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Myopic Israeli Tank Crews


Hedgehog

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jesus.. thats what you get with a non-professional conscript army, not being able to tell the difference between an RPG and a TV camera.

and whats with wasting precious tax dollars firing a 120mm tank round?

the proper thing to have done in this situation would be to fire a warning burst of coax fire,

(to the left/right of the suspect, to avoid bullets rebounding onto the person. i suspect the previous incident in iraq where a US M1A1 abrams fired a burst of coax onto a cameraman might have been a warning burst that bounced off the ground, or maybe a bad lase)

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"Clearly Marked"? Sure, for rifle armed troops at check points, or close up, but the marking shown on the video were on the nearly flat bonnet, and the tank was some distance away at a similar level, and the 4WD vehicle looks to have been in partial defilade.

While a camera doesn't look much like an RPG, it does look a bit like the sight unit on a SA-7/14, and Israeli aircraft had recently been involved in airstrikes nearby and were overhead.

Unfortunate... yes.

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(to the left/right of the suspect, to avoid bullets rebounding onto the person. i suspect the previous incident in iraq where a US M1A1 abrams fired a burst of coax onto a cameraman might have been a warning burst that bounced off the ground, or maybe a bad lase)

You don´t refer to the shooting at the Palestine Hotel do you?

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You don´t refer to the shooting at the Palestine Hotel do you?

The Palestine hotel shot was misidentification of the target. There was no warning burst, they wanted the perceived threat to go away, and so it did.

Mog

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A close friend (who served in Iraq) told me, that the US troops in Iraq learnd that if a camera is around and its not with a bunch of US soldiers (e.g. press) its most likely that an IED will go off soon or that a sniper will try to kill a soldier. The insurgents always try t catch there acts on tape for propaganda reasons.

He told me, that this lead to the habit of shooting at those guys, which - according to him - decreased the number of attacks.

I guess the Isralis leard the same thing.

Which may explain how this happend.....

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http://www.reuters.com/news/video?vi...videoChannel=1

How the hell did this happen? :confused:

A 4x4 with TV and PRESS written all over it in LARGE RED LETTERS :eek2:

engaged by an Israeli Tank.

I think their selection process should start to include an eye exam

They're getting too F**King trigger happy these days

the investigation is not over, so I really can't say what happened, but -

only three days later the HAMAS organization pulled a sector wide attack, including 3 car bombs covered as fake IDF jeeps and 2 BRDM's.

the use of ambulances and TV crews as cover for terrorist activity is done at a daily basis.

as for that claim :"jesus.. thats what you get with a non-professional conscript army, not being able to tell the difference between an RPG and a TV camera."

I don't say that having a conscript army doesn't have his draw backs, but those 19 years old kids in that tank sees RPG carrying militants by the hour...

an SUV with three guys and a tripod can easily be a FAGOT/metis ATGM crew, especially when the sector is on alert and the SUV parks behind a hill.

I will update on the results of the investigation, once and if they will be posted.

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With 2 sec flight time, how far away would you say that tank was (Merkava?)? What are the optics in that tank in terms of magnification?

The sun is at the cameraman's back, so a reflection off the lense would not have likely been mistaken for muzzle flash. I would guess that merkava's optics wouldn't have problems with sun glare either.

What a mess it all is.

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jesus.. thats what you get with a non-professional conscript army, not being able to tell the difference between an RPG and a TV camera.

That "non professional" conscript army has more combat experience than any other army in the world, including the US.

If i remember correctly the time a conscript has to serve in the Israeli army is 5 years, (3 years for women, allthough please correct me if i'm wrong)

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That "non professional" conscript army has more combat experience than any other army in the world, including the US.

If i remember correctly the time a conscript has to serve in the Israeli army is 5 years, (3 years for women, allthough please correct me if i'm wrong)

that doesn't mean everyone in service has served 5 years. there's always going to be an influx of inexperienced personell.

and it doesnt matter that israel has fought since its conception(which it has)

a guy who has only spent 1 year in basic training is no less green, whether his country is filled with hardened veterans or not.

and i still think the coax would be a better weapon to use in this situation.

**update** seems like the round used by the tank was a flechette.

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A tragic mistake, but for the level of constant combat in an area it is bound to happen.

1. This is not the first time a cameraman got nailed because he was holding a large round-ish object on his shoulder in a combat zone on the opposite side of the FLOB.

2. The Palestinians in some form or another have recorded their terrorist acts since the 1970s - an attack does not count if it isn't recorded and distributed, so the above comment about keeping cameras away is correct.

3. There has been a low-to-moderate level of constant combat for many years now - triggers are loose on both sides. It may not be right but it is reality.

4. It appeared the truck was behind a berm or in a sunken road, so I bet the tank crew knew a truck was present but no details beyond that.

5. I noticed the flechette puff too - I take that to mean the tank crew felt themelves to be dealing with a ATGM team under partial cover (the berm may have allowed the tank crew to only see heads and shoulders).

Again, tragic, but there is a lot in that region that is tragic.

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I just popped in after quite a long while to find this...

well, let's start:

1. those "conscripts" in the tank proved to be quite effective in the past, both on the battlefield and in the practice ground, against "professional" soldiers. shouldn't underestimate the men due to the way they are enlisted, really.

2. usually in that surroundings, vehicles are not fired at.

3. the tank positioned itself to help infantry fighting nearby, so they knew hostiles are in the area. from what I could see in the pictures and the video, the truck was at least partially covered. the cameraman used a tripod to stabilize his camera, on a berm, with a truck hiding behind a berm. it took the round about 2sec to arrive. that means the tank was over 2km away from the camera (another reason to believe it was attached to a tripod). a guy standing on a berm 2km away with a big thingamajig (with a lense) on a tripod, looking straight at you, and there's a vehicle in the bushes behind the berm. what does that look like?

4. TV on the hood means almost nothing in Gaza. one of the latest attacks on the passes to the strip was held by jeeps marked as TV crews. It won't be the first time palestinian terrorists do that (when you kill two civilian tanker drivers, you are a terrorist, no doubt). They tend to try to smuggle personnel and weapons through in ambulances too (first-person evidence there). so don't expect that crew to think "they look like an ATGM crew, they act like an ATGM crew, but they carry a big TV sign on their vehicle, so I'll ignore them".

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that round was a flechette, whose effective range is under 1000m.

its still difficult to identify a target at that range, as being either hostile or not.

but if the tank was at 2km range as you say, they could have waited for a firing signature before returning fire,

as the missile would spend 6 seconds to reach its target, and the merkava should be impervous to the missile from the front anyways, and it could return to turret down position after firing, as they were in a fairly good battle position.

why didn't the crew trust the merkavas armour to protect them?

and whats the purpose of putting tons of armor on a tank if it doesnt save peoples lives?

as it is now, the media is causing a ruckus, the families of the dead teenagers are telling everyone how the israelis mercilessly killed their kids, the army must spend time apologizing to everyone, and it could all be avoided if the merkava had stronger daysight magnification. i wish bad guys could have red labels hanging over their heads like in most video games. not being able to tell friend from foe just serves to further destabilize things. and i think that tank was sent in there to stabilize things.

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Not cannister, but a beehive type weapon: there was a 'bursting' charge at the target range.

I see no reason that it wouldn't be 'just as' effective at 5km as at 500m.

Cannister fires a large number of submunitions, dispersing them from the muzzle, with a corresponding short range. Beehive/Flechette/Ahead etc disperse their payload at a predicted range just short of the target.

The protestors claim he was 'filming a panorama' approximately 1.5km away 'which had recently been the scene of fighting'... it would be conceivable that the Israeli tank was therefore between 1.5 and 2km away? no?

Do the israeli's have a 120mm Flechette round? I know they have one for the L7, but if this round is fired only from older less protected vehicles, then this is another reason for firing first IMO.

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that round was a flechette, whose effective range is under 1000m.

its still difficult to identify a target at that range, as being either hostile or not.

don't take it the wrong way, but have you ever been fired upon?

but if the tank was at 2km range as you say, they could have waited for a firing signature before returning fire, as the missile would spend 6 seconds to reach its target, and the merkava should be impervous to the missile from the front anyways, and it could return to turret down position after firing, as they were in a fairly good battle position.

why didn't the crew trust the merkavas armour to protect them?

because they are tankers. the worst thing one can do is trust the armor to stop a missile.

wearing a bullet-prooof vest is no reason to get shot.

anyway, being hit by an ATGM is not a particularly nice experience, even if the copper liner doesn't pass through your flesh. your ears ring, you lose balance, and you lose orientation. you won't let that happen just to make sure you are fired upon.

also, one of the problems for the israeli armor in Lebanon two years back was that too many tankers felt too complacent with their armor, being used to small-arms and RPG fire, and they let themselves take bad positions for too long. you should NEVER trust your armor so much as to take an intentional hit.

and whats the purpose of putting tons of armor on a tank if it doesnt save peoples lives?

it does, when you're fired by someone you don't know about. it helps to keep you fighting when the battle gets intense (as in SB), and it lets you be more aggressive, since you are protected to some point.

as it is now, the media is causing a ruckus, the families of the dead teenagers are telling everyone how the israelis mercilessly killed their kids, the army must spend time apologizing to everyone,

when you percieve a threat to your life, and this time I can't blame them to think so, you couldn't care less for media cryouts. you do whatever you can to remove this threat.

Palestinians have a tendency to tell how israelis mercilessly killed their kids. sometimes, it's true. too many times it is not.

and it could all be avoided if the merkava had stronger daysight magnification.

maybe then the gunner could see the reporter certificate the cameraman was wearing.

i wish bad guys could have red labels hanging over their heads like in most video games. not being able to tell friend from foe just serves to further destabilize things.

I think something about wearing distinctive clothes is mentioned in international law, but I might be wrong.

and i think that tank was sent in there to stabilize things.

military action in Gaza and its surrounding is not policing. it's war. israeli troops don't control Gaza, Hamas does. the IDF fights an organization that systematically and perpetually attacks israeli territory and its citizens.

a tank is never good for police work. it never makes anyone cool down. it was there to kill palestinian fighters engaged in battle with infantry, not to parade around and cool things down.

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The protestors claim he was 'filming a panorama' approximately 1.5km away 'which had recently been the scene of fighting'... it would be conceivable that the Israeli tank was therefore between 1.5 and 2km away? no?

and thats where option 2 enter the picture: wait for a firing signature. read my previous post for more arguments on this issue. i guess that explains why they didn't fire the coax. although they could've used the 12.7mm on top of the barrel.

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