[Webstral]

Technological advantages matter most in simple environments. Relative to ground environments, the air dimension is simple. One of the reasons the Hail Mary attack by VII US Corps in Operation Desert Storm succeeded so well is that the desert environment is almost theoretical in its simplicity. The ground isn’t perfectly level and featureless, but the terrain of south central Iraq and northwestern Kuwait is far more like a chess board than the AO in which VII US Corps would have fought in southern Germany in the event of a war with the Warsaw Pact. Despite the fact that Coalition EW was wrecking havoc with Iraqi radio communications, the Republican Guard was not taken by surprise (operationally speaking) by the Hail Mary maneuver. By the time VII US Corps reached the Republican Guard, the defending Iraqis had reoriented themselves along a north-south axis facing west. However, while lines of sight were superb, visibility was poor. The Republican Guard did most things correctly, although units that sat in one location for more than 12 hours without taking proper defensive measures deserve what they got. However, all along the line American forces ran into Iraqi units in hasty defensive positions. The Iraqis were ready to fight. They just couldn’t see. The M1 had the technological advantage and the right circumstances under which to exploit that advantage. Without excellent lines of sight, poor visibility, and a main gun capable of reaching out to 4000 meters the M1 wouldn’t have fared so well.

Again, all this goes back to where the fight is taking place and what each side brings to the fight. The long ranges of the T-90’s ATGM aren’t going to be worth much if the M1s have two-tiered fighting positions or a reverse slope defense. On the other hand, if the M1s are advancing across open terrain the ATGM has a much more favorable situation. I don’t know what kind of reactive armor the T-90 sports, but I do know that reactive armor is specialized for defeating solid penetrators or HEAT. Against a mid-level anti-tank weapon, reactive armor specialized for defeating solid penetrators might perform adequately against a HEAT round, and vice versa. Against a top shelf anti-tank weapon, specialized reactive armor might not do the job against the other kind of round.

All the comments about how flanking shots by RPG and other unsophisticated weapons against MBT in urban environments have exposed a dangerous weakness in the Abrams both underscore and miss the point about the hazards of urban operations. Tanks don’t belong in urban combat, except for the fact that it’s difficult to carry offensive operations without them if one doesn’t have very capable light infantry (which the US does not, by and large). For reasons that have already been given, tanks are optimized for certain jobs. The armor can’t be impenetrable everywhere. The US Army insists on using tanks in urban environments partly because our own leadership has drunk the Kool-Aid and partly because an MBT has a powerful psychological effect on enemy and friendly forces. We can’t expect to frighten everybody away with an MBT—just many of the enemy’s people. Some of the enemy will fight, and some MBT will be lost as a result. The urban environment is a horribly complex environment in which the advantages of technology are very badly circumscribed. An enemy who understands that the armor of an MBT can’t be as strong as the frontal armor on every facing of the tank is going to exploit that knowledge.