costs – DTIC”
Defense Technical Information Center, 1993

So, I know that the current average Krainian Grunt is probably maybe costing about $36k in total, as reading the above that’s what the training costs (in 1993 mind you).

The Cost of a Mavic 3 Drone that’s being used to blow the ever-loving-fuck out of the grunts on both sides?

So, call it $140,000.00 worth of care, feeding, and traing for an average Rifleman.

$2199.00 for the Drone
$200 for the RPG-7A warhead they arm on them

Yep… It’s so bad, that tanks have gone “back in time”
They (the Russians) started with “Cope Cages” which everyone made fun of, until they realized they work.. which invariably led to the next natural progression:

Thing looks like a fucking Ironclad from the Civil War.

To be perfectly honest, until we get the technology that either brings the Marauder Suits from “Starship Troopers” or Mecha from Mech Warrior, or even ‘other’ insert favorite Sci-Fi Mechanical Combat Suits, Infantry, as well as Armor are going the way of the Horse and Buggy in my professional opinion.

Until then, it’s going to be “Adapt, Improvise, and Overcome”

If we don’t, I mean we’ve been teetering on the Financial Edge forever. This sort of stupid just may be the push that takes us over the abyss. Oh well… grab the popcorn Aye?

More Later
Big Country