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From: phipps@solitary.Stanford.EDU (Geoff Phipps)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Tank surface to air, anti missile capabilities
Message-ID: <1991May10.063940.26518@amd.com>
Date: 9 May 91 17:10:24 GMT
References: <1991May7.062305.12334@amd.com> <1991May9.064003.12643@amd.com>
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From: phipps@solitary.Stanford.EDU (Geoff Phipps)


>fcrary@lightning.Berkeley.EDU (Frank Crary) writes:
>No, modern tanks (at least not any US or Soviet ones) do NOT have
>any anti-air capability. While they can use their main gun and/or
>machine gun against a helocopter, this has NEVER been done in combat
>(e.g. against an armored attack helocopter). And how effective these
>weapons would be is doubtfull.

In the book "The Heights of Courage", Avigador Kahalani claims to have
shot down a Syrian helicopter with the main gun of a centurion tank.
Kahalani was an armoured battalion commander in the Yom Kippur War
(1973 Arab-Israeli).  I don't have the book in front of me, but I think
that quite a number of tanks took pot shots at the helicopter, and that
it was not an armoured attack helicopter.  It certainly was not
standard practise, and Avi was quite surprised.  It is an interesting
book.

--
Geoff Phipps	phipps@cs.stanford.edu