I spent 18 months in the OPFOR at JRTC and my experience is that tanks tend to be very poor at fighting infantry, particularly infantry that isn't intent on staying still and providing an easy target. I have never been armor but it seems to me they get tunnel vision. A trick that I saw used effectively was to have a few OPFOR fire a few shot at the tank to get his attention and then run behind some cover. The tank would then follow and chase the dismounted OPFOR, right across the front of a T-62. Head to head an M1 is going to crush a T-62 every time but if the M1 is busy chasing infantry and not paying attention it tends to even the odds. The Israelis learned some hard lessons about infantry vs. tanks in the Yom Kippur war when they didn't have supporting infantry for their tanks initially. Back then the Egyptians were using the old Saggers which weren't terribly accurate to say the least. My mother has friend who was a tanker in the IDF back then and after one battle they counted something like 15 Sagger guide wires draped across his tank. Fast forward to this conflict with better IDF armor but also better enemy anti-armor and you can see the result. If the MSM reports from the battle are to be believed then at least some of the IDF infantry were poorly equipped, poorly trained etc. In those circumstances there might be a tendency to want to follow the heavily armored tanks rather than the other way around. At the same time an improperly trained tank crew might go into the fight buttoned up which would feel safer but which is much more dangerous because of the loss of SA. I will very interested to see the AARs form this fight. You know AQ et all will be too.

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