M1A1 Abrams (1991 Gulf War)
The major upgrade of the Abrams, centered around a new 120 mm smoothbore gun and a series of protection improvements and other upgrades, designed to keep pace with contemporary advanced Soviet designs such as the T-64A, upgraded T-72, and the T-80.
External differences are easy to spot: The turret is the “long” model, at the rear with a rear bustle rack for improved stowage, a thicker front armour, new blast doors, new engine compartment access doors, reinforced suspensions, pressurized NBC system, the absence of drive sprocket ring retainer, and moreover the shorter and thicker gun barrel and more massive bore recuperator.
(source:M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank - Tanks Encyclopedia)
The Abrams remained untested in combat until the Persian Gulf War in 1991. The M1A1 was superior to Iraq’s Soviet-era T-55 and T-62 tanks, as well as Iraqi assembled Russian T-72s, and locally produced copies (Asad Babil tank). The T-72s like most Soviet export designs lacked night vision systems and then-modern rangefinders, though they did have some night fighting tanks with older active infrared systems or floodlights—just not the latest starlight scopes and passive infrared scopes as on the Abrams. Only 23 M1A1s were taken out of service in the Persian Gulf. Some others took minor combat damage, with little effect on their operational readiness. Very few M1 tanks were hit by enemy fire, and none were destroyed as a direct result of enemy fire, with no fatalities due to enemy fire.
The M1A1 was capable of making kills at ranges in excess of 2,500 meters (8,200 ft). This range was crucial in combat against tanks of Soviet design in Desert Storm, as the effective range of the main gun in the Soviet/Iraqi tanks was less than 2,000 meters (6,600 ft) (Iraqi tanks could not fire anti-tank missiles like their Russian counterparts). This meant Abrams tanks could hit Iraqi tanks before the enemy got in range—a decisive advantage in this kind of combat. In friendly fire incidents, the front armor and fore side turret armor survived direct APFSDS hits from other M1A1s. This was not the case for the side armor of the hull and the rear armor of the turret, as both areas were penetrated at least in two occasions by friendly DU ammunition during the Battle of Norfolk.
(source:History of the M1 Abrams - Wikipedia)
