Even “if” US army went forward with ABRAMS X or whatever its successor are. They would still have M1A2s in their inventory. and it would take sometime before they replace most of them. It only logical that they would have to come up with an upgrade/rebuild program. Just like they did with M60 patton or M1A1 .
M60 rebuild was totally seen as unnecessary by US army, so I really doubt they will take the trouble to do it for ABRAMS especially so much work is needed and it does not fundamentally improve the protection or reduce the weight to any significant degree.
wdym. The existing tank wouldn’t just disappear and you wouldn’t immediately get every tank replace at once. Just like how they used to have both M60 and M1 Abrams. In order to keep old one up to date. Army would have to upgrade them some way. At least APS kit are aready a things for Abrams.
Even then we do not know how much protection or weight would change in the future as it didn’t came out yet.
So How could you know about it ?
1 Like
Again going back to the document I’ve been reading, it’s pretty interesting that they’re already giving an idea of what they’re looking for in an M1A2 replacement:
They’re looking to switch to a autoloaded design for ‘‘In the aggregate it will reduce overall platform weight by reducing the required volume under armor.’’
They also seem to believe an intergrated APS is a must, their stance is that the current M1A2 SEP v3 is not sufficiently protected on the modern battlefield, and that any measures taken to improve protection are too costly from a weight perspective.
They’re also going pretty heavy on AI development for use in this next generation MBT.
They’re mentioning some pretty out there stuff:
- Gun-launched, rocket assisted KE(?)
- Rheinmetall 130mm as potential option.
- 157mm straight chamber cannon(?)
- Tube-launched ATGMs.
- Lowered radar cross section.
- Color-changing materials(?) (wut?)
- Counter-electronic warfare capability.
- Low probability of intercept communications.
It seems that they’re looking to intergrate heavier and more advanced ERA ontop of more advanced NERA base armour. Other systems such as LWR and potentially RADAR’s capable of detecting drones.
They note that heavy base armour is required as APS isn’t suited to protect the vehicle against autocannons.
They looking for a vehicle with all such features in the 50-ton range, certainly some sci-fi stuff being mentioned.
1 Like
and we dont call every crew member in a series T tank to be members of the russian space program for o reason either. :D
1 Like
So you are telling me US army are going to spend millions of dollars, to improve the ABRAMS which is already overweight? There is no way without sacrificing protection to loose weight.
As for APS, US will have to do their own or choose to do with the Trophy which has been proven to be extremely uneffective, as HJ8s and RPG7s have been able to breakthrough. Developing APS will once again be extremely expensive.
US is no longer willing to spend this much on its army, two points why they won’t update ABRAMS:
1.Abrams are not so far out of date, as to it is unable to compete with its counterparts like ZTZ99A and T90/T80s.
2.Effectiveness of such upgrades are at question, M60 upgrades are proven later to be foolish, as T72/T64 are way superior and they should have went straight for ABRAMS.
1 Like
That’s just doctrine difference, NATO went for standardization and USSR went for newer technologies for spearhead breakthroughs. They fielded T-55s and T-62s at the same time as T-64s and so on. And America did have a few projects to replace M60 during its life but they didnt get selected like MBT-70 or T95 program.
1 Like
And a source for this is?
2 Likes
Uh oh, German mains want it now :(
It would still depend on how they could design lighter armor package or not. which again we do not know.
Source to back up your claim ? As far as i have seen combat “export” Abrams in certain conflict they mostly rely on ERA not Hard kill APS.
1.“unable to compete” bruh are you one of those fanboy ? . If it is somethings like T-14 Amata i would at least agree that Abrams is at a disadvantage.
2.Again you don’t just suddenly ditch out your previous tanks when new one arrive to the field. That not how it work irl. It take some time to replace the old one. espically if they have a lot of them at hand.
Look at Soviet for example they still have a lot of T-55s/T-62s when they were fielding T-72/80/64
That why there are saying “Armies don’t fight with fancy weaponry but with what is available, affordable, and what works.” This still true to this day.
1 Like
Yeah sure, just ignore the existence of things like:
- Lighter gun tubes (see XM360)
- Swapping the hydraulic turret drive for a lighter electric one
- Aforementioned studies showing two tons would be saved by swapping to an all fiber-optic cable system from copper
- A bunch of titanium components that got prototyped but never implemented
6 Likes
Wasn’t the M1 TTB like 50 tons?
Going the route of an autoloader and having the turret be similar to the T-14/TTB could give more breathing room for…
All of that Sci-fi stuff while being in the 50-ton range.
If your willing, what are you reading?
1 Like
What a claim.
‘‘ARMY SCIENCE BOARD: An Independent Assessment of the Next Generation Armor/Anti-Armor Strategy’’
3 Likes
I think it’s a bit important to note that the M1E3 program’s a separate kettle of fish from the NGCV Program; which in regards to the Abrams would be referring to the Decisive Lethality Platform (the intended replacement to the Abrams as a whole).
and yeah the scifi stuff there’s pretty amusing, but I’m as a whole pretty skeptical on whether or not DLP will actually turn anything out with how quiet the Army’s been about it.
Yeah, like I said, it’s just some rough ideas on what the replacement of the Abrams might look like.
I’d be surprised if the M1E3 didn’t borrow some of the same design ideas and concepts, both these programs center around massive weight reductions relative to current M1A2’s if I understand them correctly.
There’s recently also been some rumours that NGAD might not be feasible with current funding, but I have to wonder: Does the US have any other choice?
They have to replace these aging platforms, especially for the aircraft side of things where the age of the airframes is leading to spiralling maintenance costs. They also make it clear that the M1A2 SEP v3’s weight is unacceptable and this issue must be addressed.
1 Like
I personally expect the M1E3 to be a lot more conservative; if they take anything from NGCV it’d probably be the Cummins ACE engine for the fuel efficiency. Since that would translate to them being able to shave weight dedicated to fuel storage on the tank itself without actually affecting the range, as well as lighten up the logistical burden that’s been the Army’s big concern. That’s a pretty big if though, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they start looking back at the old LV100-5 Turbine instead since it’s both lighter and more fuel efficient than the rather ancient AGT1500 (hell IIRC, like 60% of the Abrams operation costs is maintaining and replacing the AGT1500)
Otherwise I’d expect probably incremental things like gutting copper cabling out for fiber-optic, XM360 gun configured for manual loading as a lighter weight replacement to the M256 (with better future proofing since it’s also able to sustain higher pressure rounds and that seems to be the Army’s go-to method of increasing ammo performance…), more extensive Titanium usage (which would shave around 716lbs just going with the Phase 1 Titanium components that weren’t implemented, since IIRC only Phase 2 in the form of the Gunnery Sight Housing & Blowout Panels got implemented), etc etc.
1 Like
That is not the point, later American army evaluated M60 updates as totally worthless, as they are not only inferior to Russian counterparts of the same period, but also cost more than its counterparts. US army is in a state where they need to evaluate whether it is worth going for new updates, as seen by stopping Sep V4 which was almost ready. Just from a cost point of view, each ABRAMS upgraded from M1A1 to SEPV3 standard will cost as much as 10 T72B-B3M upgrades.
It is the other way round, I am trying to imply it is able to compete so it doesn’t need to get massive updates, look at the context.
Not ditching your old ones does not mean they should spend millions of dollars each receiving pointless upgrades which does not even improve the capability.
It is able to compete is what I meant and the incompetence is mainly from WT gameplay, as no RL situation will require 15 tanks to run at each other.