The United States is so arrogant? Retired tanks are not recycled, but thrown directly into the sea! US military: This is protecting the marine ecology!
When it comes to main battle tanks, we have to look at China, Russia, the United States, and Germany. But among these four countries, the way in which American tanks are decommissioned is really a bit outrageous, that is, they directly throw the decommissioned tanks into the sea.
Is the Americans so extravagant? It stands to reason that a decommissioned tank is at most only expired, and it is not that it cannot be used, and if the usable equipment inside the tank is removed, can it not be used again after improvement?
In fact, the US military did not think about it, and for this they also paid a "painful" price.
With the exception of a few inconsequential tanks that went to foreign markets for sale, the vast majority of decommissioned tanks were initially returned to processing plants for internal disposal. Upon returning to the processing plant, all parts of the tank are unloaded and thrown into furnaces in batches to be destroyed to refine steel. Some useful electronics will be retained and used as an assembly for later tank production.
However, there are thousands of parts for ordinary tanks, and the manpower, material and financial resources consumed are quite high, and several tanks cannot be dismantled in a day. This thankless approach was quickly stifled by the US military.
The US military believes that a tank that has already been decommissioned is no longer of much value, so why should it spend money and time? Rather than just picking up that little "petty profit," it is better to give it up directly, because after all, it is not impossible to build it itself, nor is it short of that little production cost.
As a result, in the later destruction of decommissioned tanks, the vast majority of tanks were thrown into the furnace for direct destruction. But a tank is still a tank after all, and its whole body is made of ultra-thick homogeneous armor, which can be burned out so easily? Therefore, in order to melt the tank as a whole, the furnace needs to operate for a long time.
In order to destroy the decommissioned tanks, the furnaces and pots of many furnace factories have been damaged due to overloading, and they have been unable to complete other work and are on the verge of closure.
The destruction of decommissioned tanks is time-consuming and costly, and if they are not destroyed, they will take up space in warehouses. How to deal with these decommissioned tanks has become a major concern for the US military. It was at this time that the US military came up with a solution, which was to throw it directly into the sea.
As we all know, the United States has a lot of oceans, and if you throw it directly into the sea, it will be much easier than throwing it into a furnace. After all, most of the important parts of the tank are not waterproof, and once they are soaked for a long time, they will be incapacitated and unable to operate, and at this time, even if other countries want to steal the technology after discovering it, it is almost impossible.
Then throwing the tank directly into the sea will not cause damage to the ecological environment?
In this regard, the US military said that every retired tank thrown into the ocean will go through layers of screening, and it is necessary to check whether the amount of oil is emptied, whether the gunpowder is unloaded, and when it is confirmed, it can be thrown into the sea. In this way, when the decommissioned tank reaches the depths of the seabed, it will not only not cause marine pollution, but will also become a "home" for a large number of marine life.
In addition, the U.S. military also said that the copper element in the armor has a sterilizing and disinfecting effect, and when the tank sinks to the bottom of the sea, it can reduce the breeding of pollutants and bacteria in the seawater, and keep the overall water quality clean. What do you think about this?
