I heard the call around the end of the afternoon. "Charlie Three Three is burning!" the excited voice was yelling on the radio. Almost at once we got a call to go to a grid coordinate and assist the "operation" there. The LT and I dashed to our jeep and, grabbing LT Marcus on the way, stormed out to the spot. It wasn't far from the assembly area we were set up in. It took less than 10 minutes from receiving the call to arriving at the road block. The road was blocked because on the next terrain feature over (that is an Army way of saying "on the next hill"), an M60A3 tank was furiously aflame. The LTs both jumped out and reported to the barracade while I parked in the trees and walked back over to them. During the time I was away from the two LTs, at least three of the tanks main gun rounds went off inside the turret. Two of them punched holes in the turret and took off for parts unknown. A captain from Brigade was plotting the "lost" rounds as they cooked off...each one would have to be found.
The scene was remarkable calm, at least where we were, every road was blocked at least a mile from the tank. I am not sure when the fire actually started, but we watched and tried to help plot the strays for at least 12 hours. It was near noon the next day before the tank had cooled enough for any one to go near it. Then a crew dressed out in the hazmat suits, along with the German Hazmat fire crews approached the tank and began to try to recover it.
Why hazmat? Good question. We were on an exercise called REFORGER, a big one this year, some years not so big, and we were "fighting" units from the other Corps and some Stateside units that had come over just for this exercise. Since we were just pretending war, we had been called back to the assembly area to regroup after a long night of mixing it up with the other guys and getting all scrambled. Our Battalion Commander, Julian Burns, a tankin' genius, took his battalion of M60 tanks against a larger force of the new M1 tanks...and Julie spanked 'em. Had 'em running all over northern Bavaria looking for a place to hide. The tanks were carrying their basic load of "service Ammo"...that means the real thing...about 40 some rounds of 105 mm HEAT and SABOT rounds. Those are different types of tank bullets. They are designed to go through tank armor from the outside so they had no trouble going through it from the other direction. Service ammo , the SABOT, is hardened with depleted uranium...hard stuff...and the propellent, when compressed in cannon breech burns out totally, but when it burns in the atmosphere, or not in a cannon breech, it has some hazardous components...that's the long way around telling your why the hazmat. But that was the main reason each and every round had to be accounted for.
How does a main battle tank catch fire while road marching to it's assembly area? Road March just means it is in a convoy of tanks driving on the road instead of riding on a lowboy trailer. Just after getting on the Autobahn, the tank commander of C33, a sergeant, radioed his commander that he had white smoke coming out of his engine compartment. The Commander, thrilled by the opportunity to road march his whole company, something that doesn't happen very often, and knowing a broken tank would reflect poorly on his "readiness profile", told the sergeant to keep an eye on it. They exited the autobahn and got onto a secondary road when C33 called in that the smoke was now getting darker and thicker. The Commander, so close to the assembly area, said, on the command net...heard by hundreds..."Sergeant, run it til it blows". Just after turning onto the last road before the assembly area, flames burst through the crew compartment, fed by the super heated diesel and fresh air from the open hatches of the crew compartment., blossomed into a huge fireball. The sergeant and his gunner and loader bailed out immediately...only minor burns on exposed skin...the driver continued to go forward to get away from the intersection, then he bailed out of the driver's hatch. Charlile three three sat in place and the fire ate it alive.
All the rubber, plastic, and aluminum parts on the tank were melted, along with some of the thinner steel parts. The engine was fused, there wasn't much worth salvage on the whole tank. The asphalt under the tank melted and burned a crater just a little bigger than the tank. It was a weird sight, sorta droopy version...kind of a cartoon tank. A lot of the small arms ammunition in the turret cooked off, too, but without a barrel to maximize the power of it, they just bounced around inside the tank. I don't remember the exact numbers...old timers disease...but I think the Abrams carries 40 rounds and the M60 was more than that...45 0r 50 maybe. At least half of the ammo in C33 left the tank and believe it or not, all but about two or three were found and recovered. The sergeant was recommended for a soldiers medal for getting his crew out safely, I never heard if he got it or not. The commander found his career as a tanker curtailed and I seem to recall he was offered a position in a supply unit or something like that. And you, good tax payers of the good old USA, you bought and paid for a several hundred yard long stretch of secondary road...and numerous windows, buildings, cars, and chickens that were struck by flying tank stuff. And I got to watch one heck of a fireworks display.