Russian tanks, "Better than M1?!" REALITY CHEEEECK!
To whoever said the T-64 was superior to the Abrams, please go read the Osprey series? Steven Zaloga and other world class historians would unanimously disagree with you! And here's why!
Ever since the arrival of the L-7 105mm rifled cannon, the Soviets have always been the ones with the inferior guns. The T-54/55 had the advantage early on, but once the L-7 arrived with newer tanks, it quickly lost the advantage. (The L-7 had a longer range, better penetration. The M48 and the Centurion both had superior crew layouts and optics.)
The T-62 was essentially an overly hyped-up T-54/55, whose sole reason to exist was because the USSR wanted the 115mm gun. (Russia was terrified of the 105mm L7 being - not because it was powerful - but because it was 5mms bigger than their 100mm D-10T! (OMG!!! THE HORROR.) Oh, and for the record? Once the D-10T received better AP? It outperform the 115mm...) It was neither "good" nor "equal" with its Western counterparts, (until it received APFDS rounds) and according to the Opsrey publishing on the T-62, the T-62 fared terribly in Israel against its Western rivals. (Was no match for the M60A1s or Centurions that it faced - Had inferior optics, FCS and and a vastly inferior crew layout)
The T-64 was essentially (which all Russians tend to make out as their greatest ever tank) an unreliable fiasco, whose autoloader had major reliability issues. It was also the first tank to place ammunition under the turret (oh, how effective an idea that turned out to be! *Jack in the Box!*), automatically making it an inferior machine to the early M1 Abrams in crew safety! Its fire control system was also pathetic by modern standards, being unable to compete with the Abrams or even the Chieftain Mk V for that matter.
The T-72 wasn't really a "threat" until 1974. (After the Russians spent 3 years fixing the damn URAL model.) The T-72A (Ural being too pathetic to even mention - URAL had its FCS, optics, etc. replaced and gutted with newer equipment, due to unsatisfactory.), despite having a 3 rear overhaul, still proved not the greatest thing on the block when compared to much earlier variants of the Chieftain and M60s. The T-72A's FCS (TPD-K1 FCS) was a fully manual fire control system, which DID NOT calculate cross wind or ballistic errors and suffered from accuracy issues. According to the Opsrey Publishing on the T-72 MBT, Russian crews rarely fired on the move (did it for propaganda showing, etc.) and had trouble hitting targets beyond 2,000 meters due to accuracy problems with the main gun. It (like the T-64 and T-80) kept its ammo both under the turret and in the crew compartments, making it a deathtrap. (22 rounds stored, along with propellant casings, inside the turret, with another 22 in a big, bulky, unreliable auto loading "cassette" underneath the turret.) As for crew comfort, the T-72 was anything but "comfortable" - the gunner sat almost squished against his day/night sights, with almost no room to maneuver. Both the tank commander and the gunner had 3 rounds of ammo stowed directly behind them, along with propellant casings.
I would also like to point out the fact that most Western MBTs by the 1980s had vastly superior thermal optics, giving them a major advantage in night engagements. Western tanks, historically, have always been superior to their Eastern counterparts in crew comfort, optics, guns and (not until the 1970s-80s) crew protection.
