Quick note: The following has a lot of sources, many of the Australian AIM related info and FMS armour package info comes from Victor_eu, likewise the British declassified document (U.K. Secret) comes from Flame2512.
Those weren’t the DU values, those were the M1 protection values for the armour package that GDLS and the Army were giving Sweden.
This can be confirmed by the British assessment of the M1s DU armour according to Dick Taylor, Dick Taylor being a former British army tank commander, who wrote this book, and within that book he wrote:
This likewise lines up perfectly with what Flame2512 gave i.e. initially the US’s DU armour was lacking in regards to its CE protection, the British helped the US then improve their DU armour in regards to its CE protection:
I don’t know if you noticed but in game the M1A2 and Chally 2 have practically the same KE turret protection, regardless this means that HAP-2 (what all M1s produced from 1990 used) was a CE protection improvement upgrade that also improved its multi-hit performance.
And as I said, there are a lot of errors in that article:
I could care less what the errors are in regards to spelling mistakes, because the original didn’t have those spelling mistakes, what I am giving you is slightly edited to emphasise certain words, all I care about are the direct quotes from the vice president of international business of GDLS i.e. Peter McVey.
There was never a “Swedish” armour package, it was all developed by IBD but simply made in Sweden for test firing by Akers (which later became IBD subsidiary).
Completely incorrect, I have no clue where you got this from, but as of now (in regards to all the sources I have given you) both the US, GDLS, and a Swedish Major state the armour was to come from the US:
GDLS and the Army had to design a new armour package for Sweden because the US would not give them the DU armour package, this is why it was initially called it an improved FMS armour i.e. improved over the FMS armour that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait had:
However as noted it wasn’t what Sweden was looking for, GDLS then went and worked on that improved FMS armour and made it comparable to the US M1’s DU HAP-2 armour and called it the Improved Non-DU FMS armour, this was then trialled for the first time in the Greek and Turkey tank trials as stated by McVey:
The 62.5t was the weight as offered to the Swedes, a non-DU package equivalent to the DU one did exist and was offered as Lindström states.
No, there was no US Non-DU armour that existed in 1993 that was comparable to the US’s DU armour, that didn’t exist until after the Swedish trials was tested in Greece and Turkey, Sweden was never given an M1 with DU armour, what was tested in Sweden was a non-DU armour.
The M1A1 AIM doesn’t weigh 62.5t because it lacks a CITV and the new commander’s cupola, this along with a few other things can easily make up for the 500kg difference:
The SEP has all of that and still weighs less then 62.5 tons, regardless, the Aussie AIM would make that weight up in any number of the upgrades it had that the Swedish M1 didn’t have including the latest armour package but it doesn’t:
FYI the the TMS (thermal management system) + auxiliary power unit weigh 510 lbs / 231kgs combined, sooo…
I have no clue what the Swedish M1 was, but its weight is irrelevant to me, Mcvey has already stated it’s armour was not up to par with what the US was using.
FMS non-DU (also known as “advanced non-DU”) → M1A1 level
Improved FMS non-DU → M1A1HA/HC level
Firstly, the FMS non-DU was not know as the Advanced non-DU, no clue where you got that from.
Secondly there are four, well technically 5:
- Original FMS armour, which was used by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
- The Swedish non-Du armour that was an improvement over the original FMS Non-DU
- Improved FMS
- Advanced Non-DU armour
- NGAP equivalent that Australia with receive with their M1A2 SEPv3.
Australia states in a few places their M1A1 AIM uses the Advanced non-DU armour, which would be HAP-3 equivalent as that was one of the upgrades the SA received, and the Australian AIM was in the SA configuration meaning the Aussie AIM is an AIMv2/SA:
There is no indication it is equivalent to HAP-3, nor is there even any indication of what changed with HAP-3…
Except as I have already shown there is, both the Aussies and Moroccans received M1A1 AIMv2/SA’s, one of their main upgrades over the original AIM was HAP-3 equiv. protection, which is why their armour package was called the Advanced non-DU armour and not the Improved FMS armour…
It is possible that HAP-3 is simply the new term for the HAP-2 package including the Improved Turret Side Armor (ITSA), there was never any explanation given.
No, the Improved Side Armour (I have never seen the Army abbreviate it to ITSA, so I take it you are just making this up?) accompanied a frontal armour improvement, which started being incorporated into M1s in 2002:
