[AT] OT Abrams tanks

Sun Sep 22 18:23:27 PDT 2019

About 30 years ago I spent about 150 hours in an OH58 Kiowa with an OK 
Nat Guard pilot who was probably the best dual rated pilot in the US.  I 
learned about the dust first hand.  He entered the airforce at 14 and 
flew Bombers in WWII.   By the time they figured out his true age, he 
had so many missions under his belt they just had him re-enlist.  He was 
a helicopter training instructor for the OKNG.  The guy could land a 
helicopter in a box if he had to.    We were inspecting dams that had 
experienced more than a 100 yr frequency flood in the mid 80's.  After 
landing and taking off about 4 times and waiting for the turbine to 
cool,  he suggested we try flying about 10 ft off the ground.   The prop 
blast would spread the grass out and I could see erosion and more than 
walking on the ground.  We inspected 130 dams in a 4 week period.  It 
was one the most fun I had on the job in 30 years.  A couple of years 
later I came into a small inheritance and this pilot was going to teach 
me to fly.   After I put a pencil to the yearly cost of maintaining an 
airplane and keeping my hours up,  I decided not to learn to fly.  I 
took my inheritance and bought a plasma cutter and put the rest in savings.

I can see how a very fine dust would plug helicopter filters.  Do they 
have a self cleaning feature now??
Cecil

On 9/22/2019 5:33 PM, szabelski at wildblue.net wrote:
> Once the filter catches enough sand, it doesn’t let a lot of air thru. It’s hard to change a filter while you’re in the air. Filters clog real easily with the fine sand in Iraq, it’s almost a powder. When a helicopter takes off or lands, it kicks up an awful lot of sand and it gets sucked right into the filters. The turbines suck a lot of air and you take in a lot of everything.
>
> On the Abrams we went to a self cleaning filter system that blows the filters clean and exhaust the sand out the side. You could probably do some sand blasting when it happens. We still have to do filter cleaning since you never really get it 100% clean.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Cecil Bearden <crbearden at copper.net>
> To: at at lists.antique-tractor.com
> Sent: Sun, 22 Sep 2019 14:42:44 -0400 (EDT)
> Subject: Re: [AT] OT Abrams tanks
>
> I remember many years back when they were trying to liberate some
> hostages ( I think I remember it right ) they lost over 1/2 of the
> helicopters during the mission to dust in the turbines.  At the time I
> wondered why it could not be filtered out.  We have a commercial a/c
> manufacturer, Temtrol,  in Okarche,  a few miles West of here.  They had
> a contract to supply air conditioners to Iraq, they had to use a hard
> stainless steel for covers, coils and everything exposed due to being in
> a constant sandblasting from the wind and sand.
>
> Cecil
>
> On 9/22/2019 1:22 PM, szabelski at wildblue.net wrote:
>> The sand in Iraq was a big problem. It’s a very fine dust and gets into everything, clogging filters and causing premature wear.
>>
>> ----- Original Message --
>> From: James Peck <jamesgpeck at hotmail.com>
>> To: Antique Tractor Email Discussion Group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
>> Sent: Sun, 22 Sep 2019 12:24:52 -0400 (EDT)
>> Subject: Re: [AT] OT Abrams tanks
>>
>> I remember watching a TV clip of soldiers changing out an engine during a sand storm in Iraq.
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M88_Recovery_Vehicle#/media/File:M88_pulling_M1_engine.jpg
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: AT <at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com> On Behalf Of Jack
>> Sent: Sunday, September 22, 2019 12:18 PM
>> To: Antique Tractor Email Discussion Group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
>> Subject: Re: [AT] OT Abrams tanks
>>
>> What can you tell us about the M88A2 Hercules.
>>
>> [szabelski at wildblue.net] You can go on-line and read about the tank battles as written by several tankers who where there. Try searching for anything related to “73 Easting” that was one of the major tank battles and is now referenced as the last great tank battle of today. You should be able to also find pictures of the Soviet made tanks with their turrets blown clean off, some as much as 100+ feet from the chassis.
>>
>> I had the pleasure of working with one retired colonel who was part of a fight between his platoon of four tanks and an entire Iraqi armored brigade. He was sent ahead of his US battalion to scout out an area on the other side of some burning oil fields. They couldn’t see what was on the other side through all the smoke and didn’t want to drive into an ambush. When his platoon came out the other side, they were facing a dug in Iraqi brigade in standard Soviet deployment. Without hesitating they opened fire on the Iraqis while running at full speed. In less than about 20 minutes they wiped out the entire Iraqi brigade and never took a hit. He later was reprimanded by his commander because he didn’t report back by radio that he was engaging multiple enemy tanks and requesting assistance. His defense was that he was a little busy calling shots and didn’t have time to to notify his commander.
>>
>> There was a History Channel documentary made about the tank battles during the Iraqi war. I think it was a series of stories about all the tank battles of that war and WWII (Greatest Tank Battles???). You might be able to find it on- line somewhere.
>>
>> [James Peck] The same fellow states that in the Kuwait war, they were only firing when fired upon. A pair of Abrams received fire from a group of Soviet made Iraqi tanks. One Abrams smoked 7 of the enemy tanks and the other smoked 4.
>>
>> At one point they were approached by hundreds of Iraqi soldiers holding their rifles above their heads with white rags attached. The Iraqis had ripped uniforms, no food, no water, and were generally in bad shape.
>>
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