I am seeking information on US armed forces armoured fighting vehicles
in the 2003 Iraq conflict.  Specifically I am looking for information
on the M1 Abrams tank (all variants)and Bradley Armoured Fighting
Vehicle (all variants).
I would like the following:
1.  As many photos as possible of the vehicles before, during and
after the fighting
2.  Which units were using these vehicles in Iraq in 2003 and where
3.  Vehicle colour schemes and unit markings

I am building plastic model kits of both vehicles and I want to be as
accurate as I can in my depiction of them.

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Request for Question Clarification by techtor-ga on 23 Apr 2003 07:52 PDT

Hello Oshanda, 
Its a pleasure to help a fellow a plastic modeler, though I do ships
mainly. I've been looking around, though I feel that most photos of
these vehicles actually used in Iraqi Freedom would really turn up
more than a month or so after now. Aftermarket decals for the
different units would be specifically made a while after it too. What
I've found so far were order of battle lists for the US forces in
Iraq, though I've yet to see which of these units specifically use the
M1 and M2.

Greetings, Oshanda. I collected a lot of links from the Internet in an
attempt to satisfy your needs. Aside from Operation Iraqi Freedom
pics, I collected as many pics of the M1 and M2/M3 as possible.

US Forces in Iraq lists:
Iraq - US Forces Order of Battle - 23 April 2003
http://globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_orbat.htm

Army Order of Battle from the Agonist website
http://www.agonist.org/annex/usorder

Eye on Iraq - U.S. Forces in the Middle East
http://www.cdi.org/iraq/forces-centcom-feb03.cfm


Technological Profiles:
Gulf War Debriefing Book - M1 Abrams profile
http://www.leyden.com/gulfwar/m1.html

Gulf War Debriefing Book - M2 Bradley profile
http://www.leyden.com/gulfwar/bradley.html

Military Analysis Network on the M1 Abrams and variants (with
pictures)
http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m1.htm

Military Analysis Network on the M2/M3 Bradley and variants (with
pictures)
http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m2.htm


News items: (Nothing yet I could find yet that mentions smaller units,
like a platoon)
War in Iraq -- 3rd Infantry Division armored unit prevails in 30-hour
firefight
http://www.militarycity.com/iraq/1707971.html

Bradley Exploding Coffin (something of interest)
http://www.g2mil.com/Bradley.htm

The Miami Herald | 03/18/2003 | U.S. forces buzzing with preparations
for conflict - still mentions the 3rd Infantry Division
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/special_packages/iraq/archive/5420638.htm


Photos:
M1 from the 3rd Infantry Division (currently in Iraq)
http://efreedomnews.com/images/amzn/3rdID2.jpg

Efreedom News Photo gallery on the Iraq campaign
http://efreedomnews.com/USArmedForcesPhotoGallery-Iraq.htm

An M2 Bradley rolls by the wire in Iraq
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Apr2003/030403-D-6570C-010.jpg

M2 test drive after maintenance
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Apr2003/030403-D-6570C-009.jpg

M1 Abrams Pictures
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/m1-pics.htm

M1A1 Abrams Pictures
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/m1a1-pics.htm

M1A2 Abrams Pictures
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/m1a2-pics.htm

Grizzly (Breacher) - M1 derivative
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/grizzly.htm

M1 Mine Clearing Blade System - with pictures
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/m1mcbs-pics.htm

United States Marine Corps website Photo Archive search, term = Abrams
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/image1.nsf/searchview1?SearchView&Query=abrams&SearchOrder=&SearchMax=&SearchWV=TRUE&SearchThesaurus=FALSE
- This also mentions some unit names, like the 15th Marine
Expeditionary Unit, and Charlie Company of 1st Tank battalion.

Image of a Gulf War tank
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/360000/ images/_362484_tank.jpg


Google Image searches:
(While these searches do not necessarily show only M1s and M2s in
Iraq, they nevertheless show some color schemes meant for Iraq. There
are some current photos though in these searches.)
m-1 Abrams
http://images.google.com/images?q=m-1+abrams&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en

m-1 iraq
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=m-1+iraq

abrams iraq
http://images.google.com/images?q=abrams+iraq&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

m-2 bradley
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=m-2+bradley

bradley iraq (click on ‘repeat search with omitted results…’)
http://images.google.com/images?q=bradley+Iraq&svnum=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=0

Gulf War tank
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=gulf+war+tank


Modeling Links:
Tamiya 1/35 M1A1 Abrams review 
http://m2reviews.cnsi.net/reviews/misc/robertom1a1.htm

M1A1 Abrams Details part 1 - from IPMS London
http://ipmslondon.tripod.com/armourreferencearticles/id20.html

AMPS - The Armor Modeling and Preservation Society
http://www.amps-armor.org/default.asp

IPMS/USA Armor Links
http://www.ipmsusa.org/Links/Rpt_SIGS_Armor.htm

Pardon the large number of links, I got as many as I can in the hope
that the lot of these will be helpful to you.

Have you been reading Fine Scale Modeler and other modeling magazines?
Perhaps you would like to pick up an issue after Operation Iraq
Freedom is done. They might do a special photo feature on it. As of
today, there are no illustrations on the Internet of specific vehicle
markings for either the M1 or M2 in Operation Iraq Freedom. I hope the
photos I found are of some help.

I have the Dragon 1/35 M1A1 (HA) for the US Marines, but it is
unbuilt. I just assume that this particular tank may have been used
for Iraq Freedom. If you have the Tamiya M1A1, that might be
appropriate too. I just saw that in the store this evening and the box
art shows the desert scheme. I also stand corrected from the comment
below… there are a few tanks sporting green camouflage paint being
used in Iraq now.

May I also suggest you visit news websites frequently, since they may
one day or another have a pic of an M1 or M2 posted up there.

Google Search terms:
us army deployed units iraq
us army order of battle iraq
us army "order of battle" m1 iraq
operation iraqi freedom action photo
m-1 photo iraq freedom
m-2 bradley iraq
m1 abrams 1/35
m2 bradley 1/35

I also employed http://images.google.com, which is a powerful online
photo search tool.

I hope all these links provide you what you need to complete your
armor modeling resources. If you have a problem with my answer, feel
free to post a request for clarification. Thank you.

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Request for Answer Clarification by oshanda-ga on 23 Apr 2003 17:43 PDT

Techtor,

Pretty good effort.  You've added quite a bit to my research.  I have
got quite a few photos from newspapers etc but I wanted to round out
my portfolio.  I also didn't want to wait until someone else had
"done" a model or created aftermarket decals, that is part of the
challenge with a topic like this.

There were definitely M1's in green/European camoflages schemes rather
than desert camoflage schemes - I had presumed these were Marine
vehicles or maybe from a unit that had come in from Germany.  Could
you see if you can find anything on that?

The only other comment is that one the links you gave me did not work.
 I got a message that I was not authorised to view the link.  It was
the following link:

Image of a Gulf War tank 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/360000/ images/_362484_tank.jpg 

Overall a good first experience for me in using the Answers service.

Cheers,

Darren

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Clarification of Answer by techtor-ga on 23 Apr 2003 22:19 PDT

Thanks for your request for clarification. Yes, I stand corrected,
there were green Marine tanks in my search results in the Marines
official page search. Some of the pictures shows M1s in green
camouflage. Here is the link again:

United States Marine Corps website Photo Archive search, term = Abrams
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/image1.nsf/searchview1?SearchView&Query=abrams&SearchOrder=&SearchMax=&SearchWV=TRUE&SearchThesaurus=FALSE

Here are more direct links to the pics' pages, though they are not
very detailed.

M1 of Charlie Company, 1st Tank Battalion
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/image1.nsf/Lookup/20034984050

M1s being offloaded from a Ship
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/image1.nsf/Lookup/2003117111447

Marine M1 in woodland camouflage
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/image1.nsf/Lookup/200311363938

You are right that there were units shipped in from Germany, though I
have not found photos of these yet. In case these current finds are
dissatisfactory, I will look for more.

Thanks for informing me of the non-functional link. There was a space
after a slash. Thank you to Feilong for pointing it out to me.
Gulf War tank pic
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/360000/images/_362484_tank.jpg

Hope this helps for the moment.

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Request for Answer Clarification by oshanda-ga on 24 Apr 2003 05:27 PDT

Techtor,

The photos from the Marines site were some of the best that you found.
 Thanks.

If you could see if you could find anything about the units shipping
in from Germany I'd appreciate it.  I'll consider the request closed
then.

Cheers,

Darren

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Clarification of Answer by techtor-ga on 24 Apr 2003 08:37 PDT

Thank you very much for the tip! I hope you enjoy modeling the M1 and M2.

Very happy with the turn around time and the extra effort after my
clarification question.

We don't normally tip in Australia but I figured it was worth an extra
10%

By the way, just as a quick comment, I would safely assume that all of
these vehicles would use the desert scheme colors. It's highly
unlikely that woodland or tropical camouflage schemes would be used.
Hope that helps.

Hi Oshanda,

The reason that link did not function is because it has a space
between 360000 and images. Click on this instead so that you can view
the image:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/360000/images/_362484_tank.jpg

Regards,
Feilong

Hello again Oshanda,
I decided to post this in the Comments section since this is merely a
follow-up to a more or less finalized answer. This is all the info I
can find on Germany-based US and UK units being deployed to the Gulf
region.

CNN.com - U.S. orders another 60,000 to Persian Gulf - Mar. 4, 2003
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/03/sprj.irq.main/
- 1st Armored Division is mentioned as a Germany-based US unit
deployed to the Gulf (by now I assume they’re there).

CNN Specials - British units sent in from Germany
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/british/british.army/

War on Terrorism - Eye on Iraq - U.S. Forces in the Middle East
http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/forcesinthemideast5.cfm
- You can add this to the Orders of Battle I gave in my answer.

Eye on Iraq - U.S. Forces in the Middle East - Update
http://www.cdi.org/iraq/forces-update-pr.cfm

I couldn’t find any pictures though. I hope you could do with these.
Good luck.

Techtor,

Just wanted to say thanks for the good job.  Very happy with the end result.

Cheers,