Footage taken from Ramadi in 2015 shows an M1 Abrams eating an unknown type of anti-tank guided missile system. Miraculously, the crew survives and the turret stays attached to the vehicle.

If you've at all been watching the war in Ukraine, or the Syrian Civil War, then you've seen what happens to a T-series tank that gets hit by an ATGM system of any type. Without fail, the ammunition inside of the tank cooks off, causing the tank's turret to go airborne, and the absolute immolation of the crew inside of the tank is also a sure bet. You almost never see the tank crew escaping from a T-series tank when struck by an ATGM, and this video is a perfect example of why that is.

There a few major design differences between the M1 series and old Soviet style tanks. Chief among those differences is the way ammunition is stored inside of an M1 versus how it is stored inside of the Soviet designed armor. In the M1, the ammunition is stored in a separate secure compartment away from the crew. Due to the location of the ammunition, damaged ammunition that sympathetically detonates or cooks off will cause separate hatches on the turret to blow off, allowing a fireball to shoot sky high. Fortunately for the crew, while this is something that is probably terrifying to experience, they're protected in the crew compartment from this blast. In Soviet tanks however, this is not the case.

When ammunition inside of a Soviet designed T-series tank sympathetically detonates or cooks off, it causes a catastrophic failure of the entire tank, often resulting in the tank's turret being sent directly towards the stratosphere.