Does the Abrams have a spall liner? No from what I could find

[MiG_23M]

Considering they sent unmodified SEPV3s to Poland on order, not DU. I don’t think the SEPV3’s next generation armor package uses any DU at all.

@arsenal119

This is the closest you will probably see of anything literally says there is DU in the hull armor.

Ukraine’s M1’s don’t have DU. They have an export armor package.

@Tivoru

To be honest, for me Wikipedia is a better source

A good way to say “I don’t care for accurate information, I only want gratification from improving my pixel tank”.

@ayeflyingcowboy

None of the M1s have a hull that weighs anywhere close to 41 tons.

Now that you mention it, yeah seems a bit high. I spit out a random number but Gaijin explained in their post that the weight had not changed from M1A2 → SEPV2.

@Count_Trackula

SUB-1536 obviously means it is turrets when they say turrets are “as needed” but only means they CAN put it in hulls when they say hulls are “as needed.” Clowns don’t realize the obsolete version they use to make their contradicting argument no longer helps them, and that “as needed” must mean it is in both turrets AND hulls.

As needed doesn’t mean anything. It means they could use them “as needed”, but may not have. You continuously push this point as if there isn’t a mountain of evidence for the turret DU, and less than a mole hill for the hull.

@Count_Trackula

As Russian mains still come in saying something that has been disproven over and over again, and need to be shown these things over and over again.

Who? What does it matter if some random person is shouting you’re wrong from the rooftops. The Gaijin devs aren’t listening to the forum, they listen to good sources.

@arsenal119

The U.S will not gift DU armor to countries that shares borders with the U.S.

I think you made a typo.

[Jεcka]

That is very clearly just you misrepresenting what Gaijin was saying

Lmao.

[arsenal119]

@MiG_23M

Ukraine’s M1’s don’t have DU. They have an export armor package.

It’s funny you bring that up. Because the article literally talks about how the U.S was having issues sending Ukraine tanks because of how long it takes to remove the DU armor and replace it with tungsten. It say the U.S plans to start using 2006 and earlier M1 hull to help speed up the process because those hull do not have the DU armor speeding up the production process for export abrams.

[arsenal119]

@MiG_23M

I think you made a typo.

That is not a typo. The U.S policy will not even allow the U.S to give Canada tanks with DU armor.

[Conraire]

Just to put things into perspective… Here is a preview of one of the documents I’ve collected… I’m sorting and notating about 20+ others in preparation…

General Dynamics Document Images

I also have a document on the backpack armor array variants that was designed for the hull upgrade… But, it’s part of a larger symposium/conference document, and I haven’t been able to find that publicly on the archive sites I’ve been using, so I may contact my FOIA person and see if I can make sure it’s cleared. Those arrays used varying layers of steel, glass-reinforced polycarbonate, kevlar, Silicon-Carbide / Titanium-Borate tiles, and epoxy resin.

[arsenal119]

@MiG_23M

Considering they sent unmodified SEPV3s to Poland on order, not DU. I don’t think the SEPV3’s next generation armor package uses any DU at all.

Where did you here Ukraine is getting SEPv3 are you dumb?

[Mongaroth33]

He said nothing about Ukraine getting sepv3 he was talking about Poland getting them are you blind

[arsenal119]

All the tanks that go to Ukraine go though Poland.

[Mongaroth33]

And he was talking about Polish order to buy sepv3

[MiG_23M]

We sent tanks with DU armor to Saudi Arabia, I see no reason we couldn’t send them to Canada.

@arsenal119

Where did you here Ukraine is getting SEPv3 are you dumb?

That’s not what I said, I said Poland bought SEPV3s.

[Conraire]

Guys, enough with the arguing semantics and personal attacks… Any further will not be tolerated…

[arsenal119]

@MiG_23M

That’s not what I said, I said Poland bought SEPV3s.

Okay, I’m on the same page as you. Poland has submitted a request to have 250 M1A2 sepv3 built for them along with 88 recovery vehicles and etc. If they approved to be built, because of US policy they would have to be built without DU armor.

[MiG_23M]

We simply re-routed tanks intended for US service to Poland to speed up delivery, these tanks were not subsequently modified to remove armor. They must not have DU if what you say is true… or Poland bought tanks with DU. Either way, US standard M1A2 SEPV3s are in Poland service… without any kind of export armor.

[arsenal119]

No, these tanks will be have to be built with another armor package with sepv3 systems.

[Mongaroth33]

From what I know my country did not get sepv3 with du

[ayeflyingcowboy]

@MiG_23M

Considering they sent unmodified SEPV3s to Poland on order, not DU. I don’t think the SEPV3’s next generation armor package uses any DU at all.

They do which is why Australia is getting a special variant of said armour i.e. apparently the US is developing a new armour for Australia:

It is possible that the US could allow Poland to have DU armour especially seeing as Poland (afaik) will also be the first nation to receive the US’s DU M829 rounds:

However I do not believe this to be the case as even the M1A1 FEPs that Poland bought had their DU armour removed:

Now that you mention it, yeah seems a bit high. I spit out a random number but Gaijin explained in their post that the weight had not changed from M1A2 → SEPV2.

Is this the same Gaijin that said:

Additionally, a significant weight increase from such an armor package would lead to overloading the first pair of torsion bars, which already are under an increased load on the M1 series due to the placement of the frontal armor being positioned significantly far towards the front of the hull, as well as the large armored fuel tanks either side of the driver.

And forgot they contradicted their very own logic when they added TUSK I and TUSK II i.e. obviously the US had to upgrade the M1s torsion and suspension to even accommodate TUSK I and TUSK II…

Gaijin stating the weight overall hadn’t changed was likewise disingenuous, their claim of this is based on the growth chart, however just looking at that tells us nothing i.e. Gaijin knows the SEPs had a weight reduction program implemented hence why the weight overall didn’t seem to change from the M1A2 to the SEP.

Point of fact if all we did was look at that growth chart one would believe the M1A2s turret only weighs 15.3 - 16.23 tons, however if we look at old M1A2s and their turret combat weight, we see something doesn’t add up:

Therefore the growth chart stating it was only 15.3-16.23 tons is odd and yes I understand combat weight is different but that difference is way too large:

Looking at the M1A1s turret combat weight we can see what the DU armour increased the turret combat weight by 3.8 tons:

Thus additional turret weight for the M1A2s makes sense, however there is still a huge difference between the SEPv3 turret weight and even the M1A1s i.e. even if we add the ARAT + appendages the SEPv3s turret weighs 16.23 tons, so now lets look at combat weight, meaning how much does each M829A3/4 round weigh (assuming 16.23 tons isn’t the combat weight already… which I believe it actually is):

If a full loadout is taken that would be 42 rounds so that adds an additional 1,960.14 lbs (0.98 short tons) so now we have a combat weight of around 17.21 tons, I don’t know about you but unless the 3 crew in the turret are to weigh 1.9 tons each I don’t see how the SEPv3s turret combat weight even gets to the M1A1s weight let alone the M1A2s.

This tells me the US got the SEPv3s turret weight down by a significant amount, however this growth chart doesn’t lead us to believe that is the case because the SEPv3s overall weight has still significantly increased.

The growth chart tells us next to nothing honestly because if we remove the add-on armour that is incorporated into the base SEPv3s weight you find out that apparently the M1A2 SEPv3 weighs the around the same amount as the original M1A2:

According to said chart the SEPv3 weighs 73.6 tons (short tons) and 40.7 of that comes from the armour / structure, within that (on the right) we see that TUSK I and TUSK II are included in that, their combined weight is 5.17 short tons (turret appendages can also be removed with said add-on):

73.6 - 5.17 = 68.43 short tons

68.43 short tons = 62.07 metric tons

M1A2 = 62.05 metric tons

i.e. the base SEPv3 weighs less then the SEPv1 and SEPv2 and around the same as the original M1A2…

Thus the growth chart is useless for telling us absolutely anything about the M1s and the armour upgrades they received as the M1s were obviously being upgraded whilst also getting their weight reduced at the same time, hence, there not being a significant increase in weight doesn’t mean they likewise didn’t receive an armour upgrade as can be seen by the SEPv3s weight being less then the SEP and SEPv2.

Edit: Also according to TRADOC:

and yes they were talking about the M1A2s specific KE armour as this document was talking about reducing the M1A2s weight by 47%:

[NoodleCup31]

@MiG_23M

That is very clearly just you misrepresenting what Gaijin was saying, which isn’t surprising since you’re here trying to put words in my mouth.

It’s not.
They are using values from the Swedish trials to justify the hull armor but totally ignore that the turret is massively underperforming according to the very same document.

[Mongaroth33]

Poland are getting special armour that should be similar to the du package of sepv3

[ayeflyingcowboy]

Correct, as of around 1999/2000 all of the Non-DU armour packages have been stated to be comparable to their DU armour counterpart.

[MiG_23M]

@ayeflyingcowboy

They do which is why Australia is getting a special variant of said armour i.e. apparently the US is developing a new armour for Australia:

First of all, thank you for a detailed answer. Would you mind linking the sources for the pictures as well?

I’d like to state that Australia is getting a non-DU package, this is ture… however it is not because of a US law that is stopping us from sending them DU armor packages. It is because of international or Australian conflicts.

@ayeflyingcowboy

It is possible that the US could allow Poland to have DU armour especially seeing as Poland (afaik) will also be the first nation to receive the US’s DU M829 rounds:

I have seen no indication that Poland’s SEPV3s will go without DU armor, and that does indeed support the evidence that they are getting unaltered SEPV3s.

@ayeflyingcowboy

However I do not believe this to be the case as even the M1A1 FEPs that Poland bought had their DU armour removed:

The existing armor on the FEP models may have been inferior to the SEPV3, it is possible the foreign sales armor is improved over the original and was part of the deal with Poland. We will not know any of this for quite a long time of course… but I think it is unreasonable to assume the modern foreign sales armor is inferior to the older US armor packages.

Going from M1A1 to other M1A1 variants may yield more changes to the turret than just the armor packages. There are changes to a myriad of systems and the addition of a lot of wiring for new additional subsystems. The wiring replacement going from SEPV2 to SEPV3 saved over 2 tons of weight in the turret alone.

In any case, none of the aforementioned information suggests that DU was added to the hull. It is a plausibility… but since weight is a serious concern they likely wouldn’t have done it unless they were able to maintain the current weight of the tanks hull or reduce it.