Hull Armor of the M1 Abrams

Official News, Development Blogs and Updates
1710

I have been playing this game since 2014, consuming most of my time gaming. It’s my favorite game and probably will be for the rest of its existence. I only wish the absolute best for War Thunder, and I want the game to succeed.

BUT.

There is a massive issue as you climb the ranks of the US tech tree. Over the past 2 months, I have gone back to “Spade” every US Tech Tree vehicle. At around 6.7, most ground vehicles seem to be far from useful at their BR. The situation gets a bit better with the M60’s, until you have the TTS facing T-80B’s.

Right now, I am currently finishing off the M1A1 HC and HSTVL, and what an absolute nightmare it is… The HSTVL is for a different conversation, but 250mm of pen vs a Leopard 2A7 or a T-80BVM/T90M (especially with the unbelievable ERA package that eats 200mm of kinetic armor penetration) is just ineffective. Anyway, back to the Abrams.

The early editions of the Abrams feel solid, not invincible machines, but very strong, as they are meant to be. However, with the later editions of the Abrams (11.3 BR and up) you have the issue of your M829A1 ammunition just simply bouncing around weak-spots and not spalling (thanks to the spall liners that every other nation’s MBT’s has but Abrams does not have “according to your materials”).

Playing top-tier US is a chore, and I love playing other nations at top-tier. Having one of the most heavily fortified tanks in the world be taken out by Cold War-era vehicles from the FRONT, is absurd. If your “materials” are correct, then lower the BR of the later Abrams’. We, as in the player base, will not look at you negatively for having the USA’s top MBT at a lower BR than the T-80BVM/T-90M.

I could rant about these problems for hours, but instead, I have just one request.

It feels that the devs aren’t actually playing the game. Anytime there is a complaint about (insert nation/BR/vehicle here) we get a graph of win rates instead of a change. I want you (Gaijin Devs) to play Every one of the Abrams from stock to spaded, and live-stream it. If at the end of each Abrams, you feel as if it’s in a sufficient state, then so be it, however, I don’t think this will be the case…

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1712

They already said they don’t like the state of the Abrams, that is why they gave it the reload buff and engine noise reduction. They won’t change the armor without evidence though.
We have evidence of turret ring being too weak, side turret armor being too weak. We don’t have concrete proof of anything else unfortunately, and Gaijin has yet to fix what we have proof that should be stronger.

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1713

They also acknowledged the Kevlar lining in the interior of the Abram’s idk how that going to implement that but it’s needed. Current win rate is getting closer to 20% which is crazy. The BR change, reload buff, and noise buff didn’t do much and they know it, it needs some sort of armor or survivability buff. But Russia win rate is dropping too so they might need to adjust something quick.

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1714

The Abrams Series became incredibly weak 90% of every Hit you are dead or knocked out :D

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1715

Seems they’ve had plenty of “evidence” DU armor exists…however its not forthcoming enough for them because its does’nt specify exact locations and engineering specs. IMO it there is enough evidence to give them license to make the Abrams more competitive. WHEN the actual specs come out I, if no real changes have been made, I will be done with this company. This fiasco is exactly why people, in their exhaustion, leak classified documents.

Funny enough an old vid from youtube, “chieftain chats abrams” guy gets to inspect m1a1 museum peice. He was a tc in desert storm and goes through functionality of pretty much entire vehicle…around 33:23 he talks about how they got the old crew to come see the tank which WAS a HC version with a DU turret which was removed and replaced with an older standard turret before donating to the museum. He and the crew knew it wasn’t the original turret because it lacked starting with the U on the numbers which denoted it as the HC with DU. I’m sure he is making it all up though.

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1717

Bias strikes again, having to fight tooth and nail to get the bare minimum specs. It doesn’t get more conclusive than this, Gaijins devs are an embarrassment in the Gaming community

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1718

Just not open minded. They have all the evidence they need to make any adjustments necessary.

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1721

As I’ve been researching the topic myself including with books, I would be interested in seeing concrete proof of DU location in the lower frontal plate. So far the only thing I’ve seen with certainty is that there is DU in the turret.

I have seen references in 2nd hand material books saying there was DU in the hull, but later on the same author said it wasn’t. I’ve seen Russian manuals say there is DU in the hull, but then its Russian and Gaijin won’t accept that.

This is not saying that the LFP is accurately modeled, probably has been upgraded without DU at least on one occasion if not multiple. The issue is all we have is conjecture. Concrete evidence does not exist because the US military doesn’t want it to exist, and at this point I’m kind of okay with it. Would just like the Turret ring, mantlet, and UFP bouncing sabots fixed and we’d have a pretty fair tank in a hull down situation.

From all the evidence I’ve seen as well there is no interior spall liner. The special armor in the tank most likely has spall reducing effects with the layered design. From all the reports on friendly fire in the gulf war we see the crew have survived quite a bit even from direct hits, I feel like the spall is pretty small inside the tank from APFSDS rounds. Due to this Gaijin will most likely not implement any sort of spall changes to the Abrams, which is trash but they don’t understand how spalling can be reduced without a hanging curtain.

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1722

Hull Armor of the M1 Abrams - #200 by Count_Trackula it’s not concrete proof of
DU but at least proof that the lower front plate was upgraded past the IP m1

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1724

ya no amount of armor is gonna fix the spall on the abrams

1725

I mean worst come to worst they could just end up giving the crew flak vest as they do irl.

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1726

lol Wait until you hear that DCS didn’t have good AI until 2023.
And their first full fidelity module for Soviet aircraft is this year. XD

But yeah, there’s no bias in War Thunder.
M1A2 has DU armor in the turret only until allegedly SEP3 BTW, which is represented [not ideally] in War Thunder.

Yeah, M1A2 only has 11mm more effective armor than AIM’s non-DU currently.

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1727

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1728

AIM has an upgraded turret over the base M1A1

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1729

Yes, which is the one at the Swedish trials.
And the DU-equipped tanks in WT do have more effective armor, but not by much as indicated by the screenshots.

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1730

im pretty sure outside of DU theres other still unknown and classified materials in the armor too the tank hasnt been decommissioned and idk if anyone has had any success reverse engineering or getting their hands on a official US military abrams to find out

also when it comes to the military the govt does NOT lie about it in fact it will downplay it if possible theres a reason why it took several heli missiles to destroy one in iraq

1731

And therein lies the bias, thinking the upgrade to DU led to an increase in protection of 1% and using an export Abrams without DU to say that DU is bad lol.

1732

This is assuming that the new NGAP contains DU, which we don’t know for sure.

Didn’t the AIM only enter production years after the swedish trials were concluded?

1733

It’s not bias, it’s a misunderstanding. And likely one from translation errors.

@_Renzo
AIM uses the non-DU package of M1A1 HC.

1734

wrong, the M1A1HC uses a DU package