Do dental chews actually clean a dog's teeth?

Across the reviewers and communities we read, the consensus is that VOHC-accepted chews can meaningfully reduce plaque and tartar through mechanical scraping and, in some formulas, active ingredients like delmopinol. However, high-trust r/dogs and r/puppy101 threads repeatedly stress that chews supplement rather than replace brushing, and that dogs who gulp chews whole get little benefit because the chew never scrapes the teeth.