Whee! a technical debate on advanced weapon systems
Fist of all, crew skill is hands down the most decisive factor in terms of weapon system effectiveness. I am in the US Army and I have also trained extensively with Brits (my instructors at the ILRRPS Sharpshooter's Course were SAS in fact), so perhaps I have a unique perspective on this end. I can say that I have the utmost respect for the quality of the British Army in general-very proffessional bunch! On the other side of the argument, I believe our tankers do have a signifigant edge in terms of combat experience. The more you fight, the better you get (or you die).
On a side note though, as a Sniper, I have not had the "pleasure" of being shot at directly by the enemy (I'm much too sneaky for them to ever nail my position down
). The only time I have ever been directly fired upon was when a M3A2 CFV I was in was engaged by the M240C coax of a friendly M1A2! It was during live fire training at Ft. Carson CO.-not combat, and apparantly a brand new crew was a little jumpy on the trigger, and thought we were a "truck" target on the range. I guess we were lucky the they didn't think we were a main gun target. So I guess I'm not really 100% happy with our new tank crew's skill level after all.
About the Armor...While the exact composition of the armor is classified, enough data exists to make a pretty good guess. It is "rumored" to be a composite sandwich of a specially hardened steel, depleted uranium, ceramic (very brittle but nearly as hard as diamond), and an alluminium honeycomb filled with an ablative (fire retardent) gel to counter HEAT weapons. An interesting tid-bit: M1 series armour repair specialists must have a security clearance, and when an M1 in our unit was damaged, exposing the internal structure of the armour, a tent was erected around it, and the repair specialists were wearing Haz-Mat suits and protective HEPA style masks (presumably to protect against particulate DU).
The frontal armor of the M1 series is virtually impervious as a friendly fire incident during the first gulf war illustrates: An M1 was hit by a friendly APFSDS DU "silver bullet", and the round still failed to penetrate fully (although the crew was understandably shaken up). To put this in perspective, that round is capable of penetrating several meters of soil comprising a hull down tank firing position, and then emerge with enough energy to fully penetrate the soviet main battle tank hiding in it
true sh*t.
While I doubt this will settle the debate, I hope this was interesting.
-Grendel