Originally Posted by weed

It seems that one point is being missed in this whole debate--the crew! Sure, an Abrams can be destroyed, name one military vehicle that can't be destroyed. An Abrams can be disabled with a hand grenade if you know what you're doing. Depending on where you look, the estimate of destroyed Abrams in Iraq ranges from 20 to over 200. But look at the pictures of these "destroyed" tanks(some more here Favourite tank). Notice that the gun tube is usually over the back deck. That is a standard crew drill for bailing out of the tank, it gives the driver an alternate escape route through the turret. The damage couldn't have been that bad if they had time to traverse the turret around to the back. In mmarsh's picture, that tank's main gun ammo ready rack exploded(that twisted piece of metal on the back is the rest of it) but the crew got out safely. With over 8,000 Abrams series tanks in the US arsenal(http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...d/m1-intro.htm), replacing a tank isn't much of a problem. It's a lot harder to replace a highly trained and proficient crew. The most important part of a tank is it's crew, and if they get out, it doesn't matter how bad the tank is damaged. The terrorists may get some good footage of a tank blowing up for their propaganda videos, but they'll have another Abrams knocking at their door with a pissed-off crew as soon as a replacement tank arrives. And a crew that has faith in the survivability of his equipment is a very powerful weapon.