Americans to build entirely new Abrams tanks amidst rising tensions (msn.com)
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A bit convoluted this story.
An Engineering Change Proposal (ECP) is to modify an existing MBT with added changes designed by expert designers and mechanical engineers, hence the M1E3. The M1A3 will still retain the M1 Abrams name and hence it will be a new tank, but not the entirely new TYPE of tank the story may allude to even though it says “entirely new Abrams tank.” The M1A2 and M1A2SEPs ARE new Abrams tanks, being manufactured from scratch refurbishment hulls and turrets.
If the US Army is building an entirely new TYPE of tank, then it won’t retain the M1 Abrams name and instead be called something else, such as the M10 Booker which is a new type of Combat Vehicle that the US Army doesn’t want to call a “light tank.”
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I’m having trouble with ‘entirely new’ as though new hulls were being built. Refurbishing old hulls has been going on for decades; isn’t this just a new version of that?
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Yes for 20 some years now, first with the M1A1 AIM.
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It sounds like they are planning to restart the assembly line and produce new hulls and maybe turrets.
Ken
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Throw in the new suspension from the M88A3…
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There’s no way in the world they’re starting up production again, there are hundreds, maybe a couple thousand M1 tanks sitting at the Sierra Army Depot in California
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Didn’t the pentagon try and close down the plant in Ohio a few years ago?
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Okay, maybe not, damn, just google earthed Sierra Depot, not many M1’s left out there, crazy
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Maybe the export business has been real good.
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That just looks wrong as a low rider.
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Has anyone noticed the assembly line photo in the story is bogus ?
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Yup, a drawing/computer animation. It is also reversed, look at the CITV and GPS, along with the chalk mark on the front of the second tank, it should be 60.
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That’s okay. We’ve had someone on here mistake a 3D image for an actual vehicle…
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I have the overall feeling that the jest was more tanks are needed after the Ukraine preview. If you are relying on rebuilds to upgrade, in a situation like Ukraine, you will run out of rebuildable equipment and be left with wondering if M60A3’s will be the stopgap. If you start producing new hulls and turrets then you can replace the destroyed refurbished tanks.
I have no faith that photos in an article are about the article itself. Often they are pulled offline as a filler.
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22 posts were merged into an existing topic: Current and future warfighting
