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From: mvp@hsv3.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: MTBF for M1 tank
Message-ID: <1990Nov1.025149.12410@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 1 Nov 90 02:51:49 GMT
References: <1990Oct30.052800.7512@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: Video 7 + G2 = Headland Technology
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From: mvp@hsv3.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt)

In article <1990Oct30.052800.7512@cbnews.att.com> bks@alfa.berkeley.edu (Brad Sherman) writes:
>In the _San_Francisco_Chronicle of 10/28/90 in a page 1 story ...
>"'the M-1 tends to break down every 30 miles or so...' says Kosta
>Tsipis, director of MIT's Ptogram in Science and Technology for
>International Security. ' ..."

Kosta Tsipis has a long track record for ... um, "exaggerating".  
For instance, his Scientific American article "proving" that SDI was
forever impossible, based on the energy from the hydrogen-fluorine
reaction.  Besides the facts that high-energy lasers aren't the only
way to do an SDI and hydrogen-fluroine gas dynamic lasers aren't
necessarily the best lasers to use for that purpose, he "mis-stated"
the energy of the H-F reaction by a factor of 100.

>Can this figure be correct?  This means that at 45mph about half the 
>tanks would be inoperable after 40 minutes!

It doesn't seem at all likely to me, even before I consider the source.
Everything I've heard from people who actually drive M1s is pretty
favorable, which wouldn't be the case if Tsipis were right this time.
-- 
Mike Van Pelt                     "I'm not a biologist, but I play one in 
Headland Technology/Video 7        front of Congressional hearings."
...ames!vsi1!v7fs1!mvp                        -- Meryl Streep