Main Battle Tanks

I have been discovering that Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] has a ton of information about main battle tanks.

I started reading about the vaunted Merkava tank, and how the space between the inner and outer hulls is filled with diesel fuel (which both efficiently uses space and is a defense against HEAT rounds).

Then, of course, I wanted to know what the difference was between HEAT rounds and other types of main gun ammunition, such as armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot penetrators.

The different types of munitions work better against certain types of armor, although the latest Western main battle tanks all seem to use Chobham armour. Other tanks (such as Russian ones) use reactive armor, which can be defeated by tandem charge weapons, such as TOW or Hellfire missiles.

There is also an extensive article on the M1 Abrams, and its performance in several Gulf War battles such as the Battle of Al Busayyah and the Battle of Medina Ridge.

Then there is an interesting footnote about the performance of the Lion of Babylon main battle tanks in the first Gulf War:

"The Iraqi Generals wasted tons and tons of HEAT and even sabot tank shells in indirect fire missions from reveted positions,[41] achieving absolutely nothing against coalition troops before being located and wiped out by helicopter or A-10 air strikes..."

"However, the destruction of the Tawakalna Division (the bulk of it comprised of Lion of Babylon tanks) by the US 1st and 3rd Armored Divisions cost the Allied forces too much time, and consequently they were unable to destroy other Republican Guard divisions before ordered to cease-fire. Many authors maintain that the very existence of Saddam's Regime for the next 12 years can be attribute to this fact, since the surviving Republican Guard units crushed the Shiite and Kurd risings right after the Iraqi defeat in Desert Storm.[42]"