With 31 M1 Abrams main battle tanks now headed for Ukraine, there’s been a great deal of discussion about how these armored behemoths will fare against the Russian tanks they were originally designed to square off against. Fortunately, this won’t be the first time American Abrams will find themselves sighting in on dated Soviet-era armor, and few interactions better reflect this power mismatch than the legendary Battle of 73 Easting of the Persian Gulf War.The Battle of 73 Easting is often referred to as one of the great tank battles of the 20th century, with just nine M1A1 Abrams tanks, 13 M3A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and 120 American soldiers squaring off against a much larger force of well-trained Iraqi Republican Guard Tawakalna and 10th Armored Divisions.To make matters worse for the numerically inferior American forces, the Iraqi troops and armor were embedded in a defensive posture, just waiting for the chance to sink their teeth into the as-yet unproven American tanks. When the fighting began, however, a combination of sound military strategy employed by a then-28-year-old H.R. McMaster and superior military technology laid waste to the Iraqi forces, proving unequivocally that the one-two punch of M1 Abrams main battle tanks and M3A2 Bradley fighting vehicles were more than just effective in the fight. They were downright devastating.