Unfortunately, from doing some research, the active nuclear, biological, and
chemical (NBC) protective system that is being referred to here is not DU armour, it is an actual system for protection against said types of attacks/instances as noted by this document on NBC:
"Army doctrine integrates NBC protection with operational concepts to fight and win on the battlefield. Our armor battlefield readiness posture acknowledges the NBC threat and anticipates the presence of NBC environments. With more and more countries possessing biological and chemical weapons, the
importance of readiness is underscored. "
The second document is specifically stating that any M1s that are being upgraded will need to have their hulls changed for this NBC protection system.
Then why even mention replacing armor packages? The phrasing “replacing the armor packages and the entire electrical system” is in the direct context of modifying the hull. They mentioned this specifically after speaking of modifying the hull.
Edit: Even the paragraph before talking about replacing the armor packages talks about the A2 having DU armor packages.
“Other
improvements have been added over the years, including armor made with
depleted uranium (see Table 6). All M1A2 tanks and about half of the
MlAls have this special armor.”
Again, why would they talk about modifying the hull and replacing the armor packages to upgrade the older M1s into A2 standard after explicitly stating the A2s have DU armor?
There is even a semi-colon between discussion of the NBC systems, and replacing the armor packages and entire electrical system. A semi-colon is used to separate statements, similar to a period. Replacing the armor packages is not in direct relation to the NBC systems. They already said they are replacing the turret. That means the armor package must be for the hull.
The M1A2 had new armour packages, i.e. the M1s (dependent on variant) would have had armour packages ranging from:
BRL - Ballistic Research Laboratory
HAP - Heavy Armour Package (when DU was added to Turret cheeks)
BRL-1:
1979, M1
Improved BRL-1 with Long Turret:
1984, M1 IP
BRL-2:
1985, M1A1
HAP-1:
1989, M1A1HA
HAP-2:
1992, M1A1HC
1992, M1A2
The M1A2 and M1A1 HC used HAP-2 armour packages (according to Conraire the HAP-1 and HAP-2 armour protection wise were the same).
In regards to the hull, the changes being made are for use of a new NBC protective system, not for DU armour, according to the document I shared earlier pretty much all 80s and 90s tanks had an NBC protective system.
“Other improvements have been added over the years, including armor made with depleted uranium (see Table 6). All M1A2 tanks and about half of the MlAls have this special armor.”
Yes because the M1A1 HC/HA and M1A2 all had HAP whereas the others had BRL i.e. no DU at all, the armour packages are referring to the improved turret armour that had DU.
Unfortunately this NRC document will make it very hard to prove the hull has DU, that said just because it doesn’t have DU doesn’t mean the hull armour wasn’t improved.
Why would they need DU hulls for training if there weren’t DU hulls in service? Why is it unlimited on turrets by only 5 for hulls? We are clearly missing context on the purpose of this document or how it ties into it, considering plenty of other official documents state that there are DU hull armor variants.
“The M1A1 Situational Awareness (SA) and the M1A2 System Enhancement Program
(SEP). The M1A1 SA modernization includes steel encased depleted uranium for increased
frontal and turret side armor protection, suspension improvements, an advanced
computer system with embedded diagnostics, a second generation thermal sensor, and a
laser rangefinder to designate targets from increased distances. The M1A2 SEP tank
modernization includes a commander’s independent thermal weapons station, position
navigation equipment, improved fire control system, and an improved AGT1500 turbine
engine.”
They distinguish the difference frontal and turret side protection. If it was only the turret, they wouldn’t have mentioned the turret when only talking about the side protection improvement.
The NRC doc is a major killer for DU in the hull… @Count_Trackula
BUT: As the US does produce Heavy Armor for export models as well, the lack of DU does not stipulate a lack of armor improvement in the hull, it’s just hard to find something that says “Hull Protection Improved” implicitly.
So far everything that is credible (not a blog, research paper, etc) just says Protection improved, or at best “Protection improved, turret protection improved.” Which could be read either way.
(And remember… the people we’re trying to convince… REALLY don’t want to improve it…we can see that from this Devserver lul)
In some way they improved the hull armor either with DU or improved ceramics it’s just hard to find info on which one it its. Either way it was improved in some form.
Won’t ever know, but it could be as simple as “it was determined that DU in the turret did not produce enough rads to be dangerous to crew, but DU in turret AND hull was dangerous to the crew.”
One could infer that to mean Frontal et al… but one could also interpret that to mean turret frontal and side. We’re putting a lot of weight on word order here. (And in Russian language… the order of words in a sentence doesn’t carry that as much weight as it does in English.) That sentence could be translated as “Turret Frontal and Side Protection” to them and it would make just as much sense.
I also did find this about the maturing program Survivability Enhancement program (SEP) at the time mentioning about hull and turret armor improvements.
Unfortunately, vague presentations and speculative research papers don’t count for much when they don’t want to implement the change.
If the RMOD said the SEPv2 had improved hull armor, they might do it… but outside of that; we’re going to need documents we’re not allowed to use. (They’ve got a brilliant system for buffing their favorite modern tanks and nerfing others… and then they get all meme-y on getting handed classified documents to disprove their BS about NATO vehicles.)
Who knows? Maybe they tested a few with DU armour in the hull and for whatever reason it never went anywhere and those tanks were just repurposed.
We are clearly missing context on the purpose of this document or how it ties into it, considering plenty of other official documents state that there are DU hull armor variants.
No, that NRC licence would be incredibly strict, I don’t think there is any missing context, well bar the fact it is from 2006 i.e. it could be the M1A2 SEPv3 has DU in the hull, but I have no info on that.
The M1A1 SA modernization includes steel encased depleted uranium for increased
frontal and turret side armor protection
Yes there is DU on the front and side of the turret which was being added later on and may have been an upgrade for this
There was also improved frontal amour that was being implemented in 2002, however if it was in regards to the hull receiving DU the NRC licence application would need to state that.
There was no qualifier for frontal protection improvement. The turret was specifically mentioned with regards to side protection.
But why do we only see one NRC license? This is the only one that’s been brought up every time someone talks about it. Why don’t we see the licenses for the older M1A1s and their DU upgrades previously? We are definitely missing something here. Unless the license was issued only once and in 2006, I don’t think we can say this explains everything or even enough.
