page_title: Tanks of the post–Cold War era
section_title: Gulf War/Iraq war
hierarchical_section_title: Tanks of the post–Cold War era / Developments in Post Cold War / Gulf War/Iraq war
context_page_description: The post–Cold War era is the period in world history from the collapse of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991 to the present. During the Cold War, the Soviet domination of the Warsaw Pact led to effective standardization on a few tank designs. In comparison, France, Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom had previously developed their own tank designs, but now tried to standardize their designs, while the smaller nations of NATO purchased or adapted these designs.
  The fall of the eastern bloc brought changes as the United States Military cut much of its expenditure, though the level rose again to comparable heights after the War on Terror started in 2001.
  After the Cold War, tank development continued into a third-generation main battle tanks and because of the effectiveness of antitank weapons, the technology advanced dramatically as well. Tanks became more survivable and their armour became thicker and much more effective.
context_section_description: The Gulf War saw the US Marines still charging in with their M60 Pattons while the rest of the tank forces had Abrams.
  The Iraqi forces were initially regular army units, equipped with  tanks such as T-54/55 tanks and T-62s. The Coalition main battle tanks, such as the U.S. M1 Abrams, British Challenger 1, and Kuwaiti M-84AB were vastly superior to the Chinese Type 69 and domestically built T-72 tanks used by the Iraqis, with crews better trained and armoured doctrine better developed.
  The majority of Iraq armored forces still used old Chinese Type 59s and Type 69s, Soviet-made T-55s from the 1950s and 1960s, and some poor quality Asad Babil tanks (domestically assembled tank based on Polish T-72 hulls with other parts of mixed origin). These machines were not equipped with up-to-date equipment, such as thermal sights or laser rangefinders, and their effectiveness in modern combat was very limited.
  The Iraqis failed to find an effective countermeasure to the thermal sights and sabot rounds used by the Coalition tanks. This equipment enabled them to engage and destroy Iraqi tanks from more than three times the range that Iraqi tanks could engage coalition tanks. The Iraqi crews used training rounds against the U.S. and British tanks. These rounds (purchased in great number during the Iran–Iraq War due to their cheap price) had soft steel penetrators and thus no hope of penetrating the advanced Chobham Armour of the Coalition tanks.
  In the Iraqi war in 2003, an Iraqi division the 6th Armored Division of the Iraqi Army. which was equipped with T-55s and BMP-1s defending the control of key bridges over the Euphrates River and the Saddam Canal at Nasiriyah, were decimated by US Marines with M1 Abrams, and the division as a unit rendered incapable for combat during the Battle of Nasiriyah in March 2003, during the invasion.
  In addition to the T-54/55 and T-62 tanks that Iraq had, the most feared to US armoured forces were the  T-72 tanks in the Iraqi forces. Only Republican Guard divisions were equipped with Iraqi-modified T-72s. Many of the Iraqi T-72s were dug-in or hidden in groves, and then used to ambush the US or British tanks. In the war, the Iraqi T-72s were the preferred target for Apache helicopters and A-10s, in an attempt to diminish the combat power of Republican Guard divisions. The only chance for the Asad Babil T-72s against American tanks was to lure them to close range combat, or trying to ambush them from dug-in positions.
  But even in those conditions, the M1s usually prevailed, as proven in circumstances like the Battle of Baghdad, and the drive to the capital, where dozens of Iraqi MBTs were obliterated, or near Mahmoudiyah, south of Baghdad, April 3, 2003, (Iraqi Freedom) when US tanks engaged their counterparts from just 50 yards, shattering seven enemy T-72s without losses. The Lion of Babylon T-72 was utterly outclassed by the M1 Abrams, the Challenger and by any other contemporary Western main battle tank during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
caption: US Army recognition poster of T-54/55 series tanks
exif: {}