By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
(Washington DC) The current chaos in Russia and instability raises far too many questions to answer at the moment, yet there is little doubt that it presents a new category of potentially unanticipated risks. At the same time, Russian instability does not preclude the likely reality that Russian tanks will soon “clash” or “engage in tank on tank” warfare with export variants of the M1 Abrams tank. Such a possibility will only become more likely as more Abrams continue to arrive in coming months.
Open source web sites closely tracking Russian tank losses such as Oryx have documented massive destruction of Russian tanks, and many have suggested that Russia’s existing tank fleet may now be one-half or less than what it was. Clearly much of this is due to anti-armor weapons and successful tactics employed by committed Ukrainians, yet Russian tanks are also being lost to Ukrainian rockets, artillery and armored vehicles. As mechanized armor-on-armor war continues to increase in coming months, there is a massively increased possibility that there will be many more tank battles. The long-cherished, massively upgraded and combat-tested Abrams, which proved extremely successful against Soviet-built T-72s in the now famous Gulf War tank wars.
M1 Abrams vs T-90
Russia’s T-90M tank has been hyped and heralded as a formidable platform with a handful of integrated next-generation technologies including reactive armor, advanced gunners thermal sights, smoke grenades and advanced EW for “jamming” attacking anti-tank missiles.
However, despite these attributes, Russian T-90 tanks continue to get decimated in Ukraine by committed fighters using anti-armor weapons and advanced tactics. As part of this, numerous reports and photographs showing that the advanced Russian tanks are, in fact, quite vulnerable to overhead or “top-down” attack. Whatever kinds of Active Protection Systems the tanks have appear to not be hemispheric and, given that the top of a T-90 is less protected by armor, Ukrainians have been using buildings and elevated terrain to target and destroy Russian tanks.
While it is known that Russian armored vehicles such as the T-90 have continued to prove quite vulnerable against Ukrainian anti-armor attacks, some might now be inclined to wonder if Russia’s T-90M will perform well against the arriving export variants of the M1 Abrams tanks.
Some available specs show that the two tanks may be comparable in certain respects, as both the T-90M and Abrams now operate with advanced thermal sights and are capable of firing High Explosive Anti-Tank and HE-FRAG fragmentation projectiles. The extent of the fragmentation technology woven into the T-90M ammunition may be difficult to fully discern, as the tank may or may not have a “canister” round equivalent like the Abrams to disperse a large amount of small projectiles to improve anti-personnel lethality.
The T-90 Upgrades
The margin of difference between the Abrams and the T-90s likely pertain to two key questions such as the extent of advanced technology woven into export variants of the Abrams and the successful upgrading of the T-90. How well have Russian T-90s, which emerged in 1993, be maintained and upgraded such that they could truly compete in a tank-on-tank war against the Abrams. Which tank has better range and image fidelity when it comes to infrared targeting, thermal sights and sensing. The US Army’s M1A2 v3 variants, for example, are engineered with a new generation of Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) sensors. Should any of this kind of advanced targeting be integrated into the export variants of the Abrams for Ukraine, then the Abrams may indeed have a distinct advantage.
The destruction of Russian tanks by anti-tank missiles fired from elevated positions “top down” onto vehicles in Ukraine suggests that Russian tanks do not have a 360-degree active protection system. A recently published video published by Newsweek shows exactly that, as the footage captures a Russian T-90 exploding in a fire in Ukraine after being hit from above.
The extent to which Russia has successfully pursued comparable upgrades able to rival the current Abrams very much remains an open question.
T-90 & UKRAINE
Therefore, while the T-90 may have presented a serious threat in the 1990s, it may not have been maintained and upgraded enough to present a large threat now. Observations in Ukraine validate this theory, as numerous reports are capturing and citing instances where Ukrainian forces are destroying T-90 tanks.
Also, to be able to truly rival or out perform upgraded variants of the Abrams, the T-90 would need advanced fire control technology and an integrated active protection system connecting soft-kill sensors such as the Shora-1 with hard-kill interceptors such as Russia’s Arena System, according to a paper on the T-90 from the Federation of American Scientists published in 2000. It seems it would be extremely useful to know if, in the years since this essay was published, the T-90s have been upgraded in this capacity.
“The T-90 is equipped with the TShU-1-7 Shtora-1 optronic countermeasures system which is designed to disrupt the laser target designation and rangefinders of incoming ATGM. The T-90 is also equipped with a laser warning package that warns the tank crew when it is being lased. Shtora-1 is an electro-optical jammer that jams the enemy’s semiautomatic command to line of sight anti tank guided missiles, laser rangefinders and target designators. Shtora-1 is actually a soft kill, or countermeasures system. It is most effective when used in tandem with a hard kill system such as the Arena,” the FAS Military Analysis Network essay states.
The FAS paper also says the T-90’s smoothbore cannon can fire time-fuzed projectiles, something which could mirror current applications of proximity fuzes or air-burst rounds. The FAS paper also says the T-90 can fire a laser-guided missile called the Refleks, able to target both armored objects and even low-flying helicopters as a “counter-air” weapon. The missile (Refleks), which can penetrate 700-mm of RHAe out to 4,000 meters, gives the T-90 the ability to engage other vehicles and helicopters before they can engage the T-90. The computerized fire control system and laser range-finder, coupled with the new Agave gunner’s thermal sight, permit the T-90 to engage targets while on the move and at night,” the FAS paper says.
The FAS essay also says the T-90 has received advanced thermal sights, however the real unknown likely relates to the extent to which the T-90 has been maintained and upgraded, as advances in computing, electronics, targeting systems, active protection, and on-board command and control technologies have made today’s Abrams tank a completely different platform than it was 10 years ago.
These innovations certainly
improve the lethality of anti-armor weapons used by dismounted infantry, which have been effective in armored warfare as far back as WWII, according to a 1985 report from Fort Leavenworth’s U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Combat Studies Institute.
The challenges of facing the fast-advancing offensive tactics used by Nazi Panzer tanks made defensive postures extremely difficult and complicated. During these years, the essay maintains, Allied forces discovered the merits of using dismounted infantry for “offensive” counterattacks against the approaching tanks. In essence – meet “offense with offense.”
“The counterattack has long been termed the soul of the defense. Defensive action against a tank attack calls for a counterattack in the same general manner as against the older forms of attack … There is no reason why anti-tank guns, supported by infantry, cannot attack tanks just as infantry, supported by artillery, has attacked infantry in the past,“ the essay, “Seek, Strike and Destroy: U.S. Army Tank Destroyer Doctrine in World War II,” states. (Dr. Christopher Gabel).
Kris Osborn is the Military Affairs Editor of 19FortyFive and President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University***
