This event was the last known large-scale tank battle. During Operation Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein's troops suffered heavy losses from coalition forces and were forced to retreat from Kuwait. I will not consider the actions of intelligence, navy, aviation and artillery here. One thing is obvious – the Iraqi army, which was firmly stuck somewhere in the 60s in terms of its military-technical level, could not do much against the newest armed forces of the anti-Iraqi coalition under the auspices of the United States. Let's focus on one of my favorite dishes, tanks. The US Army has arrived in the Middle East with the latest modifications of the Abrams – M1A1HA tank. The Americans also had older models of this tank at their disposal: M1A1 and M1, as well as equipped with M60A3TTS thermal imaging sights. The British deployed their Challenger-1 and Challenger-2 tanks. The French also celebrated with their frankly outdated AMX-30B2 and even wheeled AMX-10 tanks. Were part of the forces of the anti-Iraqi coalition (lo and behold!) even the T-72 in the M84 variant. What could Saddam answer to that? The Iraqi army had a large, but mostly outdated tank fleet. First of all, these were the T-54, T-55 series tanks and its Chinese variants, the Type-59. There were a number of French AMX-13 light tanks, but they did not show themselves in any way. Saddam also had a decent number of already quite powerful T-62 tanks at his disposal. Of the most powerful tanks that Saddam had, there were about 300 British Chieftain tanks with 120mm rifled guns and about 900 Soviet T-72M tanks equipped with even more powerful 125mm smoothbore guns, but in Kuwait, T-72M tanks were only part of the Tavalcana and Medina Guard divisions.
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Since the format of this forum does not allow us to give a detailed assessment of each vehicle available on both sides of the front line, I will focus on the two main actors in this symphony: the American Abrams and our T-72. As for the evaluation of the Abrams tank, everything is relatively simple and understandable. Obviously, American propaganda describes this tank as the best main battle tank in the world. In my personal opinion, the Abrams tank is one of the top three (in my opinion) Western tanks: Merkava, Leclerc, Abrams.
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In my opinion, these three tanks are the best Western tanks. But my opinion does not coincide with the opinion of many military professionals.
But which of these three is the best, I find it difficult to say. It is worth noting that the opinion of the Russian Ministry of Defense in this regard differs from my opinion. We believe that Leopard-2 is superior to Abrams. But I don't understand why. I know how Abrams is better than Leopard-2, and I know how Leopard-2 is better than Abrams. In the sum of the factors, it turns out that Abrams is better. But these are subtleties.
Everything is more difficult with the assessment of the T-72, especially for the American layman, whose head is often heavily filled with propaganda disinformation. I have often heard the most negative reviews about the T-72 from Western citizens, and the reason for this is usually the tank pogrom inflicted by coalition tanks on Saddam's armored forces. I have seen information about 200 destroyed T-72s. I have seen information about 2,000 destroyed T-72s. I have seen information about 20,000 destroyed T-72s. As for the losses in US tanks, according to our information, 23 Abrams tanks were lost from all causes during the operation. Of these, 6 or 7 Abrams tanks were destroyed by the fire of the Iraqi T-72's (namely the T-72, an explanation of why this is important will be given below). The fact that Iraq will lose in the war with the United States (even without taking into account the rest of the countries of the anti-Iraqi coalition) is generally obvious, but let's briefly consider all the main factors (in my opinion) that made it impossible for Iraq's armored forces to resist the United States for a long and effective time.
Factor number 1 is economic. The United States has a huge technical and technological advantage over the third world country that Iraq was then and is now. Technologies of the 90s (USA) versus foreign technologies of the 50/60/70s (Iraq). In addition, do not forget that the Gulf War was not some kind of local "special military operation." The United States has really pulled all its most combat-ready formations into Iraq from the United States itself and from all over Western Europe. In terms of the scale of the involvement of forces, the United States actually used everything they had there, as if they were going to fight with the Soviet Union, and not with the unfortunate Iraq. If the US territory itself had been attacked during Operation Desert Storm (for example, by the Mexican mafia, Colombian rebels, or aliens), then the M48 and M60 would have had to fight back. All the combat-ready Abrams were in Iraq.
Factor number 2 is climatic. The main area of the theater of operations was a sandy desert. Almost complete absence of vegetation. Lack of forests. Huge open spaces. The inability to safely hide military equipment. On the one hand, all this has made aviation extremely efficient. Success in the air war (but more on that in the next episode) was the main stage of victory in general, since in Iraq it was almost impossible to achieve anything serious on the ground without air supremacy (this is not Vietnam). On the other hand, the vast open spaces combined with frequent sandstorms imposed a number of special requirements on armored vehicles. In particular, dust protection and vision systems. If the Abrams tank more or less met these requirements, then the T-72, like other former Soviet tanks of Saddam, was born in a completely different place and it was intended for operations in completely different climatic conditions.
Factor number 3 is technical. When tanks were a strategic means of ensuring success in an all-out war, we had the best tanks in the world. But we need to understand exactly what Saddam Hussein had in his hands. The T-72 main battle tank was born in 1973, but not as a new model, but as an improved version of the T-64 tank, which was born in 1963. This was 17 years before the birth of the Abrams tank (1980). During this time, technology has not stood still. The export modification of the T-72M tanks that Iraq had are the simplest and weakest versions of the T-72 series tank. These tanks were equipped with 3BM3 armor-piercing projectiles, which were decommissioned in the Soviet Army in 1970 and were used only at training grounds. As a result, even the world's most powerful 125mm tank cannon, firing at American tanks with outright shit instead of shells, simply wasted its energy. Of course, 3BM3 projectiles could not penetrate the frontal armor of American tanks. In turn, enormous efforts and funds were invested in the MBT-70 program, from where the Abrams and Leopard-2 tanks later appeared. These tanks have received the latest scientific and technological achievements in terms of survivability, safety, target detection, environmental monitoring and fire control systems. In 1991, Abrams tanks even received GPS navigation satellite systems for the first time in the world. The concept of "for the first time in the world" is appropriate here, if we ignore the fact that by that time passenger cars with satellite navigators, touch panels and electronic dashboards had already been produced for many years. But their main advantage, of course, were the thermal imaging sights of the gunners, which provided steady detection of targets in solid darkness and in conditions of a sandstorm. It is worth noting that by 1991, the last Soviet tanks also had thermal imaging sights, but of course the Iraqi T-72M did not have anything like that. Their active-passive infrared sights could see in solid darkness at a maximum of 800 meters. When the infrared searchlight was turned on, the range of vision increased to 1.3km. As for the Abrams, there is information that they calmly recognized and hit Iraqi tanks at night in the dust from a distance of 3-4 km. The capabilities of those first thermal imagers are well known today. Most likely, these figures are overestimated by 1.5-2 times. But in any case, the fact that the Abrams tanks saw much further in the dark and sand dust than any of the Iraqi tanks is obvious.
Factor number 4 is ethnic. You can give a T-72 or even a T-90 to anyone. Even Indians or a native tribe with bows and arrows. It is unlikely that they will be able to achieve any success with this technique. I don't want to say that the Iraqis were completely stupid. Of the entire Arab world, they were probably one of the most developed. But they were certainly far from modern thinking and technology skills. It's not enough to get your hands on a modern tank or airplane. You also need to be able to maintain, repair, configure and manage them. If the American tankers on the M1A1 and M1A1HA tanks were excellent professionals in their field, then this cannot be said about their Iraqi counterparts. The guys who were sitting in old T-55 tanks and the like were not clear at all. Having already suffered heavy losses from American aviation, having lost their bases, tankers and repair vehicles, these guys were already as demoralized as possible. At the very first problems, they basically just dropped their tanks and ran away in different directions. The soldiers of the Tavalkan Guards Tank Division who fought on the T-72M were more resilient, but they also showed themselves extremely poorly. By the way, the American tankers did not consider Operation Desert Storm to be an easy walk. There were serious battles there, and only hard training and careful preparation allowed them to defeat the Iraqi armored vehicles relatively without losses. The American tankers gave the Iraqi tankers high marks primarily for their courage and perseverance, but a very low mark for their professionalism. According to the testimony of many American tankers, those few combat episodes where luck was entirely on the side of the Iraqi military, the Iraqi T-72M could not hit American tanks even from a distance of 400 meters! Of course, this had not to happen if the tank is fully functional and the crew knows how to operate it.
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So what is the T-72? Is this a good tank or a bad tank? To answer this question, take another look at the picture with the list of equipment of the Iraqi army. Of all the 6 (or 7) destroyed American Abrams tanks, all of them were destroyed by the T-72. Not Chieftains, not AMX-13, not T-62. It was the T-72 that destroyed all 6-7 Abrams, of which 4 Abrams were destroyed in one place on the 73 Easting. Further, all the Bradley infantry fighting vehicles lost to Iraqi fire were also destroyed by T-72 fire. Except for one Bradley, which was destroyed by a BMP-1 shot, according to a common version. Further, in the battle of 73 Easting, the Iraqi army even forced the US army to retreat in one place! And this is again the merit of the T-72, which, suffering huge losses for some time, forced the American Abrams to abandon their positions and retreat. Moreover, in the course of this, the Abrams tanks, guided by their still imperfect thermal imagers, mistakenly destroyed several of their Abrams tanks, mistaking them for T-72. Now we can honestly answer the question of whether the T-72 is a good or bad tank. The fact is that main battle tanks are not some kind of separate super weapon. If the entire country is loosing the war as a whole, tanks (even the best ones) cannot win it somehow separately from other armed forces. And vice versa. On the winning side of the anti-Iraqi side, even the frankly outdated French AMX-32B showed themselves well, which, if Saddam had them, would have burned there next to the T-54. In any case, the T-72 turned out to be definitely better than any other tank Saddam Hussein had. About 200, 2,000, 20,000 allegedly destroyed by the Abrams. Saddam had T-72M tanks only in the Tavalkan division. According to our most reputable historians, the highest level of tank losses in Iraq in 1991 was 2,600 tanks of all types. That is, Iraq has lost exactly no more. As for the T-72. Before the war, 1,038 T-72M tanks were delivered to Iraq. At least 60 of these tanks were lost in the war with Iran. Further, in 1996, Iraq had 776 T-72M tanks in unknown technical condition. We can say for sure that the number of T-72M tanks in Iraq has decreased by 200. Given that some damaged T-72s were restored after the war, the total losses of T-72M tanks in the Tavalcana and Medina divisions were somewhere at this level: 200-300 tanks. Of these, the vast majority were destroyed by aircraft or abandoned by their crews in the desert. The losses of the T-72M directly from the fire of American tanks amounted to no more than 50 vehicles.
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Now let's fantasize. With a wave of a magic wand, Saddam's Tavalkan and Medina divisions received full-fledged Soviet T-72B/BM/BA, which were many times stronger than those T-72M. With modern 3BM42 Mango projectiles that easily penetrate Abrams' forehead (if anyone does not know, the M829 armor-piercing sub-caliber projectile is a copy of the 3BM42), with powerful semi-active composite armor, with a 4C20 dynamic protection complex, with on-board guided missile weapons where missiles could be launched at a distance of 4-5 km, with accurate shooting and 80-90% the probability of hitting the target with the first shot from a distance of 2-2.5km. What would have happened then? Then, in those situations when the Iraqi T-72M missed the target, these would hit the target. In those situations where the shitty 3BM3 shells hit, but could not penetrate the Abrams armor, these would have penetrated. All of this could have turned the tide in a few combat episodes. And the Abrams destroyed would not be 7, but 20-25. Combined with 50 lost T-72s. The ratio of losses in tanks of 2 to 1 in the context of a lost war as a whole is quite a normal ratio. In general, the "easy walk" version is popular among the masses, but American veterans of the Gulf War probably understand that everything was not easy there, and the "easy" victory was achieved with the hardest training and a huge concentration of forces and means. As our famous General Suvorov used to say: "It's hard in training, it's easy in battle." The T–72 is a thoughtful, powerful and sophisticated tank that was made competently and without mistakes at the time. Its tower resembles the skull of a T-800 terminator. If it was bad, then this tank would not have been placed in front of the NATO headquarters as a monument. If we conditionally imagine the Abrams tank as a Ford GT-40, then the T-72 is a Ferrari 330 Р3.
![Image]()
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Since the format of this forum does not allow us to give a detailed assessment of each vehicle available on both sides of the front line, I will focus on the two main actors in this symphony: the American Abrams and our T-72. As for the evaluation of the Abrams tank, everything is relatively simple and understandable. Obviously, American propaganda describes this tank as the best main battle tank in the world. In my personal opinion, the Abrams tank is one of the top three (in my opinion) Western tanks: Merkava, Leclerc, Abrams.
In my opinion, these three tanks are the best Western tanks. But my opinion does not coincide with the opinion of many military professionals.
But which of these three is the best, I find it difficult to say. It is worth noting that the opinion of the Russian Ministry of Defense in this regard differs from my opinion. We believe that Leopard-2 is superior to Abrams. But I don't understand why. I know how Abrams is better than Leopard-2, and I know how Leopard-2 is better than Abrams. In the sum of the factors, it turns out that Abrams is better. But these are subtleties.
Everything is more difficult with the assessment of the T-72, especially for the American layman, whose head is often heavily filled with propaganda disinformation. I have often heard the most negative reviews about the T-72 from Western citizens, and the reason for this is usually the tank pogrom inflicted by coalition tanks on Saddam's armored forces. I have seen information about 200 destroyed T-72s. I have seen information about 2,000 destroyed T-72s. I have seen information about 20,000 destroyed T-72s. As for the losses in US tanks, according to our information, 23 Abrams tanks were lost from all causes during the operation. Of these, 6 or 7 Abrams tanks were destroyed by the fire of the Iraqi T-72's (namely the T-72, an explanation of why this is important will be given below). The fact that Iraq will lose in the war with the United States (even without taking into account the rest of the countries of the anti-Iraqi coalition) is generally obvious, but let's briefly consider all the main factors (in my opinion) that made it impossible for Iraq's armored forces to resist the United States for a long and effective time.
Factor number 1 is economic. The United States has a huge technical and technological advantage over the third world country that Iraq was then and is now. Technologies of the 90s (USA) versus foreign technologies of the 50/60/70s (Iraq). In addition, do not forget that the Gulf War was not some kind of local "special military operation." The United States has really pulled all its most combat-ready formations into Iraq from the United States itself and from all over Western Europe. In terms of the scale of the involvement of forces, the United States actually used everything they had there, as if they were going to fight with the Soviet Union, and not with the unfortunate Iraq. If the US territory itself had been attacked during Operation Desert Storm (for example, by the Mexican mafia, Colombian rebels, or aliens), then the M48 and M60 would have had to fight back. All the combat-ready Abrams were in Iraq.
Factor number 2 is climatic. The main area of the theater of operations was a sandy desert. Almost complete absence of vegetation. Lack of forests. Huge open spaces. The inability to safely hide military equipment. On the one hand, all this has made aviation extremely efficient. Success in the air war (but more on that in the next episode) was the main stage of victory in general, since in Iraq it was almost impossible to achieve anything serious on the ground without air supremacy (this is not Vietnam). On the other hand, the vast open spaces combined with frequent sandstorms imposed a number of special requirements on armored vehicles. In particular, dust protection and vision systems. If the Abrams tank more or less met these requirements, then the T-72, like other former Soviet tanks of Saddam, was born in a completely different place and it was intended for operations in completely different climatic conditions.
Factor number 3 is technical. When tanks were a strategic means of ensuring success in an all-out war, we had the best tanks in the world. But we need to understand exactly what Saddam Hussein had in his hands. The T-72 main battle tank was born in 1973, but not as a new model, but as an improved version of the T-64 tank, which was born in 1963. This was 17 years before the birth of the Abrams tank (1980). During this time, technology has not stood still. The export modification of the T-72M tanks that Iraq had are the simplest and weakest versions of the T-72 series tank. These tanks were equipped with 3BM3 armor-piercing projectiles, which were decommissioned in the Soviet Army in 1970 and were used only at training grounds. As a result, even the world's most powerful 125mm tank cannon, firing at American tanks with outright shit instead of shells, simply wasted its energy. Of course, 3BM3 projectiles could not penetrate the frontal armor of American tanks. In turn, enormous efforts and funds were invested in the MBT-70 program, from where the Abrams and Leopard-2 tanks later appeared. These tanks have received the latest scientific and technological achievements in terms of survivability, safety, target detection, environmental monitoring and fire control systems. In 1991, Abrams tanks even received GPS navigation satellite systems for the first time in the world. The concept of "for the first time in the world" is appropriate here, if we ignore the fact that by that time passenger cars with satellite navigators, touch panels and electronic dashboards had already been produced for many years. But their main advantage, of course, were the thermal imaging sights of the gunners, which provided steady detection of targets in solid darkness and in conditions of a sandstorm. It is worth noting that by 1991, the last Soviet tanks also had thermal imaging sights, but of course the Iraqi T-72M did not have anything like that. Their active-passive infrared sights could see in solid darkness at a maximum of 800 meters. When the infrared searchlight was turned on, the range of vision increased to 1.3km. As for the Abrams, there is information that they calmly recognized and hit Iraqi tanks at night in the dust from a distance of 3-4 km. The capabilities of those first thermal imagers are well known today. Most likely, these figures are overestimated by 1.5-2 times. But in any case, the fact that the Abrams tanks saw much further in the dark and sand dust than any of the Iraqi tanks is obvious.
Factor number 4 is ethnic. You can give a T-72 or even a T-90 to anyone. Even Indians or a native tribe with bows and arrows. It is unlikely that they will be able to achieve any success with this technique. I don't want to say that the Iraqis were completely stupid. Of the entire Arab world, they were probably one of the most developed. But they were certainly far from modern thinking and technology skills. It's not enough to get your hands on a modern tank or airplane. You also need to be able to maintain, repair, configure and manage them. If the American tankers on the M1A1 and M1A1HA tanks were excellent professionals in their field, then this cannot be said about their Iraqi counterparts. The guys who were sitting in old T-55 tanks and the like were not clear at all. Having already suffered heavy losses from American aviation, having lost their bases, tankers and repair vehicles, these guys were already as demoralized as possible. At the very first problems, they basically just dropped their tanks and ran away in different directions. The soldiers of the Tavalkan Guards Tank Division who fought on the T-72M were more resilient, but they also showed themselves extremely poorly. By the way, the American tankers did not consider Operation Desert Storm to be an easy walk. There were serious battles there, and only hard training and careful preparation allowed them to defeat the Iraqi armored vehicles relatively without losses. The American tankers gave the Iraqi tankers high marks primarily for their courage and perseverance, but a very low mark for their professionalism. According to the testimony of many American tankers, those few combat episodes where luck was entirely on the side of the Iraqi military, the Iraqi T-72M could not hit American tanks even from a distance of 400 meters! Of course, this had not to happen if the tank is fully functional and the crew knows how to operate it.
So what is the T-72? Is this a good tank or a bad tank? To answer this question, take another look at the picture with the list of equipment of the Iraqi army. Of all the 6 (or 7) destroyed American Abrams tanks, all of them were destroyed by the T-72. Not Chieftains, not AMX-13, not T-62. It was the T-72 that destroyed all 6-7 Abrams, of which 4 Abrams were destroyed in one place on the 73 Easting. Further, all the Bradley infantry fighting vehicles lost to Iraqi fire were also destroyed by T-72 fire. Except for one Bradley, which was destroyed by a BMP-1 shot, according to a common version. Further, in the battle of 73 Easting, the Iraqi army even forced the US army to retreat in one place! And this is again the merit of the T-72, which, suffering huge losses for some time, forced the American Abrams to abandon their positions and retreat. Moreover, in the course of this, the Abrams tanks, guided by their still imperfect thermal imagers, mistakenly destroyed several of their Abrams tanks, mistaking them for T-72. Now we can honestly answer the question of whether the T-72 is a good or bad tank. The fact is that main battle tanks are not some kind of separate super weapon. If the entire country is loosing the war as a whole, tanks (even the best ones) cannot win it somehow separately from other armed forces. And vice versa. On the winning side of the anti-Iraqi side, even the frankly outdated French AMX-32B showed themselves well, which, if Saddam had them, would have burned there next to the T-54. In any case, the T-72 turned out to be definitely better than any other tank Saddam Hussein had. About 200, 2,000, 20,000 allegedly destroyed by the Abrams. Saddam had T-72M tanks only in the Tavalkan division. According to our most reputable historians, the highest level of tank losses in Iraq in 1991 was 2,600 tanks of all types. That is, Iraq has lost exactly no more. As for the T-72. Before the war, 1,038 T-72M tanks were delivered to Iraq. At least 60 of these tanks were lost in the war with Iran. Further, in 1996, Iraq had 776 T-72M tanks in unknown technical condition. We can say for sure that the number of T-72M tanks in Iraq has decreased by 200. Given that some damaged T-72s were restored after the war, the total losses of T-72M tanks in the Tavalcana and Medina divisions were somewhere at this level: 200-300 tanks. Of these, the vast majority were destroyed by aircraft or abandoned by their crews in the desert. The losses of the T-72M directly from the fire of American tanks amounted to no more than 50 vehicles.
Now let's fantasize. With a wave of a magic wand, Saddam's Tavalkan and Medina divisions received full-fledged Soviet T-72B/BM/BA, which were many times stronger than those T-72M. With modern 3BM42 Mango projectiles that easily penetrate Abrams' forehead (if anyone does not know, the M829 armor-piercing sub-caliber projectile is a copy of the 3BM42), with powerful semi-active composite armor, with a 4C20 dynamic protection complex, with on-board guided missile weapons where missiles could be launched at a distance of 4-5 km, with accurate shooting and 80-90% the probability of hitting the target with the first shot from a distance of 2-2.5km. What would have happened then? Then, in those situations when the Iraqi T-72M missed the target, these would hit the target. In those situations where the shitty 3BM3 shells hit, but could not penetrate the Abrams armor, these would have penetrated. All of this could have turned the tide in a few combat episodes. And the Abrams destroyed would not be 7, but 20-25. Combined with 50 lost T-72s. The ratio of losses in tanks of 2 to 1 in the context of a lost war as a whole is quite a normal ratio. In general, the "easy walk" version is popular among the masses, but American veterans of the Gulf War probably understand that everything was not easy there, and the "easy" victory was achieved with the hardest training and a huge concentration of forces and means. As our famous General Suvorov used to say: "It's hard in training, it's easy in battle." The T–72 is a thoughtful, powerful and sophisticated tank that was made competently and without mistakes at the time. Its tower resembles the skull of a T-800 terminator. If it was bad, then this tank would not have been placed in front of the NATO headquarters as a monument. If we conditionally imagine the Abrams tank as a Ford GT-40, then the T-72 is a Ferrari 330 Р3.
