To start with, a quick tutorial on tank ammunition. The 120mm gun on the M1A1 fires two basic type of rounds (there are other specialty rounds for that gun but most tanks just carry the two types) a) the HEAT (High Explosive Anti-tank) round. It looks like a coffee can with a broomstick sticking out the front. The broomstick hits the surface of the enemy target and ignites a super hot shaped charge that acts like a cutting torch, melting a hole in the target and flaming anything that is inside. the SABOT (yes, French for "shoe"). A SABOT round has a super-hard fin-stabilized dart encased in a two-part plastic collar. The dart is only about an inch-and-a-half to two inches in diameter; the plastic collar ensures a snug fit in the tube of the gun. The dart leaves the end of the barrel, kicks off its shoes, and flies real fast (more than 5000 feet-per-second). It has an extremely hard tip and when it strikes its primary target, usually some kind of armored vehicle, the tip penetrates the metal skin of the vehicle, and as it pushes through, the friction causes the armor to melt and creates heat and lots of molten pellets that enter the target at awesome fast speed and...well...it ain't pretty in there when that happens. Another thing about tank ammunition : it is expensive. So to save wear and tear on the tubes and to save money, different ammo is used for training. Training ammo is slower, less corrosive, and less explosive, but mimics the flight characteristics of the real thing (called "Service Ammo" as opposed to "Training Ammo"). You got all that? Good. Now I have to tell you about the firing ranges at Grafenwoehr, Germany.

When I was a 'cruit, the qualifying range at Graf was Range 301. Tanks would move up to the firing line, targets would appear out to a couple thousand yards, and the tankers would engage them. Then they would move up to another firing position and engage another target. Sometimes the targets moved, sometimes they were just silouettes of enemy tanks or personnel carriers, and sometimes they were pop-up targets of troops on the ground ( I guess that would be "Boots on the Ground" nowadays). Sometime in the late seventies or early eighties, they remodeled the range and made it more of a realistic simulation of a battlefield, including lanes for more than one tank to manuever at a time, firing on the move, and supporting other combat vehicles. The lanes were not straight-line, either. The design was carefully laid out so that two or three or more armored vehicles could be on the range at the same time. But it was important that the vehicles moved together...that's where the story's going.

Now that you know about the ammunition and the range, I have to tell you a little about the crew of the tank and what they do. First of all is the tank commander; he sits in the top-most seat in the turret. In normal operations his seat is cranked up so he is half out of the hatch. He controls all the actions of the tank. The driver is in the front of the hull of the tank; he can drive looking out of his hatch or "buttoned up" looking through a periscope. The Tank Commander (TC) gives the driver directions on steering and speed and sometimes the driver just follows instructions without actually seeing where he is going. The gunner sits inside the turret directly in front of the TC. He controls the laser sighting system and the computer that runs it. He aims and shoot the main gun and the co-axially mounted 50 caliber machine gun. He sees the world through his sighting system; no hatch or other view ports. Finally there is the loader. He is in the turret beside the gunner. He is told what kind of ammo to load; he pulls it out of the rack in the back of the turret, slides it into the breech and slams it closed. The loader also mans a 50 caliber machinegun that is mounted on the top of the turret, when he is not loading.

On the range, the control tower tells the firing lane to watch their lanes and that starts the action. When a target appears the commander is usually the first to see it; he informs the gunner by saying "Target" then says what it is and where it is and what type of ammo he wants. The loader loads and says "up". The gunner finds the target, shoots the laser at the target. The return from the laser tells the computer the range and if it is moving or wind is blowing or whatever else it needs to figure a firing solution, then moves the tube to the correct position to allow for all the variables. Then the gunner pulls the trigger and tells the commander that he has fired by saying "on the way". All this takes just a very few seconds. An M1 tank can do this at 40 mph plus. Once the gunner lases the target and pulls the trigger, he can sight on a second target while the tube is still cycling. In a busy battlefield the gunner can be three targets ahead of the "boom".

In the night the crew has infared and night vision sights. Any one in the crew who spots the target can sound off to let the commander know where it is. The commander also has an override that lets him take control of the gun functions. It is very much a team effort with lots of back-up systems to ensure success on the battlefield. Okay, now you have a picture (albeit a twenty-year-old picture and some procedures may have changed, but basically that is the way it is done) of how things work inside a tank in action. Told you all that so I could tell you this:

An M1 was on-line with another tank and two Bradley fighting vehicles. The tower gave the word and everyone moved onto the range and searched for their targets. At some point the tank that was farthest to the right got delayed or the TC got confused, but in any case, the two Bradleys on his right did their programmed turn slightly to the left. At the same time the lagging tank's crew picked up movement to its right and called out "Target - Mover - on the right"...the TC picked up two movers and told the gunner "Sabot"...the gunner yelled "Up" as he rammed the round into the breech...the TC yelled "Fire" and the gunner did his magic (actually the computer's magic) and yelled "On the Way". At the last second the tower, which monitors all radio traffic during the rangefire, tried to stop everything because they realized the tank was out of position and his next target was a stationary pop up...a single. Too late. The single training SABOT round went through the first Bradley and into the second. Both Bradleys caught fire and burned to the ground. Not a funny story; I don't remember how many but there were fatalities.

So, where is the humor? Now that I have told you all of this, I have kinda lost the humor of the moment. But this is what happened:

Every unit in NATO had to study the uniforms, equipment, and tactics of the Soviet Army...a series of seminars and classes called, "Know Your Enemy". One of the methods was a series of flashcards with the silhouettes of Russian tanks and personnel carriers and planes and guns and other equipment. Every now and then they would include one of ours, just being tricky. When we identified the silhouette, we had to identify its strengths and weaknesses, what kind of ammunition it would take to destroy it, and how to engage it, etc. In a classroom in the attic of the HQ building at 2/68 Armor, the instructor popped out a card with the silhouette of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. It was immediately ID'ed, and when the instructor asked what it took to take one out, some wag in the back said, "One training SABOT".

Okay, I guess you had to be there, but we all cracked up until one of the bosses reminded everyone that soldiers had been killed in that incident. Still, it was kinda funny.

But now, here is a real poser. I have googled and Jeeves-ed this incident and found nothing about it. NOTHING. I remember that at the time there was a big controversy over the Bradleys burning down to the ground because they were new and supposed to be the cats' pajamas in the world of Armored vehicles. Maybe the info was scrubbed for classification? Maybe I dreamed it. No...other folks must have dreamed it too, then. It is frustrating to me that I don't seem to know which key words will unlock that info...any ideas?