Posted on 11/19/2019 6:49:44 AM PST by Lowell1775
The U.S. Armys newest tank in the summer of 2019 should enter service with the first large unit to use the type.
The Army in late 2017 accepted the very first M-1A2C Abrams tanks. Nearly two years later the service has enough of the new vehicles to equip an entire brigade.
Were in the throes of getting that together, Hank Kennedy, a manager at General Dynamics tank plant in Lima Ohio, told Lima News.
The first brigade is critical because we need to get [them] into the soldiers hands so they can get trained on it and everything else, Kennedy said.
A U.S. Army armored brigade typically operates around 100 tanks. The Army has 16 armored brigades as part of a total force of 58 combat brigades.
The M-1A2C is the latest variant of Abrams to enter production. Congress in 2019 gave the Army $1.5 billion to buy 135 M-1s from General Dynamics, extending a program that began in the 1970s.
The Armys budget proposal for 2020 asks for 174 new and upgraded tanks.
The new M-1A2C Abrams boasts new active and passive protection that could help to protect it from the latest enemy weaponry. The most obvious new features of the M-1A2C are the vehicle's Trophy active-protection systems and an additional slab of armor on the front of its turret.
Trophy uses a radar to detect incoming missiles and rockets then fires tiny projectiles to intercept the munitions. The Army also is back-fitting Trophy to some older M-1 models.
The first M-1 entered service with the Army in 1980. The original M-1 packed a 105-millimeter gun. The Army bought 3,300 of them. In 1984 the Army added thicker armor to a batch of new M-1s and called these 900 tanks M-1IPs. The U.S. military no longer uses these early M-1s.
A major upgrade in 1986 added a new 120-millimeter gun. This is the M-1A1. The Army and Marines bought 5,200 copies through 1992. Roughly a thousand M-1A1s still are in service with the Marines and Army National Guard. Another 3,000 or so are in storage.
There are a bewildering number of subvariants of the M-1A1, each boasting incremental improvements in drive-train, armor and electronics. The latest upgrade, the M-1A1SA, has a factory-fresh engine, digital electronics and a top-secret armor blend that includes a thin layer of uranium.
The Army plans to retire all M-1A1SAs by 2025.
The M-1A2 appeared in 1992. Its pretty much a new tank, with better armor than the basic M-1A1 plus a new internal layout and fresh sensors that together allow the gunner and the commander independently to search for targets.
The Army has acquired around 1,500 M-1A2s and converted most of them to the System Enhancement Package Version 2 standard. The M-1A2SEPv2, which General Dynamics describes as a "digital tank," features high-end computers, a remotely-operated machine gun on the turret and a dozen batteries that allow the tank quietly to operate its sensors without turning on its engine.
The M-1A2C in essence is a better-protected M-1A2SEPv2 that's also easier to upgrade. In addition to Trophy and more armor, the new tank boasts more electrical power, better diagnostic systems and a data-link that's compatible with programmable ammunition types that are in development.
"The Abrams M-1A2C can host any mature technology the Army deems operationally relevant," the Army stated.
The latest version of the M-1 arguably is the best tank in the world. For now.
Russia and China both are developing new fighting vehicles. Russia's high-tech Armata tank has run into development problems. China successfully has fielded hundreds of new Type 99A tanks that roughly are similar to mid-generation, digital M-1s.
But China has struggled to adapt old-style doctrine to its new armor. In early 2019, the Chinese army's 81st Group Army, riding in Type 99As, lost a mock battle during a war game in Mongolia, Global Times reported, citing the state-run CCTV television news network.
"We rushed with the Type 99A too close to the frontline, which did not optimize the use of the tank's combat capability," CCTV quoted Xu Chengbiao, a battalion commander in the brigade, as saying.
"We only studied the capabilities of older tanks, but have not completely understood new ones," Zhao Jianxin, another battalion commander, reportedly told CCTV.
Anticipating the day when Russia resumes modernizing its tank corps and China figures out how to use its own new fighting vehicles, the U.S. Army already is planning a new M-1 variant to follow the M-1A2C.
The "cornerstone technology" of the M-1A2D is a new infrared sensor, according to the Army. The newest Abrams will also sport a new laser range-finder and will be compatible with artificial intelligence that could make the tank more autonomous, the Army stated.
The plant in Lima, the only factory in the United States that builds tanks, nearly is doubling its workforce in anticipation of large orders for new tanks.
Kennedy told Lima News the tank plants workforce has grown from around 500 to more than 600 since a hiring spree started in late 2018. He said he expects the workforce to expand to 700 by the end of 2019 and exceed 900 in 2020.
David Axe serves as Defense Editor of the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad. This article first appeared earlier this year.
Target, cease fire! My suspicion: we’re about to see a replay of the *M1970* tank development program. Oh, and look for an automatic loader for the main gun, to accommodate female crewmembers on tank crews.
My forty-seven pairs of flint-steel roadwheels are in depot condition. Their tires of spun beryllium monocrystal, woven to deform rather than compress, all have 97% or better of their fabric unbroken. The immediate terrain is semi-arid. The briefing files inform me this is typical of the planet. My track links purr among themselves as they grind through scrub vegetation and the friable soil, carrying me to my assigned mission.
,br> There is a cataclysmic fuel-air explosion to the east behind me. The glare is visible for 5.3 seconds, and the ground will shake for many minutes as shock waves echo through the planetary mantle.
Had my human superiors so chosen, I could be replacing Saratoga at the spearhead of the attack. The rear elements of the infantry are in sight now. They look like dung beetles in their hard suits, crawling backward beneath a rain of shrapnel. I am within range of their low-power communications net. "Hold what you got, troops," orders the unit's acting commander. "Big Brother's come to help!"
I am not Big Brother. I am Maldon, a Mark XXX Bolo of the 3rd Battalion, Dinochrome Brigade. The lineage of our unit goes back to the 2nd South Wessex Dragoons. In 1944, we broke the last German resistance on the path to Falaisethough we traded our flimsy Cromwells against the Tigers at a ration of six to one to do it.
The citizens do not need to know what the cost is. They need only to know that the mission has been accomplished. The battle honors welded to my turret prove that I have always accomplished my mission. ... .
--Keith Laumer, FOR THE HONOR OF THE REGIMENT, published 1993.
When the truly dreadful M247 Sergeant York DIVision Air Defense [DIVAD] system was, uh, *developed* in the early 1980s, an alternate vehicle was proposed, consisting of an M48A3 tank chassis with a GAU-8 in the turret mount. After $6.97 billion dollars later, A Ford Aerospace initial production run of 50 vehicles, a twin 40mm Bofors gun not terribly different from the WWII/Korean M19 *Twin Forty* and the Vietnam- era M42 *Duster, a live fire range test in which the unit's F16-derived radar locked on a nearby whirring latrine fan and successfully engaged it, and a well-publicised congressional inquiry that included a Tennessee congressman reading a letter from the surviving descendants of MOH recipient Your to please not use their family hero's name on the Army's expensive new latrine killer, the alternative plan was dusted off.
It had no chance. The horrible fowlup that preceded it had killed its future, budget, plans and all.
A few soldier on as gate guards, museum pieces and fish breeding sanctuaries. The last one I saw was earmarked for an Army museum, and they kept it canvas-covered as if they were ashamed of it. *pics here*
One of the earlier contenders had been a 6-barrelled 37mm Gatling AA gun on a stretched M113A3 chassis, testnamed T249 and generally known as Vigilante. But the Army really wanted a tank chassis platform, so it lost out to the M247. The GAU-8 idea may have been an idea to fuse the various programs together to produce an even better defense from flying latrines.
One T249 survives. Hope it lasts longer than the Patton Museum did.
A CH47 whirleypig's exhaust works real well too. Additionally, if you need a means of lighting a troop area at night, starting a cooking fire, or entertaining morale-weary personnel, just step to the side of a CH47 ramp while wearing a snipers ghillie suit. If the crew chief isn't overcome with laughter, he may take pity on you and hose you down with the fire extinguisher bottle.
Do not ask me how I know this. But you can put it on the list of good things to learn from other people's mistakes.
But no belly escape hatch for the driver. I hope that's for better mine resistance and not just a cost-cutting feature. It bothers me.
I don’t remember hearing about the deaths back then, but I was doing intel jobs and in an armored cav squadron in Germany in the 80s. I learned about the initial prototype problems being resolved when I saw an old platoon sgt I knew when we discovered we were both in the Pentagon.
The stereoscopic coincidence range finder worker manually too.
AAAACK! Geese in my rangefinder! Yep, the M60 and '60A1 had a combat engineer's 10-cap hand-twist *hellbox* as an nalternate means of touching off a 105 round's electric primer. And yep the steroscopic rangefinders were fairly manual-reliable, though mud splashes could shut them down pretty quick. In an M48, the old ,30 caliber coaxial M37 gun would hit to about the same place as a main gun riund out to about 1100-1200 meters, with the later M219 7.62mm coax in an M60, the range was more like 900 meters to coincide with the 105mm main gun.
I was amused as hell in 1973 to discover that the Israelis used the same technique with their old leftover WWII M1919A5 Browning MG's, rebarrelled to 7,62mm...and which they used at an even 1000 meters. When you saw the tracers bounce off the other guy's armor, !Yore
My tanker platoon sergeant friend had been involved with the final pre-fielding tests, which I think were done at Ft. Bliss by the 3d ACR. I don’t guarantee my memory is correct on Ft. Bliss, but I do know he was in the final testing group.
That hatch was a bitch in the M-60s. You sat more upright as well. Driving (everything, always) buttoned up was much nicer in the M-1. The seat was reclined just about horizontal. Accelerator is like a motorcycle twisting the grips. It was weird at first.
Dont tease.
right??? my bad...
it had split tracks too, two tracks on each side...
each track had a sprocket and ran on three road wheels so it was a kind of four track drive
Better than that. I’ve seen setups like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1O2jcfOylU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbLshnfu0wY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psoLXEBmfRg
Thanks! Fun stuff.
Thinking about building one myself. Looks pretty straight forward but there are some nuances. Plus, you are working with some very high voltages (the line transformer secondary).
Interesting too that you can drive the oscillating circuit with a transistor. Must be a very high voltage transistor. That is how you get the music.
There are several plans.
Also, I have seen them and they are loud! And they generate a bunch of RF energy and noise which can really mess up nearby electronics. I wonder if my neighbors would appreciate it.
I always thought two half-tracks end-to-end on either side might be a workable option, with a drive sprocket for each of the four sets of tracks.
Run into a mine and lose the front half of one side's drive traction, you might still be able to reverse out of a place you'd likely wish you hadn't driven into.
100%
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