Tanks for the Memory

One of the enduring images of the recent war in Iraq is a column of M-1A1 Abrams tanks barreling down the streets of Baghdad on a "thunder run," deep into the city. This spring, American tanks in Iraq gave a small reprise of their astounding successes in the 1991 Gulf War. The superiority of both American and British tanks (and their superbly trained crews) was beyond question. When they engaged Iraqi armor directly, their ability to get off the vital first shot and make it count was decisive.

Iraq is littered once again with the burnt-out hulks of various models of Russian-made tanks. Many of these tanks were destroyed by air strikes, of course. There were far fewer opportunities for tank-on-tank fights this time around in Iraq. Indeed, some experts think that the day of the heavy tank - the so-called main battle tank (MBT) - as the "arm of decision" in warfare may have come and gone.

American tank officers and crews have every right to be proud of their performance in Iraq, but one hopes they also have foresight and the humility to realize they may never again be able to employ main battle tanks in such a relatively benign combat environment. American and British tanks were, as it quickly turned out, immune from air attack. They rarely, if ever, encountered effective, coherent artillery barrages.

And although after action reports may turn up some exceptions, coalition tanks had relatively few problems with skilled infantry antitank attacks. The potential was there - Iraqi forces possessed a large arsenal of shoulder-fired antitank weapons including antitank guided missiles (ATGMs). One of the deadliest ATGMs, the Russian-made AT-14 Kornet, had been delivered to the Iraqis by Syria last year (200 missiles and 12 launchers).

As it was, most of the relatively few Abrams tanks knocked out of commission (not "destroyed" as the press often put it) were victims of rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) attacks. Another 30 to 40 Abrams tanks suffered minor damage from RPG hits but were not disabled.

The sight of the massive Abrams on the boulevards of Baghdad was a compelling symbol of coalition victory. But there is a melancholy aspect to that symbolism. MBTs are clanking dinosaurs, ill suited for the "Army After Next" that will fight the "new kind of war" previewed in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

It's no secret that the smaller, more agile army envisioned by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the people around him is now the thing of the day. And while the Abrams is a remarkably fast and formidable fighter once it's on the battlefield, it takes a l-o-n-n-n-g time to get it there. Weighing in at 55 tons, Abrams tanks cannot be moved quickly in any significant numbers to a theater of operations. They must arrive by ship, a process that can take months. Once in theater, they ideally should be transported to the battle area by rail or on flatbed trucks to save wear and tear on their suspensions, tracks, wheels and rollers.

A big tank is a very deceptive machine. To the unpracticed eye it is a brute force weapon - a lot of steel, a powerful motor and a big gun. In fact, it is one of the most complex pieces of machinery used in war. Inside its hulking silhouette are many complicated and failure-prone systems and subsystems. These interrelated components may be toughened to "milspec," but even that is not foolproof against the tremendous abuse they routinely endure when a tank is in operation:

Attrition of a significant percentage of its tanks is a way of life for an armored division because in addition to combat losses there will be a lot of accidents and breakdowns before, during, and after the battle. A tank driver hits an unexpected obstacle the wrong way and loses a track; an engine burns out, or one of the electrical motors that turns the turret fails; a tank slides into a deep ditch, or overturns into a stream. In each instance, the tank is as useless to a force's combat effectiveness as one that has been knocked out by enemy fire.

It must be noted that many of these losses can be recouped. American tank crews are the best in the world. They are made up, after all, of young American men - many of whom have spent weekends, wrench in hand, under the hood of a hot rod or pickup truck. U.S. experience in the modern tank era (World War II to the present) indicates that almost two thirds of combat-damaged tanks can be repaired and put back on the line. Excellent retrieval equipment, skilled repair units and frequently resourceful crews also mean that 95 percent of non-combat breakdowns will be repaired, usually in less than a week. (However, it must be noted that a week delay in combat may be six days too long.)

In combat, tanks are much more vulnerable than is generally supposed. This misconception may be partly due to half-formed impressions from World War II, the heyday of the tank. Some of the most important tanks in history, the German Tigers, the Soviet T-34s and the American Shermans, made their debuts then. Great tank battles were fought in Europe, Russia and Northern Africa. The exploits of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in the African desert, and the famed drive of General George Patton's Third Division armor deep into Europe gave tanks a somewhat mythical reputation they didn't completely deserve.

Fixed in the public mind were ideas, for instance, about tanks being able to storm their way through enemy lines, putting the enemy to flight and clearing the way for the infantry to come in and "mop up." The fact is, for all their mass, their armor, their big guns, their formidable appearance, tanks seldom sweep across the battlefield. Indeed, in classic tank war, most of a tank's movement involves a brutal hide and seek. They search out hiding places - behind the brow of a hill or a sand dune, masked by thick forest - from which they can direct effective fire at enemy tanks.

They generally cannot move without a screen of supporting infantry to help them see what is going on and to protect them from antitank attacks. Skilled infantry, even without antitank guns or missiles, can hide with relative ease from oncoming tanks. They can then make effective attacks on the sides and particularly the vulnerable rear ends of tanks that have unwisely moved ahead of their own infantry support. I have heard Marines use what they say is an old expression: "killing tanks is fun and easy." And when they are not pressed about by enemy infantry or enduring air attacks, tanks may fall victim to mines.

The fact is, tanks have had a complicated history in the 87 years since they first appeared on the battlefields of Europe during World War I. First envisioned as a method of destroying German "machine gun nests," that were such a deadly plague, tanks captured the public imagination - mechanical monsters, belching fire as they crossed the "no man's land" of what had become a static battlefield.

By the way, a little bit of history here and just a touch of irony regarding those Abrams tanks on Baghdad streets. Tanks were invented by the British, and originally called "land ships." But in an effort to keep their development secret from German spies, they were said to be mobile water tanks for use in Mesopotamia. The name "tank" stuck and, heh, heh, the name Mesopotamia didn't. In the postwar partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, it became Iraq.

The first tanks had some successes (notably at Cambrai, in November 1917) and some egregious failures, one of the biggest being the third battle of Ypres, when 200 British Mark IV tanks were decimated by German artillery as they thrashed helplessly in the muddy moonscape of shell holes between the battle lines. But all in all, as tactics were refined, tanks changed the character of the static trench war, pointing the way to the war of movement that would be so apparent in World War II.

Nonetheless, the first tanks and all those that have succeeded them have been victims of their own very expensive complexity and of the constant development of ever more effective antitank weapons to place in the hands of the individual infantryman. Now, smart bombs and laser-guided weapons make tanks' inherent vulnerabilities even more acute. But they still have a peculiar power to overawe an enemy and to move firepower forward at a critical moment - they are, after all, the modern equivalent of heavy cavalry. It will be a bold and daring commander, indeed, who would remove them from the battlefield.

The FMC XM8 was designed to combine a tank's firepower with a highly mobile, air-droppable vehicle. AGS was intended to be the Army's new combat vehicle, but in the form of a highly deployable, light-weight vehicle, with high fire-power and reconfigurable armor protection. The AGS was intended to replace the M551A1 Sheridan in the 82nd Airborne Division, and was expected to replace TOW-equipped HMMWVs in the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment (Light). A total of 237 systems were planned for procurement. The cancellation of the M8 Armored Gun System left the US Army airborne forces dangerously low on firepower.

The M8 is the result of the Armored Gun System (AGS) concept that originated in the early 1980s to provide light forces with more powerful direct support. In 1980 the Army's 9th Infantry Division was selected as the test unit for the new High Technology Light Division (HTLD). The HTLD was designed to fight in the deserts of Southwest Asia. Critical pieces of equipment needed to realize the division concept were never available. The Army was only able to field prototypes of some key pieces of the high technology equipment. In other cases, such as the Armored Gun System (AGS), it could not even field prototypes. The AGS was never successfully developed. The substitutes did not provide the capabilities envisioned by the original concepts. These failures hamstrung the division's development.

The M8 resembles a conventional tank, but only requires a crew of three through the use of an autoloader. Its main armament is a 105mm Rheinmetall XM35 tank gun. The M-35 cannon is a low-recoil gun that allows the use of previously developed 105mm ammunition. The autoloader holds 21 projectiles with nine more stowed forward near the driver. Fire control is provided by a digital fire control system with microprocessors and a databus similar to that on the M1A2. The gunner's primary sight is a day/night thermal sight and integrated laser range-finder in a stabilized mount.

Its unique features include an autoloader for the main gun, a three-man crew. and the use of modular appliqué bolt-on armor that is not used in a load-bearing application. The armored gun system used titanium appliqué armor. The M8 can be fitted with three levels of protection:

Level I against splinters
Level II against armor piercing small arms and small cannon fire
Level III against cannon up to 30mm

The 105mm M35 Gun was developed as an improvement to the existing M68 Gun. Performance goals for the M35 include decreased weight, recoil impulse reduction, same accuracy as M68, use of current 105 ammunition, front gun installation for easier maintenance field replaceable recoil cylinders, and a powered breechblock designed for autoloader compatibility. The M35 program development included design, analysis, testing, and generating the Technical Data Package (TDP) for manufacturing production. The M35 was selected as the main armament for the 105mm M8 Armored Gun System (AGS).

In its base armor configuration, it can be low-velocity airdropped from a C-130 aircraft. The AGS was the Army's only armored vehicle specifically designed for delivery by air. As such, it is considerably lighter than traditional main battle tanks and, though well armed, it is not intended to fight other tanks alone. The AGS is capable of Low Velocity Air Drop (LVAD Parachute) or more conventional roll-on/roll-off delivery by airlift aircraft. A C-130 can carry one AGS, while the larger C-141, C-17, and C-5A can carry two, three, and five AGSs respectively.

The XM8 began development as the Close Combat Vehicle Light (CCVL) in 1983. After almost a decade of test and development the contract was awarded to FMC Corporation. The crew is protected by an aluminum hull with steel armor modules and power is provided by a Detroit Diesel 6V-921A 550 hp turbo-charged V-6 diesel engine and a General Electric HMPT-500-3EC hydro-mechanical transmission. Additional armament consists of a 7.62 coaxially-mounted machine gun and a .50 caliber M2 antiaircraft machine gun.

In 1980 the Army established a need for a Mobile Protected Gun System (MPGS) to support its light divisions. Although an organizational and operational plan was developed, further actions on the MPGS program were deferred in 1982. A ROC document for the AGS was approved by the Army in 1985, but the AGS could not be sufficiently funded and was terminated in 1987. In 1989 the Commander, XVIII Airborne Corps, stated the need to replace the M551A1 Sheridan, and he endorsed the 1985 AGS ROC as needing only minor revisions to meet his requirements.

The revised AGS ROC was approved by the Army in September 1990, followed shortly thereafter by the DAB approval of its acquisition as a non-developmental item. In late 1991 The US Army issued a Request For Proposals for 300 Armored Gun System tank destroyers to replace the M551 Sheridan. The vehicle will be armed with a 105mm EX-35 rifled gun provided by the government. Six prototypes must be completed in 18 months, with production to begin in late 1994. At least a dozen makers of existing armored vehicles were expected to reply to the RFP.

After a market survey indicated that nothing "off the shelf" would satisfy the ROC, the Army Systems Acquisition Review Council (ASARC) in May 1992 approved a program, beginning with EMD, to develop and produce the AGS. FMC, now part of United Defense Limited Partnership (UDLP), was the winning contractor. A program restructuring in FY94 to reduce program concurrence also decreased the number of LRIP systems and slipped first unit equipped (FUE) by about 2 years.

In 1993 survivability test assessments were initiated the Armored Gun System. Early live fire tests for this program either demonstrated that the initial AGS design meets its requirements or provided data to support design fixes. One design feature that resulted in a 'surprise' outcome was the ammunition compartment feature that failed to contain the reaction of the ammunition when struck by realistic threat weapons.

The AGS is not a tank -- it may look like a tank, but it's not a tank. It's a thin-skinned vehicle with a gun on it. The vehicle was designed to support the infantry from a position where it can fire and be behind dirt with an elevated gun and to fight in areas where its not going to run into tanks. It has more than one role, and it just doesn't kill tanks. It kills other kinds of targets. It has to be able to bust bunkers, shoot into bunkers, go into urban areas and shoot into windows, and have a round that will spray shrapnel -- that will "take out" people who are firing hand-held weapons or machine guns. US forces using enhanced direct-fire weapons such as the Armored Gun System would fare better than forces equipped with current firepower.

In the fiscal 1996 budget the Armored Gun System was slated to enter production. The Army's Armored Gun System was terminated in 1996, and the FY 97 budget abandoned the Armored Gun System program. When the Army submitted its proposed fiscal 1997 budge, Defense Secretary William Perry instructed the service to plan for an additional cut of 20,000 troops to pay for weapons modernization. Rather than accept a cut from 495,000 to 475,000 troops, Army leaders argued they could obtain the necessary modernization funds through acquisition reforms and operating efficiencies. The fiscal 1997 Defense budget request contained no further Army troop cuts, but the Army cut the AGS program in an attempt to save money for other modernization efforts. The decision was made by the Army as part of an assessment of the warfighting value of the armored gun system compared with alternatives and how they could do it spending less funds. The total program cost, including development, was estimated to be $1.3 billion. The Army had planned to procure 26 low-rate initial production vehicles with 1996 funding of $142.8 million. Termination liability was funded from research and development appropriations because the program was under an engineering and manufacturing development contract. The Armored Gun System is an example of a program in which manpower and personnel integration [MANPRINT] considerations were purposely rejected. It is not a coincidence that the Army canceled the program.

The AGS chassis was also intended to serve as the platform for the hypervelocity line-of-sight antitank (LOSAT) missile system, and building the chassis for the LOSAT alone would be rather expensive.

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