A Ukrainian tank crew says the Abrams is still being used on the front lines, but isn't finding...

Well if the Russians keep their tanks back they can't Tango as 2 are required to Tango

Good afternoon, @Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen. Excellent post. Thank you for sharing this Sir. :->

As a tanker, this article makes perfectly good sense, although (as usual) the headline is nonsense because it was written by someone who had no idea what the article said.

In Ukraine they are not seeing the kind of tank vs tank battles like Kursk or 73 Easting. They are seeing small unit actions, at relatively close range, in close terrain. One reason that neither side is conducting massed tank action is that any open spaces are dominated by loitering drones.

In this environment the Abrams can hold its own as well as any other modern tank, but it doesn't have the massive advantage that we saw in the Gulf War where Abrams tanks easily slaughtered T-72s from beyond the range where the T-72 could return effective fire.

Remember that the Abrams is a product of the Cold War when the focus was on defending against the massed hordes of the Warsaw Pact charging across the central European plain -- it was designed for maneuver warfare consisting of massed tank engagements. Its superior ammunition and optics give it a sharp advantage at longer ranges. But none of that applies to most of the battles in Ukraine. The Abrams can hold its own in a knife fight, but that's not where it shines.

The one big advantage that the Abrams still has over the T-90 and T-72 in Ukraine is one that the media won't mention -- and one that most civilians would not comprehend -- Crew Survival. Russian tank crews know their tanks are a death sentence if they are hit, Abrams crews expect to survive even if the tank is knocked out. I don't have a good example of the impact they makes with the Abrams, but you might recall the well publicized 'battle' back in January where two Ukrainian Bradley IFVs took on a Russian T-90. What was rarely mentioned in media coverage was that those two Bradleys were on a suicide mission to slow down the T-90. The terrain didn't provide any opportunity to use the TOW, so the Bradleys were using their 25mm gun that cannot penetrate a T-90. This battle should have lasted less than one minute for the T-90 to destroy both Bradleys. Instead as the Bradleys charged towards the T-90, the Russian tank crew missed twice with their main gun at short range, then ran into a tree, panicked and abandoned the tank. The T-90 was then destroyed by a drone.