Depends on what type of kill, mobility or catastrophic. Mobility meaning it cant move but still shoot and function. Catastrophic meaning completely destroyed. Also experience of the crew. No an abrams is not completely indestructable, but it will take a heck of a weapon system to do any damage.
We can have all kinds of opinions but until we have a full scale mechanized war tank vs tank we may never know. M1s in Iraq are being primarily used in support of MOUT(military operations urban terrain) operations, in case you haven't noticed the insurgency does not have tanks. The M1 has never really been pushed to the limit in tank vs tank warfare. Desert storm is where they were put to use in total warfare. Yes they were highly succesful against soviet T-series tanks but not top of the line. Since then the M1 until Iraq has been taking it easy, in the Balkans they were just being used for patrols,checkpoints and a show of force.
Unless we have an all out war with a country that has a serious tank like the Merkava,T-90, challenger,leopard, lecerc and so forth we may never know. In desert storm M1s were hit by other M1s because of the fratricide problem. So we can say that heat or sabot round from the abrams can take out an M1. Well guess what, the main gun on a merkava can fire the same round as an abrams. So if a merkava is using the same round as an abrams, then what is going to determine what tank is better?
The survivability and crew experience are probaly the main factors. Speed,manueverability are other important factors. Given todays current world situations alot of countries are using there armor in low intensity conflicts and guerrila wars in stead of full scale war. The recent conflict with Israel and Hezzballoh is a prime example. A conventional army(IDF) with one of the most sophistaced tank in the world(merkava4) going up against a militia with no armor. Details are sketchy but somemerkavas destroyed wheter catstrophic or mobility I dont know but they were pitted against russian anti take weapon systems. Any enemy well entrenched in favorable terrain for them is going to make it difficult for tanks. Especially with out support, such as infantry protecting flanks, artillery support, engineers breaching and so forth. Abrams are running into problems with AT weapons in Iraq, the previous responses to this thread have explained this.
Conclusion, unless every country with a serious tank all agree to put there tank up against another and have some type of elimination tournament to determine the biggest baddest tank we will never know. Now a days tanks are being destroyed by AT weapons and landmines, not other tanks. You dont have to destroy a tank to pieces to stop a tank, obstacle, denying terrain can be just as effective depending on the situation. So if we go to war with the Israelis than we can hope to learn which is better the Merkava or Abrams.
So unless we want every country witha good tank to go to war against each other we can just wonder. Kind of like rooting for your favorite sports team, until they play against each other we will never know.
