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Unfortunately, Secretary Rumsfeld's brain trust and the current Army leadership seem to think the M-1 is obsolete, a relic of the past.

The M1 is very likely the last MBT the US will ever build, though they will undoubtedly remain in service for many years. There are two major problems that are obsoleting them slowly but surely. The problems aren't so evident in Iraq, but they exist nonetheless.

First, is the relative lack of mobility. The US no longer views the battlefield in a 1.5-dimensional "lines of battle" model, but rather uses a 2.5-dimensional model of where it can position its pieces. The relative lack of airlift capability for the M1 severely limits its ability to be deployed in this model, as it must essentially follow the classic 1.5-dimensional battlefield model. For the US to fully exercise its technological advantages in future combat, it really needs all its platforms to be able to deployable anywhere in a 2.5-dimensional battlefield rather than just on the front lines. Hence the trend towards lighter vehicles that can be easily airlifted to more fully exploit the battlefield.

The second is the obsolescence of heavy armor in general. The US is literally only a few years away from deploying light, compact, rapid-fire weapon systems that can defeat all existing and projected future armor systems and with more range than any tank gun. We are quickly coming into a scenario where, for purposes other than stopping small arms fire, armor is no protection at all because the anti-armor systems operate at parameters that make it physically impossible to design an armor system capable of withstanding it for all intents and purposes. This essentially eliminates the usefulness of having heavy MBT armor. Much better to have swarms of small, very fast, very smart light armored vehicles running around on the battlefield with loads of these new classes of devastatingly lethal anti-armor and other weapon technologies. Not only do you get more bang for the buck, but it is much more mobile and arguably more survivable when the full complement of battlefield technologies are implemented. We will slowly but surely see other countries start producing weapon systems that will essentially make the value of the armor itself fairly dubious; even if it is relatively effective now, it won't stay that way.

The future of the battlefield is swarms of intelligent, largely automated, extremely mobile light-armor vehicles that redefine "lethality" on the battlefield. Humans will largely be pushing "start" and "stop" buttons, with computers doing the actual fighting and coordination. Rather than trying to fight the increasingly unwinnable scenario of keeping our armor survivable, the US has opted to develop weapon systems that are so fast and so lethal that the enemy never has a chance to take an honest shot at the vehicles. This is a sane choice; tests and research seem to indicate that our new weapon systems would slaughter the Abrams on the battlefield, and the Abrams is a pretty survivable tank currently. The DoD R&D guys have a pretty good track record of finding good medicine for battlefield problems way ahead of the curve.

"The second is the obsolescence of heavy armor in general. The US is literally only a few years away from deploying light, compact, rapid-fire weapon systems that can defeat all existing and projected future armor systems and with more range than any tank gun."

The Third reason in the future will be remote-controlled unmanned battle tanks; the Fourth will be fully automated robotic tanks a generation after the remote-controlled unmanned tanks.

Still, the M1 will be around for a while, as having a well-trained, disciplined, motivated human inside an Abrams continues to have enormous military advantages. In fact, it may well turn out that it is the Air Force that makes the remote-controlled unmanned transition first, followed only much later by the Army. Boots on the ground and grunts in the tanks may simply be more difficult to obsolete than jet-fighters that already fire robotic missiles.

I agree with almost all your points. The battlefield will be very different when over the horizon non-ballistic missile technology comes on line. The Future Combat Vehicle seems to fit that type of battlefield, assuming the technologies can be developed.

My point is simply that on the PRESENT battlefield, the M-1 is king, most certainly not obsolete. We need to maintain and upgrade the M-1/Bradley force until the FCV comes online, which I assume will be about 20 years, since the current projection is about half that. The Battleship/Aircraft Carrier analogy is very popular. What I'm saying is don't make the shift from Battleships to Carriers in 1900.

I do think the mobility issue is overdone. A month or so ago I saw a think tank study indicating there isn't enough airlift to deploy the Stryker brigades by air, either, and recommended prepositioning stocks in strategic locations - the same solution we've used for decades with main battle tanks. The bottom line is we don't have enough air and sea lift and it doesn't make sense to structure the force around perhaps wrong perceptions of mobility rather that the battlefield threat. We should structure the lift to the force, not vice versa.

I also think the push to dump M-1 units in favor of Stryker units was misguided. I agree a mix is needed and Stryker can be useful in peacekeeping operations or low intensity warfare, but it would be a mistake to take on a Syria or North Korea with Stryker. Stryker was conceieved after Kosovo when the conventional wisdom was that symetrical battles were a thing of the past and what we need is a force primarily for missions other than war. Since that hasn't been true during the recorded history of mankind, I knew the CW was wrong, I just didn't expect the next big war to come along this soon!