Depleted uranium (DU) armor
The M1A2, M1A2 SEP, and M1A2 SEPv2 (and certain variants of the M1A1 belonging to the Marine Corps when they used the Abrams tank) all should have DU armor in-game, as documented in various documents issued by the United States Department of Defense and found publicly available on the Defense Technical Information Center. Various documents such as the ones listed below record the M1A2 as having depleted uranium armor, along with other upgrades that are already present on the M1A2 series of tanks in-game.
pg 3 of M1 Tanks: Status of Proposed Overhaul Program.
Mid-term upgrade plans for the M1A1
And for the M1A2 Abrams.
pg 125 and 128 on United States Army Armor Center and Fort Knox: 1996 Annual Command History.
Directly stated specifications for the Merkava Mk. IV and M1A2 Abrams.
pg 60 on Facing Uncertainty: The Role of the M1 Abrams Tank in the U.S. Army of 2015-2025.
Documentation on Marine Corps M1A1 tanks later having installed DU armor years before their tank units were disbanded.
pg 48 on Development of an Item Unique Identification Strategy for the Legacy Components of the US Marine Corps M1A1 Abrams Tank.
M829A3 APFSDS-T ammunition
As well as the Abrams turret armor inaccuracy, the M1A2 SEPv2 Abrams is cited to specifically use M829A3 and to have notably higher penetration than M829A2, leaving cause for it to be added as a potentially researchable modification on the M1A2 SEPv2.
Documentation on the M829A3’s penetration. Albeit, these are unofficial estimates and I am aware that Gaijin uses a certain formula to calculate a shell’s penetration and performance, this should be something to note and would, in fact, be more accurate for the M1A2 SEPv2 to have this ammunition at least as a modification after M829 or M829A1 since M829A3 was designed to penetrate explosive reactive armor found on Soviet/Russian MBTs such as Kontakt-5.
pg 22 on Critical Technology Events in the Development of the Abrams Tank: Project Hindsight Revisited.
More documentation on the M1A2 SEPv2 using M829A3 kinetic rounds dating back to 2010.
More information on the M829A3’s production status compared to M829A1 and M829A2.
pg 26 and 306 on United States Army Weapon Systems 2010.
More production information relating to M829A3 from 2007.
Contractor information on who produces and where M829A3 is produced.
pg 257 and 258 on United States Army Weapon Systems 2007-2008.
With this information provided, I am aiming to make the M1A1 and M1A2 series of tanks more balanced with the tanks that it faces throughout top tier. Despite there being many newer players to the game who buy packs to rush to top tier such as the M1 KVT or M1A1 Click-Bait, there is no doubt that the accuracy in the Abrams tanks in-game is far from truth, and win rates for the United States at top tier has consistently been lower than nearly every other country playable in-game.
Heat map of different countries’ win rates throughout different Battle Ratings on February 20, 2025 (left) as compared to win rates one year earlier on February 18, 2024 (right), with Russian win rates all around improving and with American win rates having not improved in nearly any capacity, and worsening near the 10.0 bracket.
Along with the provided information above and the added documentation would ensure that War Thunder is more accurate in what ammunition the aforementioned tanks use and what armor they utilize in later upgrades.
We hope we can get some productive feedback on this soon and work with the community to try and improve War Thunder’s accuracy and community.
Research done by me (realerG4lxy) and mozilla firefox on War Thunder.
All sources are unclassified, cited, and pulled from the Defense Technical Information Center, a branch of the United States Department of Defense.
War Thunder win rate heat map data pulled from the WT Data Project, all thanks to ControlNet on GitHub.