There's a New Sheriff in Town: ISIS Fighters Fear "The Beast"

by Steph Willems

Published: April 14th, 2016

there s a new sheriff in town isis fighters fear the beast

Despite their psychopathic barbarity, ISIS fighters fear many things — women, music, culture, bathing, and now a lone tank dubbed “The Beast.”

According to U.S. military official Col. Steve Warren, an American-trained Iraqi tank crew has become a one-vehicle Dirty Dozen in the aptly named Iraqi city of Hit, the Associated Press has reported.

As part of ongoing efforts to retake the city from ISIS militants, the lone crew is “tearing it up” with its distinctively midwestern machine, obliterating every unfriendly target of opportunity with its General Dynamics M1A1 Abrams.

In fact, the not-so-little-tank-that-could is so active, U.S. observers initially assumed more than one tank was engaging ISIS (there were three, but mechanical issues sidelined two of them). The tank has become something of a folk hero near Hit and its crew has taken home the “Hero of the Day” award given to Iraqi troops seven days in a row, according to Foreign Policy.

Warren tweeted a video recorded on April 12 of The Beast engaging a bomb-laden vehicle that was trying to target anti-ISIS forces:

A Bombed car was trying to target hero’s in , and was blown away by a Cornet Rocket! pic.twitter.com/pUVvS1zZ5z

— جهاز مكافحة الإرهاب (@iraqicts) April 12, 2016

There’s no word on whether the crew rides into town with “Ride of the Valkyries” blasting over the audio system.

The M1A1 Abrams, produced either at the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant in Warren, Michigan, or the Lima Army Tank Plant in Ohio, bristles with firepower. A .50-calibre heavy machine gun and two 7.62 mm general-purpose machine guns complement the tank’s 120-millimetre main gun.

Under what passes for a hood, a 1,500 shaft horsepower multi-fuel Honeywell turbine engine and Allison transmission motivates all the armament, allowing the Abrams to make short work of Toyota pickups packed with explosives — or the odd plumber truck.

For doing a good job taking out the trash, hats off to the operators of The Beast.

[Image: Nathan Rupert/ Flickr ( CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)]

#AllisonTransmission #GeneralDynamics #Honeywell #Iraq #Military #MilitaryVehicles #Tank #U.S.Army #Warfare

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MazdaThreeve on Apr 15, 2016

The Abrams is a terrific fighting machine, to be sure, but I worry about what would happen if we ever had to deploy it in a conflict with an enemy having something approaching parity with our tech. The fuel type and quantity demands of that engine are massive and very real. I think in a protracted campaign, where the enemy could actually hit our supply lines, the Abrams would be stopped not by direct fire, but more often by running out or low on fuel. The Army really should have a standby swap plan to put these guys on another powertrain.

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- CarnotCycle on Apr 15, 2016
  
  Army has I think a diesel motor on the upgrade path - however gas-turbine isn't THAT terrible. For one, it can burn pretty much any fuel. Drop Bacardi 151 in it, and it will run on it. Australians run theirs on diesel by default. Second, it is not that bad on mileage; probably within ~70% mile-for-mile compared to a (very modern) diesel. Take this turbine and put it up against contemporary piston motors (~1975) of similar power spec, and AGT1500 is pretty competitive. Where turbine is truly miserable on fuel is when tank is not going down road. It eats gallons-an-hour just to idle, gallons-an-hour just to go 2MPH, and eats ten gallons just to start it. Given tanks - especially M1's in current deployed environments - spend most their time idling at checkpoints (like this one), crawling along/through rubble with infantry, etc., those inefficient operating modes are magnified all the more. I could see future powertrain of vehicles like this being something like a series hybrid, with relatively inert LiMPO battery chemistry, lots of redundancy distributing electric motors along the track (instead of just one powered sprocket per side), and ultimately powered by a smaller modern turbine.
  
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- MazdaThreeve on Apr 15, 2016
  
  Anything to add some flexibility. You sound like you're well-versed in this stuff. Let me ask you: My understanding was the Abrams burns jet fuel. But you're saying its a lot more forgiving than that. If that's the case, can these guys just run on regular gasoline or diesel in a pinch? Even low-octane gasoline, perhaps. If I'm showing my ignorance of fuel chemistry here, forgive me.
  
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- CarnotCycle on Apr 15, 2016
  
  @MazdaThreeve JP-8 is the stock fuel; high-test kerosene basically that can run in a diesel. And M1's can burn anything just about, or even a mix of anything. Less a feature of M1 specifically than turbines in general. Some fuels will burn better than others obviously; I would guess optimum fuel for the motor is JP-8 or high-quality diesel.
  
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- Wolfinator on Apr 15, 2016
  
  @MazdaThreeve The Abrams is, as I understand it, commonly fueled with jet fuel for logistics reasons. I'm assuming the idea is that they can be dropped into combat zones via jets, so wherever they're going there's going to be a jet fuel supply line? Anyways, part of the point of the engine is that it can burn all kinds of crap if need be: diesel, marine diesel, any grade of gasoline, kerosene, various jet fuel grades... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeywell_AGT1500
  
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Zipper69 on Apr 16, 2016

"there were three, but mechanical issues sidelined two of them" That seems to sum up the continued gap between Pentagon theories on "what we need to win the war" and what the guys at the sharp end are finding in reality. It seems scrambled egg on the cap tightens the pressure on the brain...

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