Posted on 11/19/2019 6:49:44 AM PST by Lowell1775
The U.S. Army’s 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.
“We’re 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 Army’s 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. It’s 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 plant’s 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.
Did he command a Ronson?
The advantage of the turbine engines is that they can run on diesel. They basically can run on anything that is liquid and flammable, up to and including perfume. The Abrams gas turbines were the only ones to actually be able to meet the then-NATO requirements for a multifuel vehicle.
There is a conventional diesel engine option for the Abrams offered by General Dynamics, though nobody has ordered it yet.
M1s have backup optical sighting systems.
If the commies had come across the border, our guys wouldn't have lasted a week.
OH, BTW, our artillery guys were using both 105 and 155 split trails, and the range finders were guys with physical stakes and eye pieces.
We were using the same "technology" that Lewis and Clark used in the 1800s.
Other than absolute courage {and the Might of God} I have no idea how we won WWII.
Our guys were so out gunned {but we just kept making more stuff} that we sacrificed men and machines until we wore them out.
Not any more - they are scrapping the remaining M1A1s that they can’t sell to foreign powers.
What would this EMP proof power source be? Is such a thing even possible? Now if one gave the crew the ability to go old school by being able to manually transverse the turret, change the elevation of the gun, manually fire the gun and optically zero in on targets, at least the crew would have some ability to continue to fight.
I think 48s or very early 60s.
Shermans did burn well though.
Not an expert here. :)
However, the tank should be expected to take a lot of damage and hopefully keep on running (for the sake of the crew).
Trophy will be getting an upgrade to make it capable against KE. Russia’s APS is already capable against KE penetrators.
Whether the idiots in DOD procurement will actually buy the upcoming upgrade as well (considering how DOD and the rest of NATO procrastinated and dragged their feet for decades to avoid fitting an APS) is another question.
There are limitations - the suspension can only handle so much weight and the powerpack can only provide so much electrical power. The Abrams does not have infinite upgradability, but it’s definitely been a shining star of the procurement system.
Power Source — depends on how much of it is electronic. An EMP destroys electronics (semiconductors). EMP shielding is designed to protect the electronics.
Also, maybe it is less important to be able to continue fighting and more important to be able to limp back to base for repairs. Although being able to fight would be useful as a defensive measure as you return to base (while the enemy is shooting at you.
The A10 is a good example of designed in redundancy survivability.
Still no convertible model. I keep sending in the suggestion but do they listen?
Didn’t you say:
“Nothing is EMP proof. Only resistant to EMP.” the only power source i can think of that would be EMP proof would be a steam engine.
Only the early Shermans pre-wet storage and other measures, and even that was over-exaggerated. That stupid Death Traps book has long since been debunked by Zaloga and the War Department/DOD archives among many others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Traps#Reception
Cooper’s duties had him looking at a disproportionate number of losses and he extrapolated his area of observation to the entire fleet - and that just turned out to be wrong. The actual crew casualties was .5-1.5 soldiers lost per hull loss - I don’t recall the exact number.
Even the early Shermans didn’t actually burn at a statistically significantly higher rate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_Sherman#Effectiveness
A Waffenamt-Prüfwesen 1 report estimated[90] that with the M4 angled 30 degrees sidewards, the Sherman’s glacis plate was invulnerable to shots from the Tiger’s 8.8 cm KwK 36 L/56[91] and that the Panther, with its 7.5 cm KwK 42 L/70, would have to close in to 100 meters (110 yd) to achieve a penetration in the same situation.[92] Although the later-model German medium and heavy tanks were greatly feared, Buckley opined “The vast majority of German tanks encountered in Normandy were either inferior or merely equal to the Sherman.”[93]
Research for tank casualties in Normandy from 6 June to 10 July 1944 conducted by the British No. 2 Operational Research concluded that, from a sample of 40 Sherman tanks, 33 tanks burned (82 percent) and 7 tanks remained unburned following an average of 1.89 penetrations. In comparison, from a sample of 5 Panzer IV’s, 4 tanks burned (80 percent) and 1 tank remained unburned, following an average of 1.5 penetrations. The Panther tank burned 14 times (63 percent) from a sample of 22 tanks and following 3.24 penetrations, while the Tiger burned 4 times (80 percent) out of a sample of 5 tanks following 3.25 penetrations.[94] John Buckley, using a case study of the British 8th and 29th Armoured Brigades, found that of their 166 Shermans knocked out in combat during the Normandy campaign, 94 (56.6 percent) burned out. Buckley also notes that an American survey carried out concluded that 65% of tanks burned out after being penetrated.[95] United States Army research proved that the major reason for this was the stowage of main gun ammunition in the vulnerable sponsons above the tracks. A U.S. Army study in 1945 concluded that only 10–15 percent of wet stowage Shermans burned when penetrated, compared to 60–80 percent of the older dry-stowage Shermans.[96]
All-mechanical diesel.
Note my tag line.
They did make a convertible. It’s called the M104 Wolverine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M104_Wolverine
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