Image Source: Photo: Bravery2004
The American armed forces have always tried to acquire foreign military equipment, including armored vehicles. For example, in Vietnam they carefully studied captured Soviet PT-76, T-54 and Chinese Type 59.
After the wars in the Middle East, they had more modern T-55 and T-62 at their disposal.
After the German takeover of the German Democratic Republic, the Bundeswehr received more than 550 T-72s of Soviet, Polish and Czechoslovak production.
As a result, the Germans in 1991 sent 59 "seventy-second" overseas at once, and two years later almost three dozen more. Ammunition and spare parts were delivered along with them and, according to some reports, they were accompanied by specialists who knew the specifics of this technique.
At the new duty station, the T-72 was used a lot to designate the equipment of a likely enemy. Sometimes it came to curiosities, for example, at Fort Irwin, one of the former German cars was decorated under the order of the command under the T-80BV.
Also, former NNA tanks were used as targets during tests of various anti-tank weapons. Their 125-mm guns tested the reliability of the Abrams armor, although the data on this is still classified.
In addition to supplies from Germany, the Americans sent several dozen more Iraqi T-72s captured in Kuwait to their homeland. Some of this equipment was destroyed at landfills, while others occupied places in museums and on memorial sites in military units.
