The armor protection of a tank is far from universal. In rough order, the thickest armor is on the turret front, hull front, turret sides, forward hull sides, turret rear, rear hull sides, turret top, hull bottom, hull rear.
Think of a 45 degree arc centered on the front of the tank, this is the area protected by the thickest armor thinning down towards the rear with the tail end of the tank protected by the least amount of armor.
Tankers are taught to keep a watchful eye to the flanks and rear when buttoned up. But with a four man crew focused on fighting and moving their tank, they can't watch all sides. This is why tanks are so vulnerable in MOUT fighting. There are simply too many ways of taking a pot shot at a tank that is not observed by the crew.
There is a story of a platoon of M-60A1s during the Panama Invasion that were ordered into a barrio after some of Noreiga's soldiers. One of the tanks had been hit by a dud RPG round and had backed around a corner and linked up with a platoon of light infantry. Th TC dismounted and held a 2-minute class on the use of the rear telephone hook-up on the tank. The squad leader would spot targets and the tank would use its 105mm to blow holes through buildings to allow the grunts access and to take out strong points.
It was so nice (NOT!) to read about how much institutional knowledge was lost, ignored or simply ignored because it was "old school" during the recent fighting.
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The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis.
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