I just talked with my kids about this the other day when we were talking about the end of WW2.

Patton took over a beleaguered US Army in N Africa. The Americans had not won a single battle. I believe he had one week to prepare for his first battle. His forces took on a large German armor and tank formation. He used infantry and tank killers and defeated the German force. He was innovative as hell.

Tanker123 said:

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Patton took over a beleaguered US Army in N Africa. The Americans had not won a single battle. I believe he had one week to prepare for his first battle. His forces took on a large German armor and tank formation. He used infantry and tank killers and defeated the German force. He was innovative as hell.

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I heard it was because he read a book.

The projectile from the sabot round the M1 tank fires is a Uranium Depleted dart that weighs around 20 lbs. It is around 1.24 inches in diameter. Does anyone know the velocity of the round?

3-4,000 meters/second?

Aldous Huxley (author of Brave New World) wrote a short book called "The Doors of Perception" which was an autobiographical account of him taking Peyote. It was the influence of why Jim Morrison named his band "The Doors".

Thanks for the correction. I got a tour of the testing facility near Socorro NM years ago and remembered that it was a lot faster than a rifle bullet, but age and the years seemed to have added to its velocity in my mind!

Jabin said:

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Thanks for the correction. I got a tour of the testing facility near Socorro NM years ago and remembered that it was a lot faster than a rifle bullet, but age and the years seemed to have added to its velocity in my mind!

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No sweat. I have PTSD, thus my memory can be very poor. I watched a whole Vikings Season twice. I talked with a physics professor about the sabot round. He said the amount of energy or joules of the projectile is astronomical due to the velocity of it.

When the sabot round hits an enemy tank, then it instantaneously creates innumerable amount of spall which are metal splinters that will fly through the turret at great speed. The spall will liquify the tank crew. The science of killing humans gets better over time.

I will illustrate the superiority of the M1 tanks over enemy tanks in Desert Storm. The Iraqi tanks were outclassed by the M1s. Sometimes the Iraqis did not know they were being attacked until their tanks were being destroyed. There were several cases of Iraqi tank rounds bouncing off the M1s. If our range was 4,000m and their range was 3,000m, then we could fire from the ranges of 4,000m to 3001m with very little risk of being hit. That is called Stand Off Distance.

This is how the Sabot round turns enemies into a fine mist | We Are The Mighty

Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

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Tanker123 said:

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Patton took over a beleaguered US Army in N Africa. The Americans had not won a single battle. I believe he had one week to prepare for his first battle. His forces took on a large German armor and tank formation. He used infantry and tank killers and defeated the German force. He was innovative as hell.

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I heard it was because he read a book.

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The Germans would fear Patton the most because he knew how to win battles. In Sicily he executed two amphibious landings to flank the Germans. They wanted nothing to do with him and fled to the port to escape the Americans. In Europe he used fighters in front of his army to give him superb intelligence in order for him to attack the Germans in a manner of his choosing. I don't remember if he used the fighters to Fix the Germans. Fixing means decisively engaging the Germans, so they could not escape the area of engagement.

Lone Gurka sentry fights off a force of 15-30 Taliban fighters.

The One-Man Gurkha Army: The Stand of Sgt. Dipprasad Pun | September 2010 - YouTube

I played rugby in Baghdad against a British team that was maybe half Gurkhas. Holy **** can those guys hit.

Sapper Redux said:

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I played rugby in Baghdad against a British team that was maybe half Gurkhas. Holy **** can those guys hit.

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Who won?

I attended a several month-long army school. We had foreign officers. Some of them were professional military men. Some could care less. I still remember the obese LTC from Egypt. He did not give a rats ass about the training.

One morning we played soccer against the foreign officers. The fat LTC was like Pele against us. Needless to say, we sucked and lost to those heathens.

They won. Half our team had never played rugby before. Most of us playing as fowards had, however, so it got a bit chippy. Good time in a bad place.