The T-90's reactive armor explodes.
Via social media
When two Ukrainian M-2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles recently attacked a Russian T-90 tank in Stepove, outside Avdiivka in northeastern Ukraine, ultimately disabling the more heavily armed and armored tank, the battle almost ended in a catastrophe the Ukrainian crews.
One of the 30-ton Bradleys, assigned to the Ukrainian Army's 47th Mechanized Brigade, fired a few shots from its 25-millimeter autocannon before breaking off and speeding away, allowing a second Bradley to continue the attack at a distance of nearly 100 meters could advance a few tens of meters.
The three-man crew of the second M-2 – nearly 200 of which the United States donated to Ukraine last year – opened fire with 25-millimeter armor-piercing shells. And then there was a near disaster.
What follows is the statement of the M-2 crew, reported by the Ukrainian television program TCH and translated by @wartranslated. “We shot as much as we could,” Serhiy, the shooter, told TCH. “First with anti-tank. And then we had problems.”
It is not clear what these problems were. Perhaps the crew had run out of armor-piercing cartridges. In any case, it was necessary to switch to other, less powerful ammunition – probably high-explosive ammunition.
The hits Serhiy scored with armor-piercing ammunition had not yet penetrated the T-90's additional reactive armor, let alone pierced the base composite armor hundreds of millimeters thick.
It is this armor and the 125-millimeter smoothbore main gun of a T-90 that makes the tank more than a match for an M-2 with its smaller gun and much thinner armor, all things being equal.
Not all things were equal in Stepove that day. Although Serhiy completed his training in Germany just weeks before combat with the T-90, he quickly adapted. “I remembered everything,” he said, comparing operating an M-2 to playing video games.
Unable to penetrate the 51-ton T-90, Serhiy aimed at the tank's sensitive optics. “I started blinding him so he couldn’t leave.”
Dramatic drone videos of the battle show what happened next. By firing 1-pound autocannon rounds at the T-90, Serhiy triggered some of the tank's explosive reactive armor, destroying its optics.
The turret rotated, the tank went out of control – and crashed into a tree. The three crew members got out. One, the driver, was reportedly captured. Later, a Ukrainian first-person view drone took out the T-90. The wreckage remained on the battlefield days later.
Serhiy's clever tactics belie how difficult it is for an IFV – even one as well-balanced as the M-2 – to take down a tank in close combat. But his tactics also underline that in any tough fight, skill is just as important as equipment.
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