Comments on: For you military buffs…

By: FrankC

FrankC — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 21:39:38 +0000

The opinions are all over the board including, I never knew, I just painted them on like I was told.

The consensus is it is a coalition ID. That does not explain the ^, etc. Some said this was symbols for Alpha, Charlie, etc companies.

Kind of hilarious that there is no definitive answer. Fog of war and all that, I guess.

By: RobVG

RobVG — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 19:23:27 +0000

Got a point there. n/t

By: ER

ER — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 18:40:19 +0000

but I’d rather have a scared teenager with an itchy trigger finger make that final decision than a few hundred lines of code written a year earlier by some Silly Valley engineer.

By: RobVG

RobVG — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 17:49:16 +0000

http://www.scribd.com/doc/58684090/%E2%84%967502-M1A1-A2-Abrams

Page 14 of the doc, actual page 13. 2nd paragraph down on the right.

You’d think it would be possible with GPS and computer fire control, friendlies could be easily ID’d and guns locked out to prevent firing on them.

Edit: I think we talked about that before. You mentioned security issues if I remember correctly.

By: ER

ER — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 16:38:57 +0000

but there’s still the chevron marking in addition to that.

The best explanation so far seems to be that all Allied tanks carried it in Iraq, so American, French, UK, and Saudi armor would not fire at the unfamiliar silhouette of an ally’s tank, and that the practice was copied from the Israelis to help ID each other in poor lighting conditions.

Thanks.

By: RobVG

RobVG — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 16:27:58 +0000

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/477/m1a1rumalyah1991tm9.jpg/ n/t