A while back someone told me that the Us captured an Iraqi Sherman, is this true? If ti is doesanyone have pics of it?
I found something about that. Check the link.
http://www.hood.army.mil/4id/Iraqi/news_content/sherman.asp
[8D]
i pretty sure they found a churchill VII in iraq too
They thought we still used the sherman tank ? OMG were they ever wrong there , no wonder they predicted we would swim in rivers of our own blood in the first iraq war ! Must have been a really nasty surprise when the clusterbomb missles came in, then the abrams tanks and apache helicopters ! I would have surrendered too ! Could a sherman tank kill another tank at 2000 yards through sand burms ?[B)] Saddam huseein is indeed a peabrain , and BTW" he is the leader of Iraq and is prepred to negotiate"! [:D]
So are Shermans better than the T-series russian built tanks? It seems to me the most
of the captured T-series tanks are either smoking or are in many little pieces.
you noticed that too???
I was thinking it would be a Isherman from Isreal but WoW thats hilarious!
I could see one of our fellow modelers in Iraq see an Abrams about to blow that thing sky high and force the M1 to stop just cause is a shermie.
That’s interesting that it was captured at a training school…maybe they saw Patton one too many times? [:D]
There were many types of old US and British tanks and AFVs in Iraq. Some were on diplay just as they are here in the states in town squares and in front of buildings, etc. Most were not working and none were in active service or front line units. We did find some running ones at their armor school in a musuem setting. Remember, Iraq was a British colony till the mid-1950s and the US supported them up through the late 80s during the Iran-Iraq war. All sorts of old US and British aircraft and helos have been found too. We even sold the Iraqi’s 2 stripped down M1A1s in the mid 80s too. They added T-72 optics and fire control systems and called them Lions of Babylon. They fell into disrepair when we stopped supporting Iraq after their victory over Iran. I did see many M800 series US-made 5-ton trucks and M113 series vehicles in Iraqi service. It was very interesting to see these US vehicles as enemy targets. It made positive target ID crucial.
[MV geek mode]Umm…they mention that this is a HVSS Sherman. Aren’t those VVSS bogies?[/MV geek]
Amusing story on the link, but I find it really hard to believe that any Iraqi solidier, no matter how insane, would have forgotten the M1A1’s from the first gulf war and thought that we had reverted to using Shermans again. Still, it is nice of them to have helped preserve a piece of our military history.[:D]
Think about it-- if you were the dictator of some third world country about to be invaded by the world superpower, and you had the chance to use a sherman even if it stood barely any chance of survival, you you do anything you could to delay them.
But I do think that it is kind of funny that the soldiers even knew how to operate it, considering the technical manuals would be in english!!!
Eventually, we’ll be invading some country 50 years from know, and we’ll see them using M1’s and think that its primitive and pathetic.
I remember very well a couple of T-34/85’s sitting in the same graveyard as T-72’s, 60’s, and 55’s near Um Qasar. The pilot of the chopper, CH-53E, circled a couple of times so we could get a good look. It was hard to tell what most of the stuff was, because they were burned out, blasted, and rusted hulks. I did see two T-34’s looking not as bad as the other stuff (still pretty bad) right next to each other.
There are probably tons of vintage AFV all over Iraq.
You think that was funny they found a WWI Renault FT-17 in either Iraq or Afganistan. Maybe they knew of some weak spot in the M1’s armor? Or they were going to stop our tanks when the crews hurt themselves from laughing too much or threw a track driving over them? Hey, atleast hthey didn’t just park them in the desert like they did with all of the Soviet equipment for their armor museums.
I actually got to the Patton museum when I was at Ft. Knox this summer and saw the two FT-17s that just came back from Afghanistan. They don’t really need that much restoration! Glad to see we saved another Sherman too!