Posted on 06/10/2018 8:00:47 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
With assistance from Russia, one of Iraq’s armored brigades has swapped out its American-made M1 Abrams tanks for new T-90s. The change comes after the United States complained about M1s ending up in the hands of Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias and could be another sign that the Kremlin is looking to lure Iraqi authorities into its sphere of influence.
Iraq’s Ministry of Defense announced the change on its official, Arabic-only website on June 8, 2018. According to a translation of the information by Jane’s 360, the 9th Division’s 35th Brigade took delivery of 39 T-90S tanks. The unit’s remaining Abrams went to the 34th Brigade, another one of the 9th Division’s units, which has operated M1s, as well as older Soviet-era types.
Iraqi officials added that Russian specialists had retrained the 35th Brigade’s officers and crews to operate the new tanks. They did not say whether these individuals were members of Russia’s military, employees of the manufacturer UralVagonZavod (UVZ), or private contractors.
Iraq finalized a contract with UVZ in 2016 for a total of 73 T-90S and SK tanks. The Iraqis began taking the deliveries of the first examples in February 2018.
The T-90S types that Iraq has received are among the most recent iterations of the design, itself an outgrowth of the Soviet-era T-72, and appear to share some features with Russia's newest T-90SM variants. The vehicle remains largely unchanged in terms of its basic configuration and has a modernized version of the 125mm main gun found on the original type.
The new design does have a significantly more powerful engine, giving the vehicle a top speed of nearly 40 miles an hour on roads and a range of approximately 340 miles on a single tank of gas.
ALEKSEY KITAEV VIA WIKIMEDIA
A T-90SM tank, which notably differs from the Iraqi tanks in that it has a remote weapon station on top of the turret, but shares some other features, especially in the configuration of the hull.
The tanks also have a blend of steel and composite armor that offers improved protection over the old T-72, as well as improved fire control systems, night vision optics, and communications equipment. It’s worth noting that Iraq’s past experience with the T-72-series is, at best checkered. Those tanks were notably poor performers during both the first Gulf War in 1991 and the U.S.-led invasion of the country in 2003, but for various reasons.
The T-90SK is a variant for unit commanders, which differs only from the standard type in that it has additional radios and navigation equipment. We don’t know how many S versus SK types are in Iraq’s total order.
Iraq’s variants of the T-90 also feature additional defense systems. These include a system that can detect laser designators and rangefinders, found on a number of modern anti-tank weapons, and alert the crew, giving them at least a chance to either maneuver behind cover or deploy a defensive smoke screen.
There is also an extensive explosive reactive armor (ERA) suite to defend against anti-tank guided missiles and other infantry anti-armor weapons, such rocket-propelled grenades. They also have slat armor screens around the engine compartment at the rear for additional protection against the latter type of threats.
ERA involves blocks of explosives positioned around the vehicle that explode outward on impact, absorbing the blast of an incoming round before it hits the actual hull of the vehicle. Slat armor either pre-detonates the projectile before it can do significant damage or physically stops it from hitting its target.
Neither of these defenses are designed to stop high-speed kinetic penetrators. And in the case of ERA arrays, each individual explosive block can only defeat one threat before it needs replacement and can potentially pose a hazard to any nearby friendly infantry or innocent bystanders. This can be a significant problem during urban operations where accompanying infantry units are essential to protecting heavy armor from getting flanked or falling victim to sudden ambushes.
But regardless of these improvements over older T-72 tanks, the 48-ton T-90s are simply not in the same class as the 70-ton Abrams. As such, the decision to refit the 35th Brigade with T-90s raises questions about whether Iraq sees the larger, more advanced M1s as being more expensive and complex to operate both practically and politically.
US ARMY
One of the Iraqi 9th Division's M1 Abrams west of the city of Mosul in March 2017.
There is no question that the Abrams is more costly to sustain, but in 2018, they’ve also become the source of a complicated dispute with the U.S. government. Since at least 2015, there had been reports that some of the M1s, as well as other American-supplied vehicles and equipment, had found their way, either by quasi-official transfer or unofficial agreements, into the hands of Iraqi militias, such as Kata'ib Hezbollah – not to be confused with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah – and the Badr Organization.
These Shi’ite Iraqi groups, which receive significant support from Iran, have operated under official sanction as members of the country’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) since 2014. In 2016, PMUs officially became part of Iraq’s armed forces.
The U.S. government apparently only decided to make clear that it did not approve of the Abrams going to the PMUs sometime after October 2017. At that time, PMUs that had acquired Abrams took part in the Iraqi government’s swift and violent campaign to crush a push for independence in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish Region.
In February 2018, the U.S. military finally acknowledged publicly that the Iranian militias had gotten at least nine M1s, some of which Kurdish forces reportedly immobilized during the fighting in and around the strategic city of Kirkuk. By that time, the Pentagon insisted that the Iraqi Army had already recovered all of the tanks from the PMUs.
“We have discovered incidents where some U.S.-origin equipment, including M1 Abrams tanks, came into the possession of certain PMF groups,” Eric Pahon, a U.S. spokesperson, told Military Times on Feb. 8, 2018, using another term for PMUs. “We continue to stress to the Government of Iraq, as we do to all allies and partners, their obligation to maintain U.S.-origin equipment under the operational control of the designated end-user,” he added, stressing that the United States did not support the Iranian-linked groups.
In a report to Congress it released in May 2018, the Pentagon confirmed all of the M1s were back in the custody of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. In addition, it noted that the U.S. military had begun requiring regular reports about the tanks and their whereabouts and had put unspecified restrictions on maintenance and other support of the vehicles in order to help ensure they didn’t find their way back to the militias.
There is no indication that Russia has put any similar restrictions on who gets the T-90s or how those units employ them. By freeing the 35th Brigade of M1s, the Iraqi government may have effectively made the unit more readily able to pursue its agendas without American interference.
This could be particularly important to the forthcoming Iraqi coalition government, which will almost certainly be led in part by a political bloc with Muqtada Al Sadr at its head. Parties aligned with Sadr’s Alliance Towards Reforms won a plurality of seats in the country’s parliamentary elections in May 2018, but not enough to form a government by themselves.
Sadr, a Shi’ite cleric and long-time Iraqi political figure, led a militia against the American-led occupation of Iraq and continued to be a major power-broker afterward. He has strong ties himself with Iran, but has also sought to develop a more diverse set of allies inside the country and out, including taking a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s powerful Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman.
Even before the election, the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi and his administration had maintained close connections with the regime in Tehran and had begun to signal a willingness to seek partners beyond the United States and its allies. It was Abadi’s government that signed the T-90 deal with Russia.
Under Abadi, Iraq has also purchased Mi-28NE Havoc gunship helicopters, Su-25 Frogfoot ground attack aircraft, Pantsir-S point air defense systems, and is now looking to buy the increasingly popular S-400 long-range surface-to-air missile system. His government has also bought advanced weapons, including light attack jets and armed drones, from China, the Czech Republic, and South Korea, in addition to acquiring more arms from the United States.
Iraqi deals with Russia are only likely to grow if the Kremlin continues to prove more willing than the United States to sell more advanced weapons without significant restrictions to whoever forms the next government in Baghdad. And the Russians will almost certainly be happy to try and present themselves as an alternative to the Americans beyond just military deals at the same time.
As we at The War Zone have noted many times in the past, Russia is eager to expand its influence in the Middle East and has been keen to exploit any potential rifts between the United States and its traditional regional partners. The Kremlin under Russian President Vladimir Putin has made significant efforts to improve and expand ties with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, already.
During the skirmish between authorities in Baghdad and the Kurdish Regional Government in 2017, Russia joined Iran and Turkey in siding with the former. In April 2018, officials from Iraq and Russia, along with representatives from Iran and Syria, met in Baghdad to discuss regional counter-terrorism efforts.
And as time goes on, and if the immediacy of the threat from ISIS or other terrorist groups continues to recede, Iraq’s various political factions may be more inclined to pursue their agendas in general. These, in turn, may find themselves increasingly at odds with the interests of the United States and further push the two countries apart, presenting more opportunities for Russia or Iran to fill the gap.
Depending on how and where its T-90s end up employed, the 35th Brigade may become one of the more visible indicators of just how much Iraq’s allegiances may or may not be shifting.
Your son was in error. The T-72 is demonstrably not aluminum and never was. Go look at the one at the Patton Tank Museum or Fort Benning. The Soviets weren’t dumb enough to make a tank out of aluminum. On the other hand, the US was. M
Also, keep in mind that some of the actual T-72s your son saw were the deliberately gimped export models, and they weren’t even the best of those at the time. The remainder were locally produced (bad) copies called the Lion of Babylon - it is debated whether these were all local production or merely local rebuilds. Again, go look at the ones here in the US to see the differences if you doubt it. There’s actual Russian ones at Fort Benning in the museum there; there’s an Iraqi one on display at Fort Hood. I’ve seen a Russian built one and an Iraqi ‘built’ one up close in person in museums and shows. They’re worlds apart in quality.
Your assumption that that’s a shot trap between the turret and hull is also in error. What you’re seeing is explosive-reactive armor blocks on top of a classic Soviet/Russian ‘inverted frying pan’ turret. Also, modern ATGMs don’t ricochet like that - neither do modern antitank rounds. Otherwise, the gap between the turret and hull of the M1 Abrama would be a problem (and it does look like a shot trap) but it isn’t.
This is what a T-90 turret looks like with some of the ERA removed: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/T-90_snorkel.jpg
That’s not how ERA, even heavy ERA works. It doesn’t deflect penetrator rounds down through the hull - and modern APFSDS sabot rounds don’t ricochet off much anyway.
You’re also forgetting that the T-90S has an active protection system that will destroy the TOW before it gets close enough to damage the tank... and no NATO main battle tank, until the crash program to mount the Israeli Trophy system on a few US Abrams tanks, has an APS. At all. Which is why the Turks are having their Ex-German-Army Leopard 2A4s and 2A5s ripped apart by Russian Konkurs missiles. Single Konkurs take out NATO standard tanks, where in the Chechen wars taking out a Russian APS-protected tank took at least six fired in a swarm attack to saturate the defense.
Presenting the M551 Sheridan tank, the only tank fielded by a major power in the post-WW2 era that was made of aluminum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M551_Sheridan
Yup, we were the idiots who made an aluminum tank.
I think he’s still trying to get the can open. :P
It’s Kontakt-5 ERA. Versus the US M829A3 and M829A4 rounds it is ineffective.
“However patents from Alliant Techsystems (ATK) show us a different possibility of the M829A3 design: instead of utilizing an elongated DU penetrator with conventional tip to defeat tanks fitted with heavy ERA by “brute force”, it is suggested to use a special tip assembly to overcome ERA. The tip is a solid steel construction with a length “greater than 100 mm”, while the main penetrator has a length of “about 630 mm, preferably greater than about 650 mm, and more preferably greater than about 670 mm”. Specifically the last value is interesting, because this is very close to the reported length of the penetrators used in the previous M829A1 and M829A2 APFSDS rounds. Furthermore the thickness of the rod was increased from 22 to 25 mm, which result in a 67% higher bending stiffness (and thus better performance against ERA).
Such a penetrator design has a big benefit against targets protected by heavy ERA, which is what the main target of the M829A3 development was. The solid steel tip will punch a hole into the ERA, but is designed with a special weakpoint at the connection to the main penetrator; it will break of instead of transfering the stress created by the interaction with the ERA-plates onto the main penetrator. While the M829A1 was unable to defeat the contemporary Soviet tanks with Kontakt-5 heavy ERA, the M829A2 was designed as “brute force” solution against Kontakt-5 armed Soviet tanks. The M829A3 was the “elegant way” to defeat better armored tanks with Kontakt-5 or the follow-up ERA.”
https://below-the-turret-ring.blogspot.com/2016/02/m829a3-apfsds-penetration-power-common.html
BAM! There it is.
And when you’ve spent your formative years memorizing the Koran, there isn’t much time left for learning practical stuff like how to be a mechanic.
Is there a market for our military contractors to build a less expensive and better suited tank in the Middle East for not only the US but our allies or do we leave that to the Russians?
So glad your hindsight is so clear, maybe you should have said something 15 years ago....
What we did in IRQ, politics notwithstanding, was honorable. Things change, that’s the difficult part of waging war then waking away from the peace- it’s called a vacuum, and the worst sort often fill it up and march on.
We (Obama) left a vacuum and voila’ IRN and SYR/ISIS tried to fill it.
There isn’t one at Knox. They hauled off almost all the historic armor from the Patton Museum to Benning several years ago, with the idea that a new museum would be built there for it there. Hasn’t happened yet. It’s all sitting in warehouses (best case) or outside (hope not).
Exactly
8 of those 12 years your hero Clinton was in office.... You have a problem, take it up with him.
Thank you for posting this.
Armor ping —> T-90’s replacing some M-1’s in Iraqi Army
But the aluminum hull didn't react well to fire.
I don’t think their M1’s have a lot of the “special features” that ours have. For instance our export models (including the ones bought by Australia) do not have the DU armor package.
Makes sense. If you can’t get the spare parts, why have them.
T-90’s will do what they need them to do for the most part, and they can likely buy more of them. Quantity has a quality all it’s own.
It was all about making it air transportable/droppable.
And even with all it’s faults, it still had a long service life.
Is this it?
https://www.meforum.org/articles/other/why-arabs-lose-wars
(Author is Norvell B. De Atkine)
I found it fascinating.
“This M1 Abrams was probably built for warfare in Europe not a sandy desert.”
Yes the Abrams was designed to go toe to toe with the Soviets in Europe, BUT it has handled itself quite well in the deserts of Iraq and Saudi Arabia. In fact besides Iraq and Saudi Arabia buying the Abrams, the Australians, Egyptians, and Moroccans have also bought the Abrams.
Although the details depend on the model, the M1 characteristically comes with highly effective targeting optics, electronic control systems and software, and fire suppression system. Against the Iraqi Army, we could see and hit them at night, in rain or sandstorms, and at longer range. Personally, I am all for the Iraqis adopting Russian tanks and equipment. That will make it easier if we or an ally has to settle their hash again in the coming years.
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