“During the Gulf War in 1991 he was a captain commanding Eagle Troop of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of 73 Easting.[2] During that battle, though significantly outnumbered and encountering the enemy by surprise as McMaster’s lead tank crested a dip in the terrain, the nine tanks of Eagle Troop destroyed over eighty Iraqi Republican Guard tanks and other vehicles without loss, due to the Abrams tank being state-of-the-art armored technology while the Iraqi equipment included grossly outdated T-62s and -72s of the Soviet era as well as similarly dated Type 69s of Chinese manufacture.[3]
McMaster was awarded the Silver Star...”
Not to detract from McMaster’s fine performance in combat, but you raise a great point about the superiority of the M-1 tank over the Iraqi tanks. I would add that American tankers were also finely trained, as well as finely led.
American Armor units cut through Iraqi units across the board.
I had a friend who was an Armor Company Commander when we crossed the line of departure. They had a primary and a secondary objective designated. A tertiary had been assigned, just to check that box on the planning checklist.
When they came upon their primary, they could see and engage the enemy, before the enemy could even see them. They fanned out, and were well drilled in dividing targets among themselves, so everyone kept busy. The stabilized guns and sights on their tanks allowed them to fire with great accuracy, while driving fast, off road. By the time they got to their objective (at a full charge), every enemy vehicle and emplacement was already destroyed, so they just swept the area with machine guns and drove on.
They were sitting on their tertiary objective so fast, it had everybody’s head spinning. No losses, no equipment failures.