Quote:
Originally Posted by IronHat
I notice that none of the US Abram carry any high explosive round. Why is that? If the Abram doesn't have High explosive round, then what do it use against soldier in entrenched building?
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Well - the 105mm models do, since that had HE. The L7 gun had all ammo types available (WP, HESH, APDS, APFSDS, cannister, HE)
The 120mm is an an anti-tank piece and never had an HE round developed,
only HEAT and sabot. HEAT of course can be used as a reduced effect HE round since several versions back. HEAT is what they fire at soft and squishy targets, apart from MG ammo.
(As an aside: I believe the USMC had a little moan at the "upgrade" from 105mm to 120mm since they liked the various extra natures of ammo the L7(M68) brought to the party, and the 15 more rounds stowed.)
There are also the CS-tank variants of the beastie with the M1028 cannister round (which are not much good for anti tank due to the reduced gun range). That was a quick development for urban fighting in Iraq.
There is also the MPAT round which still seems to be in development, and is apparently not that cheap either. But it is more of a directed HEAT round than a proper HE one. So HEAT does for game purposes for MPAT.
The Swedes (and others?)
have designed real HE ammo to fire from the West German 120mm guns. The Swedish one is basically a 120mm mortar bomb apparently. So some Strv 122 have HE, as do e.g. Canadian Leo C2s etc. But the USA does not seem to have adopted a "proper" HE round for the FRG 120mm smooth-bore.
Andy
Abram and the lack of HE
Re: Abram and the lack of HE
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