Comments - 63E20

As for tactics, the bulk of the tank battles in the first Gulf War were not Iraqis charging into coalition forces, quite the other way around. While elements of the Republican Guard did mount an initially successful armor assault into Saudi territory, it was a pretty small operation and those tactics were not indicative of the overall conflict. The Battle of 73 Easting is the most commonly cited example of Abrams VS T72s. In that example, Abrams were engaging in very close proximity with T72's where maximum range wasn't a factor. The Abrams' thermal optics were probably the biggest advantage there. The example is so often cited because determined and battle-hardened Iraqi Republican Guard forces in prepared defensive positions greatly outnumbered the Coalition forces mounting a hasty attack and were still decisively defeated with the loss of only a single M2 Bradley.

Anyways, sorry for the long-winded reply. Just figured I would add my $.02

*Damn 2000 char limit*

Shooting the optics with an AK47 isn't a valid way to disable an abrams. For one, the optics glass is a lot more resistant to small-arms fire than you think. Second, the Abrams has an auxillary sight mounted coaxially with the gun. The GAS (gunner's aux sight) is set far back into the armor so that someone would have to be staring down the main gun to get any kind of shot off on it. As you can imagine, that isn't going to end well for the guy trying to take that shot.

That said, there is one documented instance where small-arms fire ultimately destroyed an Abrams. In the interest of OpSec I'm not going to give details, but suffice it to say it was a combination of a very lucky shot and some bad luck for the tank. The vehicle kill was also not immediate and the crew had several minutes before having to evacuate. It was a cascading series of events that began with the lucky shot and the crew could have saved the tank with a very simple action. (not faulting the crew at all, hindsight is always 20/20)

Also, in regard to your comment above about the T72 lacking range, the Abrams gun is 120mm smooth bore. The T72's gun is 125mm smooth bore. The descrepency between tanks was in fire control and ammo. The Abrams had a far superior fire control system and more advanced M829 APFSDF DU Sabot rounds. With better fire control and ammo, the 125mm would have been hitting just as well as the Abrams.