Iraqi Armored Brigade Ditches U.S. M1 Abrams For Russian T-90 Tanks

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.

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.

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.

Spktyr and others. I think you are right about the Iraqi tanks my son examined may have been a lighter, domestic version of the Soviet one, but why would the Soviets sell Hussein inferior quality tanks for the Republic Guard?

You would think that they would want the RG to have the best models to fend off the Iranians and the US if push came to shove.

Since he was not a “tanker”, I don’t think he had any knowledge of the variations of the M72 that all of your have mentioned.

At least 3 - 5 RG tank divisions were destroyed by our planes (F-16s that my son saw as well as the Palladin rocket artillery), and the Abrams M-1’s.

The whole issue of the quality of Communist/Russian/Red China arms being sold to Pakistan, India, possibly Egypt, etc. raises some alarming questions that I hope you knowledgeable Freepers will address as new articles come out on the worldwide Communist/Russian arms sales programs expand to Africa, the Middle East and perhaps Latin America.

If you watch the entire video, you’ll see that the mesh armor is all the way around the turret, not just the frontal arc. This is something that pretty much everyone is putting on their tanks that have to go into urban warfare these days as a popular trick is to RPG a segment of ERA, then hit the now unprotected surface with another RPG.

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-945a7cd46790af0fd26d732c39084422-c

http://www.armyvehicles.dk/images/leopard2a5dk_desert_ba.jpg

We’re even putting it on the Abrams with TUSK 1.

http://defense-update.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/slat-reactive-TUSK.jpg

TUSK 2 includes convex ERA plates on top of hull and turret slat armor:
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/8144/u-s-army-m1-abrams-tanks-in-europe-are-getting-explosive-reactive-armor

Same policy pretty much every major power has - export markets don’t get the full-up version of any major weapons system in case the exporter has to go back and fight them some day. For example, we don’t sell any Abrams with depleted uranium armor to *anyone*. We don’t even sell it to the Canadians - Burlington type composite armor is the best any tank sold by the US to another country will get. Same thing with the Russians - they’re not dumb enough to sell full-house tanks to people they may have to go fight or to people that might sell them to people they may have to go fight. No APS system was a common downgrade, because if the Soviets and the Russians had to fight the purchaser of their tanks later they thought it would be better if those tanks could be obliterated by standard infantry units firing Konkurs missiles instead of having to saturation attack every single one of the tanks being used on their makers.

Egypt buys a mix of our export gear, Euro export gear and Russian export gear. They have nothing actually fully major-power-frontline.

None of the major powers sell full up versions of their top line systems to anyone as a general rule but there are exceptions when it comes to jointly produced or developed products. One exception is India because they end up being co-developers of the stuff with Russia and therefore had the tech/knowhow anyway. India buying Russian gear these days is more like a joint venture rather than a client state buying a product someone else developed.

The other exception is Pakistan, which has the same relationship with China.

The Saudis have lost at least six of them to Iranian upgraded copies of the Konkurs in Yemen. They don’t have the depleted uranium armor of the US models, but they have most of the other upgrades to M1A2 SEP status short of the all-up encrypted comms and a couple of other things. They don’t have TUSK 1 or TUSK 2, but the loss of the M1A2S’s in Yemen, along with the ongoing losses of Turkish Leopards in Syria show that the NATO disdain for APS is woefully misplaced. This is why we’re hastily upgrading a few of our Abrams with the Israeli Trophy APS system.

Huh? You were there, right? You saw the ruinous conditions and the horrible outcomes of the tyrannical and evil government, our dug up mass graves of women and children and saw devastated cities in the south, saw the torture chambers in the NW and listened to the accountso f those who survived? Did you watch the women throw salt on the roadways as we liberated town and after town, did you protect the voting stations and see the light of self-determination sparkle in men and women’s eyes? Did you feed children and get hugs and kisses from them just because? Did you count chemical munitions in desert bunkers? did you watch on satellite/aerial platforms as convoys of suspicious material convoyed into Syria ( I do wonder why we did not attack them, we had fast movers in bound)?

Did you help eliminate over 10,000 foreign fighters in the sands and towns of IRQ rather than see them come to our soil?

You don’t know what yo don’t know. And I cannot tell you more, you wouldn’t believe it anyway.

The real crime is what Obama did by removing all of our security forces in 2014. He left a vacuum filled by men who hate everyone and who demonstrated it. Wonder why IRQ is leaning towards RUS to provide military equipment? hey don’t really think USA has their backs.

While I was privy to much more intel than you would ever know, I also know that I was a lowly Engineer Major in the field and in several Hqs, so my access and understanding is incomplete too.

Thank you for your service. My point is that we should not have been there. It was far too expensive in lives and tax dollars and achieved nothing. My mother use to say” keep your nose out of other people’s business”. I would have totally supported attacking the Sunni Saudi Arabia for attacking our country on 9/11. I would have removed their terrorist supporting regime and seized their oil to pay us back for the horrible loss of our lives and money — but not Iraq. The did nothing to us. The Gulf war was over in 1991. No wmd.

Yep, that’s the official story line. No WMD. No AQ ( snicker snicker), no ties to 9/11 (chuckle chuckle) No 20t of Yellow Cake or chem/bio capability ( ha ha)

You know, the reason why all that is buried is because of who was providing it all.... Can you say WWIII? Boy scout.

The cost of liberating a country and creating a fledgling representative republic indeed is high and risky- espc. if the watch changes mid stream and there is not a long term commitment to the people there. Whatever the reason for the operation was, the end state was a game changer in the Mideast- the only other free elected government in the region, save Israel.

I imagine if the allies packed up and went home after subduing Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy- the Russians or other radical forces would have owned those countries as a start, no, we stayed there in force and in de facto control politically for 60 + years, and still have a robust presence today. Wonder why? Vacuums by nature get filled with whatever is fastest to move.... Laws of Nature.

One major complaint I had with XXXX (the OPLAN) was that paragraph 4 ( Civil Military Operations) which was the responsibility of the State Department had nothing of substance filled in- meaning, there was no serious plan as of May 2003 for governance and stabilization- that by doctrine is a civil authority mission, not a military one. Security is the military role after conflict, stabilization is the role of State. Who was State then?

I truly believe State thought that the combat would take a year- in spite of What Franks was saying; that would give them time to flesh out a plan as territory was reclaimed. War is not like that when modern tools and strategies to reduce capability are applied.

You would have created a situation far removed from reality in your scenario. True, KSA is not our friend. Now that we are pushing the envelop of oil exports, they are hopping mad once again, this time for economic cause though ( screw-em).

This is why Trump is so pertinent- he has no ties to any of these state actors, he is a business man, and the bottom line in his business as POTUS seems to be the US population, working class through investor, and it is working out quite well.

I hope we never see another careerist politician in the White House.

While I was privy to much more intel than you would ever know, I also know that I was a lowly Engineer Major in the field and in several Hqs, so my access and understanding is incomplete too.

Concur. I was also an O-4, though my first exposure to the sandbox was as a treadhead in Afghanistan, and got to Iraq only by virtue of helping a contractor write up his plan for convoy security escorts between FSBs in the days of the CPA. Once the Iraquis took over letting out he contracts, the bribes got excessive, and back to A-stan I went.

As in Vietnam, we gave them the time to do something with it. That they did not says a lot about them, primarily their political leadership, our foes who knew how to exploit our blundering, and our own too-short short term goals and long term *see what develops vagueness. Our own political leadership was nothing to brag about and set no examples for others, either.

On the other hand, as with Vietnam, we may well end up more victorious than we had expected.

While I was privy to much more intel than you would ever know, I also know that I was a lowly Engineer Major in the field and in several Hqs, so my access and understanding is incomplete too.

On the other hand, as with Vietnam, we may well end up more victorious than we had expected.

That makes sense for them.

The Iraqi’s are use to the T-72 based system, have some infrastructure to support it, and it’s a cheaper tank to purchase and sustain, by a long shot.

The M1 was a great tank, but it’s antiquated. In today’s world of >1,200 mm penetration HEAT ATGMs, tandem warheads that are top and dive attack, etc. this tank is showing it’s age.

It was a great concept when it came out. The design incorporated lessons learned, it was an excellent design, used state of the art technology, yet was made to be rugged, rebuilt, to be upgraded in the future... It was the ultimate tank when the A1 variant was fielded in the mid 80s (it became the gold standard everyone compared themselves to). But today this is an old machine which is evolutionarily seen at it’s end. Technology and the change in threat models have made this tank out dated.

The only thing keeping this old machine alive today is that we are not in a serious conflict with a formidable enemy leveraging newer technologies against us in great numbers. The M1 today is like a P51 Mustang in 1965, and you can keep trying to bolt new shit to it to make it a viable platform and be somewhat effective, but it’s conceptually outdated.

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