What if a loader will brake a hand inside? how will the tank reload?

I guess we'll have to ask a tanker if the chances of that happening are not too remote.

Figures of broken hands of loaders and broken auto loaders will probably show the advantage of the human being...

If someone is using an autoloader he probably decided that the disatvantage of a broken autoloader is smaller than having an extra crew member to be payed, trained, accomodated, fed, treated medical, put space in the tank for and in the end buried.

Originally Posted by Snauhi

What if a loader will brake a hand inside? how will the tank reload?

The only way that's going to happen is if he leaves his hand in the path of the recoil, which all loaders are constantly reminded not to do. But if he does he can probably still pull rounds out of the bustle and load them, you could just rest the bottom of the shell against your forearm. Or the gunner and the loader could switch places. The M1 can operate quite effectively with just three men, the commander can gun the tank from his seat.

Originally Posted by EOD

Here one where it went a little unfortunate for the M1:
http://strategypage.com/gallery/arti...le_mystery.asp

Remember one where the whole turret was blown off:

http://img180.exs.cx/img180/4927/m1a2iniraq3sf.jpg

http://img180.exs.cx/img180/9268/m1a2iniraq9im.jpg

That "mystery projectile" was most likely an RPG-7 firing a PG-7VR warhead, gets about 650mm of penetration.

And that Abrams turret WAS NOT blown off, it was removed on site(I think). You an see a recovery vehicle with a crane in that 2nd picture.

Originally Posted by Kozzy Mozzy

The only way that's going to happen is if he leaves his hand in the path of the recoil, which all loaders are constantly reminded not to do. But if he does he can probably still pull rounds out of the bustle and load them, you could just rest the bottom of the shell against your forearm. Or the gunner and the loader could switch places. The M1 can operate quite effectively with just three men, the commander can gun the tank from his seat.

That "mystery projectile" was most likely an RPG-7 firing a PG-7VR warhead, gets about 650mm of penetration.

And that Abrams turret WAS NOT blown off, it was removed on site(I think). You an see a recovery vehicle with a crane in that 2nd picture.

The image here shows clearly blast affected parts INSIDE the turret and the text going with it confirmed that.

http://img180.exs.cx/img180/4927/m1a2iniraq3sf.jpg

Beside this a recovery vehicle would not handle a turret like this when removed from the vehicle by experts.

If you all want to open a thread about the destroyed M1, that would be ok, but not here.

What if a loader will brake a hand inside? how will the tank reload?

Ah, he can switch with the gunner or the commander can take the gunners post and the gunnger can take the loader post(if the loader is reallly badly hurt). Thats not really a huge issue. there were cases where Israeli tank commanders acted as both the gunnger and loader, and inn some cases they acted as the entire crew...