[Webstral]

A well-trained crew is more important than the hardware they use, provided the competing machines are not two or more generations apart. Crew quality is only part of the equation, though. Leadership quality, maintenance support, logistical support, and supporting/combined arms all multiply the effects of crew quality, which again is more important than the machine. The experience of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front is a good example of this phenomenon. The Germans had a better training program for their tankers and leaders, resulting in a superior performance on a crew-for-crew basis. The Soviets had superior production and a philosophy geared towards maximizing their strengths and minimizing their weaknesses, once the Germans failed to win the war in 1942. [1] The German troops were superior, but the Soviet senior leadership was able to offset the German troops superiority by capitalizing on Soviet advantages. Comparisons between tanks have to be made within the context of their use.

Provided the tube-launched ATGM works approximately the way it’s supposed to, the T-90 does have a reach advantage on the battlefield vis-à-vis the M1. On the surface, the reactive armor offers an important protective advantage. However, reactive armor is unfriendly to supporting infantry. The Chechens exploited this fact in Grozny to decouple the combined arms. If one is engaged in a long-range gunnery duel, then the negative side effects of reactive armor become less pronounced. Lower fuel consumption means that there are fewer targets of opportunity for enemy aircraft in the form of tanker trucks. The T-90 can go longer without refueling, and this surely translates into an advantage of some sort. I don’t know enough about the passive ATGM countermeasures in use by the T-90 to comment on the efficacy of said countermeasures.

We’d have to imagine a scenario in which M1 and T-90 tanks would be opposing each other on the battlefield and assign some values to the myriad of variables that are factors. In some cases, the weaknesses of the M1 will be concealed. In other cases, the weaknesses will be glaring and costly. Ditto for the T-90.


1 I’m certainly not debating whether Operation Blau could have won the war for the Germans. However, the fact that the Soviets had the chance to use their manpower reserves and their industrial might, as well as receive important quantities of materiel from the West, turned the lightning war back into a war of attrition not so very different from the trenches of the First World War in its macroscale pattern.