@matty @sickburnbro the abrams is the pride and joy of the mic and often claimed to be truly invincible because the only times they've been destroyed were friendly fire incidents in the gulf war. if they get destroyed it's a huge blow to the credibility of the us military, the manufacturers, and the us as a whole. the tanks go from "invincible trump card" that can be used for sales and political bargaining to "overpriced overheavy overcomplicated piece of shit" which would cripple the us's ability to meaningfully persuade people with both military threats and offers to lease their equipment

basically, footage of dead abrams hits the us in the wallet and in the credibility, and the us operates on a doctrine that propaganda and lies rules everything else. you can't lie your way out of problems if your credibility gets blown up