This chapter--
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During Operation Desert Storm, DU armor on M1A1 Abrams tanks was not compromised by hostile fire. Iraqi rounds hit, but did not penetrate, the steel that covers the DU armor. The Army did, however, clearly demonstrate during Operation Desert Storm that DU kinetic energy rounds are more accurate and have a greater range than High Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT) rounds (AAC, 1991). By using these DU weapon systems, the Army gave its soldiers better protection from enemy action and greater confidence in their ability to engage in and survive combat.
DU-penetrators have a ìsharpening effectî upon impact that allows greater penetration through armor (Hartline, 1993; Danesi, 1990). Weapon testing shows that when a DU round penetrates an armored vehicle, it may pass completely through the vehicle (Figure 4-1) or ricochet around and fragment inside the vehicle. During Operation Desert Storm, an armor commander of the 1st Infantry Division said crews hit armored target vehicles at ranges in excess of 3,000 meters (1.8 miles). Tank commanders often fired more than one DU round at targets that were hit but did not explode. The commanders indicated that it was difficult to clearly determine that they had hit such distant targets (ACC, 1991).
Figure 4-1.Ý DU Entry Holes in Bustle
Figure 4-2.Ý Fire and Detonation Damage
When a kinetic energy round penetrates a vehicle, it contaminates the vehicle interior with dust and fragments. Metal fragments from the penetrator and the vehicleís hull can scatter inside the vehicle, killing and injuring personnel, destroying equipment, and causing secondary explosions and fires (Figure 4-2). As much as 70 percent of a DU penetrator can be aerosolized when it strikes a tank (Fliszar et al., 1989). Aerosols containing DU oxides may contaminate the area downwind. DU fragments may also contaminate the soil around the struck vehicle (Fliszar et al., 1989).
During Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, 29 U.S. vehicles were contaminated with DU on the battlefield, 21 of these were unfortunate friendly fire incidents involving DU munitions. DU rounds penetrated six crewed Abrams tanks. One Abrams tank crew member was killed, seven were wounded and the rest were unharmed (DoD, 1992; OASD, 1991). DU penetrators also hit 15 Bradley Fighting Vehicles. Twelve Bradley crew members were killed, 43 were wounded and the others were unharmed. In addition to friendly fire, the Army used multiple DU rounds to destroy three unoccupied Abrams tanks to prevent enemy capture. Five other Abrams tanks were contaminated during on-board fires involving their own DU rounds.
The Army and the Marine Corps used more than 14,000 large caliber DU rounds during Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm (Hull, 1993). During Operation Desert Shield, tank crews fired many DU rounds for practice to verify the correction factor for their tanksí fire control computers. Most of these rounds were fired into large sand berms that backed the target arrays at practice ranges in Saudi Arabia (DoD, 1992). If one assumes that each of the more than 1,800 tanks involved fired an average of four practice rounds, then more than half the DU rounds expended during Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm were concentrated on practice ranges in Saudi Arabia.
The Army and Marine Corps tanks fired approximately 4,000 DU rounds in combat.[1] Most were fired in the desert, many miles from the nearest village, on battlefields several hundred square miles in size. Although these DU penetrators may be clustered where U.S. tanks fired on Iraqi targets, most are probably impossible to locate.
Army recovery crews found some DU penetrators on the ground, picked them up and turned them in for disposal. For example, one U.S. tank was hit by three DU penetrators and set ablaze. Its DU ammunition ìcooked off,î expelling penetrator sub-assemblies around the burned out hull. Recovery crews collected these sub-assemblies and turned them in, even though there was no policy to do so. The DCF at Snelling, S.C. reported that it received 503 DU penetrators after Operation Desert Storm.
Most DU penetrators fired in combat will be in one of three places:
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After the Army has fought a battle and the combat forces have moved on, medical, graves registration, and equipment recovery personnel remove the wounded and dead and recover U.S. equipment. Damaged U.S. equipment is repaired on site, stripped and/or removed to rear maintenance collection points. Equipment recovery personnel usually leave enemy equipment in place. Equipment contaminated with DU oxides can become a source of contamination when the oxides are resuspended, blown, washed, or otherwise dislodged during transit.
Units are responsible for recovering or arranging for recovery of their vehicles from the battlefield to battalion, brigade, or division maintenance collection points. Additional units remove vehicles from division collection maintenance points to support command maintenance collection points for further repair or disposition. Thirteen Abrams and 15 Bradleys, contaminated with DU during Operation Desert Storm, were returned to the 144th Service and Supply Company, Army National Guard (ARNG) at King Khalid Military City, Saudi Arabia. One additional DU-contaminated tank, damaged by a fire in December 1990, was sent directly to DCF in January 1991.
The 144th Service and Supply Company was responsible for establishing a central receiving and storage point for all damaged and destroyed combat vehicles (Figure 4-3). It assessed battle damage to vehicles and prepared them for shipment back to the U.S. Before the 144th went to the Persian Gulf, most of its experience with combat vehicles involved M109 and M110 self-propelled howitzers, not Abrams tanks or Bradley Fighting Vehicles.
Furthermore, the 144th personnel were not familiar with current procedures for handling DU tank armor and ammunition to minimize contamination. Two Army publications could have provided guidance to the unit on appropriate procedures: TB 9-1300-278, Guidelines for Safe Response to Handling, Storage and Transportation Accidents Involving Army Tank Munitions or Armor Which Contain Depleted Uranium and TM 9-2350-264-10-2, Operator's Manual: Unusual Conditions, Trouble Shooting and Maintenance, Tank, Combat, Full-Tracked: 120 mm Gun, M1A1 (2350-01-087-1095) General Abrams. The 144th did not have TB 9-1300-278 because its original mission did not involve tanks. It did not have TM 9-2350-264-10-2 because of a distribution delay.
The 144th placed DU-contaminated vehicles in a recovery yard without controlled access. Several vehicles were covered with tarps, camouflage nets or shelter halves (AMCCOM, undated b). Company personnel told the General Accounting Office (GAO) that 20 to 25 soldiers from the company worked on Bradleys and Abrams vehicles without knowing the vehicles had DU contamination or potential radiation hazards. The soldiers said they did not wear protective gear until approximately 3 weeks after they had begun work, when the AMCCOM radiological team arrived and advised them of radiological hazards (GAO, 1993).
The AMCCOM Radiological Waste Disposal Division handles low-level radioactive waste for DoD. In March 1991, the AMCCOM radiological team went to Saudi Arabia to oversee collection and preparation of DU-contaminated vehicles for shipment back to the U.S. Upon arrival, the team found that the contaminated vehicles were scattered throughout the maintenance collection point and that no measures had been established to limit personnel exposure. The team separated the contaminated vehicles, established a security perimeter to limit access, and instructed 144th personnel who staffed the maintenance collection point in precautions for handling DU (AMCCOM, undated b). Access to the DU-contaminated vehicles was limited to specific members of the 144th, the AMCCOM radiological team, the battle damage assessment team, selected explosive ordnance disposal team members and the PM survivability team.
Figure 4-3.Ý 144th Service and Supply Companyís Central Receiving and Storage Point
The AMCCOM radiological team concluded that the vehicle contamination was low enough that it required relatively few anti-contamination procedures. Personnel allowed access to the contaminated vehicles had to wear dust masks and thin surgical gloves, had to wash their hands and faces before eating, and had to wash their clothes at the end of the day. Personnel who entered or worked on the contaminated vehicles were cleared before they left the secured DU compound. Clearance consisted of a radiological survey of the entire body with portable radiation detectors, followed by decontamination, if required (AMCCOM, undated b).
4.3Ý Battlefield Cleanup
After Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, Kuwait divided the country into seven sectors for battlefield cleanup. It awarded contracts to private organizations from the U.S., France, United Kingdom, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt. Historically, the host country is responsible for managing the consequences of a battle.
Ultimate disposition of enemy equipment captured during Operation Desert Storm varied. Immediately after combat, DoD, DA and the intelligence community removed captured equipment of interest (Figure 4-4). Some units selected captured equipment to return to the U.S. as unit history items. Most captured items were either turned in to designated collection points or left on the battlefield for subsequent disposition. The AMCCOM radiological team conducted radiological surveys and chemical hazard assessments to help DA and U.S. Customs identify hazardous materials on or in equipment that Army units selected as historical items.
Three DU-contaminated Iraqi vehicles were rejected for shipment to the U.S. in this screening. The screening also considered the possibility that vehicles may have contained hazardous materials such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and asbestos. In addition, it showed that instrument dials on some Iraqi equipment manufactured by Warsaw Pact nations were painted with radium and promethium (147Pm). According to the U.S. Army Foreign Science and Technology Center (FSTC), some sighting systems, such as those on the ZSU 23-4 anti-aircraft gun, contained tritium or radium to provide illumination, and some chemical detection instruments contained small amounts of plutonium. According to FSTC, captured equipment now stored at equipment collection points in Kuwait probably contains these and other hazardous materials (FSTC, 1993). It does not appear that Kuwait has addressed the long-term management of hazardous and radioactive materials in captured vehicles.
Figure 4-4.Ý Iraqi Armored Car
Unless they received a special request, installation radiation protection officers (RPOs) would not necessarily survey equipment brought back as historical items for DU or other contamination. USACHPPM would not necessarily survey these items unless it received a special request or unless an inspection was performed as an adjunct to its triennial inspection of licensed materials (Edge, 1994). Foreign equipment released through FSTC, on the other hand, is routinely subjected to a formal hazardous substance survey. Hazardous items identified during this process are either removed, documented, and/or controlled under the general NRC license held by the U.S. Army Intelligence Agency (Cardenuto, 1993c). Therefore, historical items in unit and installation museums that were not obtained through FSTC may contain hazardous materials (Jensen, 1994).
During Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, the Army did not have an effective strategy for removing DU from ground combat vehicles so it could quickly repair or scrap them. Before Operation Desert Shield, only three tank fires had occurred involving DU ammunition since the Army first fielded it in 1980. In 1983, an M60A1 tank was damaged by fire and contaminated by its DU ammunition. The tank was decontaminated and, because of extensive fire damage, was then sold as scrap in the U.S. In 1988, two fire-damaged M60A3 tanks were shipped from Europe to the U.S., where they were buried intact at the low-level radioactive waste site in Snelling, S.C. (GAO, 1993).
The AMCCOM radiological team developed an ad hoc protocol to manage DU-contaminated vehicles after Operation Desert Storm.[2] The prewar strategy of burying war-damaged vehicles intact at a U.S. disposal site was inappropriate because of the number of contaminated vehicles (GAO, 1993). Radioactive waste disposal is expensive and many lightly damaged vehicles can be repaired once DU-contaminated portions are removed. Consequently, AMCCOM adopted the following strategy for dealing with DU-contaminated vehicles from the war:
Figure 4-5.Ý Destroyed Bradley Fighting Vehicle
Figure 4-6.Ý Packaging of MI Abrams for Shipping Back to DCF
Decontamination of these 23 vehicles was delayed, because DCF was not large enough to handle both the Desert Storm DU-contaminated vehicles and its regular workload of low-level radioactive waste. A new facility was built to decontaminate the heavy tanks and fighting vehicles. In June 1992, the Army completed construction of a new $4 million building at DCF to accommodate the larger, heavier vehicles. After the building was approved by a Safety Review Board audit mandated by South Carolina, Chem-Nuclear Systems began work there in October 1992.
As of October 1, 1993, DCF had decontaminated eight of the nine Bradleys and four of the 14 Abrams tanks. Of the four decontaminated tanks, two were sent and a third will be sent to Anniston Army Depot, Ala., for repair before being returned to service. The fourth tank had been involved in an accidental fire. DCF buried the contaminated interior and cut up and sold the tank body as scrap, minus reparable and classified components. DCF sent the eight decontaminated Bradleys to the Red River Army Depot in Texas for reuse. Once the remaining Bradley has been decontaminated, it also will go to Red River.
4.4 Summary
The use of DU appears to have given soldiers in Operation Desert Storm more effective weapons, better protection from enemy action, and greater confidence. However, 21 unfortunate friendly fire incidents involving DU munitions killed a total of 13 soldiers and wounded 50.
Of the approximately 4,000 DU rounds the Army and the Marine Corps fired in combat, most remain in isolated areas of the desert.
Twenty-nine U.S. combat vehicles were contaminated with DU. Equipment contaminated with DU oxides and particles can contaminate people and other equipment when particulates are resuspended, blown, washed or dislodged. Twenty to 25 members of the 144th Service and Supply Company, Army National Guard, worked without protective gear on contaminated, damaged vehicles for three weeks, until the AMCCOM radiological team arrived and advised them of radiological hazards.
The Army buried six destroyed vehicles in Saudi Arabia. It shipped the remaining 23 vehicles, after mitigating the potential for dispersal of DU contamination, to DCF for decontamination, salvage, or repair.
The AMCCOM radiological team and the U.S. Army FSTC screened many items
returned to the U.S. as historical items in unit and installation museums.
Items not obtained through FSTC may contain hazardous materials.
[1] A large number of DU rounds used in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm were destroyed during a fire at an ammunition depot.
[2] The AMCCOM Safety Office forwarded a draft
of the Retrograde Plan for Damaged Radioactive Materials or Materials Contaminated
with Radioactive Materials to AMC on April 16, 1993. This plan is written
for the combat commander and addresses all levels that may be involved
with DU-contaminated equipment or personnel.