Both armys of revolutionary war vs trained m1 abrams tank crew and tank

i was watching the patriot the other day and the part when the younger kid is looking out the window at both sides just walking toward each other standing in a straight line and just shooting at each other i started to think, i wonder what would happen if u could go back in time with like an abrams m1a1 tank. just say a tank and its crew and maybe an unrealistic amt of ammo vs the brits. what would they be able to do to stop the tank? it would be nuts the machine guns alone would prally take out the whole british army.

turbo99397 said:

what would they be able to do to stop the tank?

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1:22 in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LzFoECu--g&feature=related

turbo99397 said:

i wonder what would happen if u could go back in time with like an abrams m1a1 tank.

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What if Spartacus had a Piper Cub?

Without a HEMTT tanker full of Class III and a whole lot more just like it in a line behind him, the war would be over in about 6 hours. Except for the Abrams being a big static pillbox, of course, one that is terribly over-armored for the weapons of the day.

Not bagging on you too bad... I used to engage in the same sort of alt-history thought exercises. Because of the fuel and supply issue, I wanted to send back two deuce-and-a-halfs... one with an infantry squad, the other with Classes I, III, V, and VIII: "Beans, bullets, and band-aids", plus the fuel to tote them around. Everything else is field expedient or locally available.

When I was about 10-11, c. 1973-'74, I liked to think about how to explain things. One of my favorite fantasies at the time was having Benjamin Franklin, one of the most brilliant and knowledgeable men of his time, dropped into my lap via time travel. How many things that we take for granted today, things we use without thinking, things that were invented based on his discoveries, would we have to stop and think about before he saw them and fell dead of shock?

I mean, before you gave him a ride in your horseless carriage, you'd have to make sure the radio was turned off, lest he freak completely out. Mechanical locomotion is one thing; voices from invisible people is something else entirely!

Back to the OP: no, a couple of machineguns couldn't do the job. A half dozen well trained snipers? Maybe so.

To beat the tank and crew they could at least wait it out until it was out of fuel and ammunition. Then, if they can't breach it, they could build a fire all around and under it and either cook them or suffocate them to make them exit it. If not that, they could at the very least thirst and starve them into death or submission.

I too would love to have someone from the past like a Jefferson or Franklin show up and trust in me to keep their secret safe while I toured them around the present so they could see what the future of the world and their country is like now.

They did have cannons back then, and don't underestimate human ingenuity.

Personally, I think it'd be a lot more fun to transport a P51 and a huge amount of gasoline and .50 caliber ammo (and be able to fly the beast myself) back to the War of Northern Aggression. Wouldn't take but a couple of missions and y'all would now be paying your taxes to Richmond instead of Washington.

Be even more fun to take a fully loaded-for-bear USS Ronald Reagan to the waters just off Hawaii early enough to catch the Japanese before they launched their strike on December 7, 1941. I don't think you'd even have to fire a shot. A couple of supersonic passes by a F/A-18 Hornet would be quite sufficient, I believe.

An Abrams tank against George III's men?
They strode into battle in tight formation, fifes playing "British Grenadiers". An Abrams could fire HE Anti-personnel rounds from so far away they wouldn't know or believe the explosions were caused by the tank. And, let's not even mention, what havoc they could wreak in the dark of night.

A far more ruinous infliction on the Redcoats would be to send Obama back in time as their commander in chief. He'd be telling George Washington how sorry he was for British arrogance. And I am sure he would be just as loyal to England then as he is to us now. :dude:

What was the name of that movie? I think the final countdown about a modern carrier going back to pearl harbor. Think about how hard it would be to fly slow enough in a modern jet to not constantly overfly your target plane. Engaging -----Damn flew past them!!!!

Final Countdown! Great movie.

Don't the people in the tank have to exit at some point in time? Would think that would be an opportune time for an ambush.

Just jam up the tank's treads and wait the tank crew out.

I doubt that an M1 Abrams tank would do much to affect the outcome as there we very few roads that a tank could travel and across country the number of trees and swamps would cripple it from doing a lot of damage. There were roads but filled with mudholes and just wide enough for a wagon. By the time you figured out how to cross one swamp they would have figured out how to put you out of business completely. Now a squad outfitted with M16's, Kevlar jackets and ATV's could have done real damage if they could get the fuel and ammo.

There was story in a long forgotten magazine about a heavy weapons platoon that stepped through a hedgerow(time warp) and found themselves in the middle of the Civil War. Much the same thought, I believe.

Final Countdown, USS Nimitz at Pearl Harbor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Countdown_(film)