Dear Greg: It was a pleasure to have met and spoken with you at Cold Wars '93. I also want to thank you for putting on die CD II seminar at the convention. It was a great deal of help to me and answered a few questions we had been puzzling over down here in the South. I have received the first Command Post Quarterly and want to compliment you and the GDW staff for the fine job!! I will be renewing my subscription and look forward to receiving more issues of the same quality in the future. With the above said, let's cut to the cheese, so to speak, aboutwhy I am writing. In issue #1, I read, with a great deal of interest, the article, "Heavy Metal," by James Dumm. With all due respect to Mr. Dumm's background, I must strongly disagree with the numbers related to hit probability that appear in the chart. I spent four months in the Persian Gulf as the S-2 for the 3rd Bn, 23rd Marines attached to the 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division. My unit was the only USMCR infantry battalion, to our knowledge, that participated in the actual assault into Kuwait. In fact, we fought in Kuwait two days before the actual invasion. I mention the above only to establish that I believe I have adequate basis for what I'm about to say. After the war, I spent a good bit of time speaking to tankers because, frankly, I was interested to find out whether their experi- ences might affect my play with Combined Arms/Command Decision! I spoke to tankers with the USMC 2nd Tank Battalion, 4th Tank Battalion, 8th Tank Battalion, and the US Army's Tiger Brigade which was attached to the 2nd Marine Division. In fact, my battalion had an attached platoon of M1 A1s from the USMCR's 4th Tank Battalion which helped us clear an industrial complex area about 12 miles from Kuwait City. After it was all said and done, my personal experience with and conversations about the M1 led me to the conclusion that the M1 is without a doubt the most awesome and finest armored vehicle in the world! The M1 tankers all said the same thing about the 120mm gun's ability: "IF THEY COULD SEE IT, THEY COULD KILL IT." I heard on several occasions of kills made at 4000 meters. I heard enough of this from different tankers to believe what was said. Even the 105 on the M-60 used by the USMCR's 8th Tank Battalion performed much better than most people anticipated! It was, after all, Bravo Co. 8th Tanks which was credited with knocking out over 50 Iraqi tanks in a 15-minute armor battle outside of Kuwait City International Airport! Based on the above, I offer the following probability to-hit charts: Weapon Ammo 5" 10" 20" 30" 40" 50" 60" 120 SB-L APFSDSDU 9 9 9 8 7 5 3 105 TG-L APFSDSDU 9 9 9 8 7 5 3 If the chart went out to 80", I'd give it a "1" to-hit even at that range! I have not included any information related to penetration because I don't have any real knowledge of that area. However, I saw about 20 to 30 Iraqi tanks which had obviously been destroyed by another tank, and I can make the following observations: 1. Every T-72 I saw, without exception, had its turret blown off! T-55's and T-62's held up better than the T-72. Not all of their turrets were blown off. 2. Every round that penetrated a turret went through the other side of the turret! In closing, I hope the above offers some additional insight to the effectiveness of the above weapons. --Sincerely, Dudley Garidel Dudley, thanks for the insight. You are indeed correct about the accuracy of the American 120mm and 105mm tank guns. Please see "Heavy Metal Revisited" on page 16 of this issue, particularly the linesfor the M833 and M829A1 rounds on the Direct Fire Table. I believe that the M833's lower performance at range is accurate, based on reportsftom the 1st ID, the only Army unit to take 105mm and 120mm armed M1s into combat. Also remember that all US tank crews in the Gulf receive the +1 Veteran bonus (CDH Rule 7.13). --Dave Nilsen Back to Table of Contents -- Command Post Quarterly #3 To Command Post Quarterly List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1993 by Greg Novak. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com