This is a photo of an M1A1 Abrams tank during gunnery training at the Grafenwohr Training Area in West Germany in 1987. For those of you familiar with tank gunnery training, note that this vehicle is still displaying a green flag, and that the machine guns are not mounted. Since the bumper number could not be positively identified, I was unable to collect from the offending crew the cases of beer required by tradition for discovering a violation of range operating procedures. Our unit required tanks to fly red flags (in daylight) or red lights (at night) whenever weapons were loaded, and all machine guns were supposed to be mounted during the firing runs.
