It snows in northern Syria.  It definitely snows in Turkey, which is where the tank came from.  There are no Turks in the south/central desert region.

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Well, there goes the irony...

As another poster stated, that was an interesting article.

There is a remote firing kit available for the Abrams when an M1A1 or M1A2 comes back from depot-level rebuild (or even IROAN'd, which was a waste of money and amounted to basically a $30,000.00 paint job).  The maintenance section test fires the main gun on a range (usually the screening range prior to gunnery) with a Training Practice Tracer (TPT) sabot or TPT HEAT / MPAT round after delivery to the unit to ensure everything stays glued together.  I've done this, and we crouched behind the rear of the hull after manually aiming and then loading the main gun.  Armor collectors here in the U.S. have actually died when the breach ring catastrophically failed upon firing the main gun with improvised, hand assembled main gun ammunition.  As of the late 1980s, the last US Army soldier or soldiers that died from a blown breach ring / tube was in the 1950s.  I imagine that holds true today.    

New barrels are generally not included with even a complete rebuild since they are expensive (I want to say under 25 large) and the DoD wants to get as much life out of a tube as possible prior to it being scrapped.  In other words, they get used until they absolutely can't be used anymore.  The only new barrels I've ever seen on an Abrams were the 14 tanks our company took delivery of straight from the factory in 1991.    

With that in mind, the barrel and breach ring have a finite life, which is determined by the number and type of rounds fired.  Each type of ammunition has different Effective Full Charge (EFC) values (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.).  TPT rounds have the lowest EFC value which translates into a higher number of rounds that can be fired through any given barrel before it's deemed unserviceable.  

For example, the max EFC for an M256 series breach ring (think of it as a receiver that the main gun barrel is attached to) is 4,500 EFCs, which translates to 4,500 rounds of tank ammunition with an EFC value of 1, or a total of three barrels if everything that was fired was TPT.  Each Tube for the M256 series has a max tube life of 1,500 EFCs (or 1,500 rounds if the EFC value of the ammo was 1).  Every time the main gun is fired on a range or even in combat, that information is recorded in a maintenance log book kept for each tank.  Prior to gunnery or deployment, the bores are inspected with the use of a borescope to look for hairline cracks developing around the high stress areas such as near the bore evacuator due to the vent holes compromising the structural strength of the tube.  This is challenging because there is .5 mm of hard chrome plating that tends to flake off and the metal corrodes or erodes underneath where the hard chrome plating had been.  It's a process that requires at least some experience to know what to look for.  

Additionally, US and western / NATO tank ammunition is carefully manufactured to very high QC standards with propellants designed specifically for large caliber cannons and held to strict velocity and pressure curves so that barrel and breach ring longevity can be predicted as precisely as possible.  While tube life for the M256 series 120mm cannon is 1,500 EFCs, I can only imagine that TACOM and Watervliet Arsenal have built in a "buffer" of at least 2X the stated service life so that if the number of EFCs are exceeded in combat, the barrel and breach ring will still hold together.  Artillery truly is supported and made possible by applied science.      

As an aside, it's my understanding that tubes are now being "reclaimed" and relined with hard chrome prior to reissue.  

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that foreign nations in the USSR / WP sphere didn't have the ability to produce cannon tubes that lasted as long as those made in western nations like Watervliet in NY or in The Fatherland by Rheinmetall, so the barrels have a much lower service life to begin with (as few as 500 rounds for Cold War-era MBTs like the T-55 through the T-72).  Beyond that, I doubt if there is any maintenance beyond operator (or "10 level) PMCS in "armies" or militias where there isn't any technical or maintenance support by exporters such as Russia, which means those breach rings and tubes can fail at any time.  That becomes a messy affair for anyone in the turret when something gives.  Couple that with improvised ammunition cobbled together with the wrong propellant's, and it truly is the will of Allah if A-hab The A-rab survives a main gun engagement in places like Yemen or Syria.  In fact, I assume that this has become a significant problem for irregular operators since firing by remote sounds like it's common practice now.

Operational and logistical support needed to keep tanks in fighting condition is extensive, and established through decades of experience learned the hard way.  I doubt if the average Arab is even capable of such a level of support due to poor education and cultural barriers combined with the lack of a required work ethic.            

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Might be worth it to punch through mud/concrete walls. Mostly it's about raising spirits; having tank support is a morale boost (even if it's an antique).

Nice write-up. I had no idea about round count on tank guns. I wonder how that compares to ships.

I knew a guy who died in the USS Iowa turret explosion, but that was not a breach or barrel failure.

Some threads are too epic to die!

I didn't get a single gun in this thread for XMAS either

Ooh, a dead squirrel!

The intent is to be accurate of course but yea, 30 hours of high-intensity operations against enemy hard targets would probably require a close guestimate based on the number of times the ready and semi-ready ammo racks or "honeycombs" were refilled by the log packs after you dropped off your KIA / WIA (if any) and refueled.  Obviously, peacetime safety protocols tend to be ignored during wartime.  

Armor in low-intensity operations (is that term even used anymore?) in support of the infantry would probably be easier to keep record of, as you could imagine.

ETA:  Fire a tank main gun solid projectile short of but in close proximity to dismounts and you can still do some damage to the soft tissue of humans, to say nothing of taking out bunkers or other stationary targets like a parked "technical".

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Yeah fuck all that noise

Imagine the recoil, and muzzle flash

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That thing looks....  stunning.

Nurmrich used to sell the whole rifles for $36.  That's a whole lot of work for a $4 payday.

That is crazy.

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Huh? What'd you say?

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Maybe with better ACOG mount...

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What is going on in the top picture? It looks like a bread cart flipped. Is that the explosive? Why would they pull it out/ruin it?

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They harvest RDX, TNT and PETN from ordnance for suicide vests and IEDs.

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I wonder if they make any home brew cannister rounds.

Isn't it though?  If the modification to those two rifles to 5.56mm works, I've got to hand it to whoever did the conversion.  Enfield aren't known for being easy to rebarrel to begin with, let alone the other engineering and machining that must have gone into that project.  

Also, those poor Enfields.

Look at that SIG 550’ish stock on the ppsh.

552

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Hell yeah, that's a brand new gun I've never heard about until now.

The smgs are where my heart lies

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Slick attachment method. PVS-27s/CNVDs are overrated.

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It's a wooden copy of an old VLTOR slotted handguard.

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Question...

I notice a lot of anti-material rifles posted here.

Is that because we gun guys find them interesting and post those pics, or is it because they are being heavily used in the ME?

If the latter, what are the tactics that are being employed with the AM rifles?  What are they shooting with them?

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Gotcha.  Thanks for clarifying!

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I want one of those little Italian Tankettes....

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