I don’t think you understand that almost every single modern tank is still running on a platform that’s 50+ years old.
You seem to berate the Russians a lot for doing it, but you do realize when the XM-1 (Abrams) project actually concluded?
The Abrams turret armor basically doubled, and its shells became twice as potent - coming over from the M1 Abrams to the M1A2. No hull armor upgrades were done en masse until the SEP V3.
Whatever sources you have that the M1A1 or any such older variant had additional hull armor are loosely written propaganda at best. Something that Americans seem to fall for extremely easily.
What basis do you have for the Abrams being upgraded? You say that it’s been “fighting increasingly powerful threats”? Such as? Export T-55s and early T-72s, along with the earliest RPGs, operated by sand people firing outdated ammunition, which the Abrams was facing while having absolute aerial superiority?
It doesn’t weigh any more than the Leopard 2 or the Challenger 2 (which weighs considerably more), yet you want it to have far more effective armor than them? Because… America has to be number 1? Please post a source for it having DU hull armor (pre V3) or spall liners, so that I may laugh - realizing that it’s not a technical document in any sense, and is basically a very loose interpretation of an article.
Hell - the community bug report for the Abrams “spall liner” is an article where it says the Abrams has spall liners, with an image underneath… of an Abrams interior without any spall lining at all…
The Abrams was upgraded fitting to what it was facing. Additionally, American doctrine focuses on being a “world police” with carriers and aircraft. You’ve played too many videogames and watched too many documentaries (literal propaganda) where the US is portrayed as being invincible in every aspect, and the Abrams portrayed as the best - when every Abrams tank was absolutely dumpstered whenever it faced equal forces, and not woefully under-equipped goat herders.
Again, you are welcome to post a SINGLE TECHNICAL DOCUMENT explicitly showing DU hull armor or spall liners on older variants of the Abrams. That has not been posted yet from hundreds of American mains that are just like you, a dime a dozen, after years of whining.
All that has been posted are articles teetering on pure propaganda that essentially write “the Abrams has DU in the turret (and hull), please trust me”. No thicknesses, no dimensions, no numbers. Nothing technical, and you’ll never find it - because it doesn’t exist. For the turret DU, it does. Therefore it was added, because it did exist.
For spall liners - they were even ready to accept PICTURES of a spall liner (do keep in mind that technical documents were posted for the Leopard 2A7 spall liners, which were used - so it’s not a matter of classification) - but there is not a SINGLE picture of an Abrams interior with actual spall lining, it’s all entirely bare welded metal across the entire interior. You went so crazy over that, that you started implying the Abrams has magical “internal spall liners”, which logically make no sense… Because the last layer of RHA in the interior would generate new spall…
So, you’re welcome to prove me wrong in a reply to this post. I’ll be waiting.