Corps to deploy M1A1 tanks to Afghanistan - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Corps to deploy M1A1 tanks to Afghanistan

The Marine Corps will soon deploy tanks against the Taliban, a first for U.S. forces in the nine-year war in Afghanistan.

A company of M1A1 tanks — about 15 vehicles — will deploy in mid-December and be employed in Helmand province by early spring, said Maj. Gabrielle Chapin, a Marine spokeswoman in Afghanistan. They will provide Marine forces with heavy 120mm cannon fire, but also advanced optics that can be used to observe Taliban fighters from more than four miles away as they plant improvised explosive devices.

“Tanks provide us with a deadly accurate weapon system that can be used very effectively against the enemy even as he tries to use the Afghan people as a shield,” said Maj. Gen. Richard Mills, commander of Marine forces in Afghanistan, in a Nov. 19 statement. “The superior optics provided by the tanks give us one more tool to take away the night from the enemy. He can’t use the darkness to lay his IEDs that cause so many casualties among our forces and the civilian population.”

Tanks are “hardly a weapon of desperation,” and will help Marine forces interdict the flow of drugs south out of Helmand province into Pakistan and the flow of fighter, supplies and weapons as they move north, Mills said.

Marine officials would not say which company will deploy, but Bravo Company, 2nd Tank Battalion, out of Camp Lejeune, N.C., went through Enhanced Mojave Viper pre-deployment training in the spring at Twentynine Palms, Calif., and hasn’t deployed. It was not clear whether they had been selected.

U.S. forces have not previously used tanks in Afghanistan, but the Corps asked for permission to use tanks last December and was denied, according to the Washington Post. Gen. David Petraeus, who took over as the top commander in Afghanistan this summer, approved a more recent Marine request for them in October.

Tanks have been used effectively in counterinsurgency environments before. The Corps integrated tanks into infantry patrols in Iraq, providing the ability to blow holes in compound walls and long-range surveillance to grunts on the ground.

The Post reported that the tanks will likely be used initially in northern Helmand, where Marines have seen intense fighting recently in Sangin and Kajaki. Marine officials would not comment on where they will go, but left open the possibility that they could be used throughout the province, especially in desert areas where Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles and MRAP all-terrain vehicles cannot go.

“While there are several key population areas along the Helmand river, the surrounding areas are vast, open and rugged deserts,” said Chapin, the Marine spokeswoman. “Insurgents forces have to use these areas as ratlines for moving fighters, weapons, money and drugs into and out of key population centers,” Chapin said. “The tracked capability of the tanks will allow for a swift mobile force that can close off escape routes, deter, disrupt or pursue insurgent forces in terrain that might otherwise be unmanageable by our wheeled MRAPs or M-ATVs.”

Each tank weighs about 68 tons, but travels up to 30 mph over rough terrain or 40mph on roads.