It could be the web-browser adaptation for the smartphone that adds those lines.
Could it be a visual guide to assist with reading on the relatively small screen? Have you seen it in other posts? How many lines of text down from the top?
The Rest of this post is just text I copied somewhere, included here to get a mass of text where repeated “reading guides” could show up.
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The first attempt to replace the aging M60 Patton was the MBT-70, developed in partnership with West Germany in the 1960s and reaching the testing stage by 1968. The MBT-70 was very ambitious, and had various innovative ideas that ultimately proved unsuccessful. As a result of the imminent failure of this project, the U.S. Army introduced the XM803. This succeeded only in producing an expensive system with capabilities similar to the M60.[1]
Congress canceled the MBT-70 in November and XM803 December 1971.[citation needed] The Army restarted its M60 successor program with Major General William Robertson Desobry leading the team formulating requirements in March 1972.[2] Army officials told congressmen in April that there was little that could be salvaged from the past efforts, and that a new tank would take at least eight years to develop.[3] A Pentagon task force submitted requirements for the tank in January 1973. By April the Pentagon approved the project with Brigadier General Robert. J. Baer as production manager. Desobry told The New York Times, “We ought to be shot if it doesn’t work.”[4]
The Pentagon’s requirements specified a tank gun between 105 and 120-mm and a Bushmaster cannon with a caliber between 20 and 30-mm. Plans called for a tank weighing about 54 tons.[4] By 1973 the Army had settled on buying 3,312 of the new tanks, with production beginning in 1980.[5]
The price of the $3 billion program was assailed by Congressman Les Aspin in July. The Pentagon had projected unit costs were to be less than US$507,000 in 1972 dollars. Aspin argued that were the research and development costs factored in, tanks would actually cost over $900,000 a piece (compared to $1.3 million for the canceled MBT-70). Noting that the M60 Patton costed only $500,000 each Aspin said, “I’m sure that the Army’s new tank is not twice as good as what we have today.”[5]
In June the Army awarded a competitive three-year contracts - $68 million for Chrysler Corporation and $87 million to General Motors Corporation - for the production of prototypes.[5] In February 1976 the two prototypes were tested at Aberdeen Proving Ground. Chrysler chose a regenerative turbine engine made by Avco Lycoming while General Motors chose a Teledyne Continental diesel engine.[6]
They were armed with the license-built version of the 105 mm Royal Ordnance L7 gun. The Pentagon in 1994 also allowed the West German Leopard 2 to be tested against the American winner at Aberdeen with the understanding that the better tank would be adopted by both countries. However the two nations were unable to reconcile their nationalistic differences, so a compromise was made that would have both tanks share common parts.[7]
In July the Army recommended selecting the General Motors offering, but the recommendation was disregarded by the Pentagon, which asked competitors to modify their proposals to share parts with the German tank. In November the Army selected Chrysler’s design. Chrysler’s proposal may have been attractive because the company said it could incorporate the Rheinmetall M256 120 mm cannon without increasing costs, weight or the production timeline.[7]
In 1979, General Dynamics Land Systems Division purchased Chrysler Defense.
3,273 M1 Abrams were produced 1979-85 and first entered US Army service in 1980. It was armed with the license-built version of the 105 mm Royal Ordnance L7 gun. An improved model called the M1IP was produced briefly in 1984 and contained small upgrades. The M1IP models were used in the Canadian Army Trophy NATO tank gunnery competition in 1985 and 1987.
About 6,000 M1A1 Abrams were produced from 1986–92 and featured the M256 120 mm smoothbore cannon developed by Rheinmetall AG of Germany for the Leopard 2, improved armor, and a CBRN protection system.
Gulf War
As the Abrams entered service in the 1980s, they would operate alongside M60A3 within the United States military, and with other NATO tanks in numerous Cold War exercises. These exercises usually took place in Western Europe, especially West Germany, but also in some other countries like South Korea. During such training, Abrams crews honed their skills for use against the men and equipment of the Soviet Union. However, by 1991 the Soviet state had collapsed and the Abrams would have its trial by fire in the Middle East.
The Abrams remained untested in combat until the Persian Gulf War in 1991. The M1A1 was superior to Iraq’s Soviet-era T-55 and T-62 tanks, as well as Iraqi assembled Russian T-72s, and locally produced copies (Asad Babil tank). The T-72s like most Soviet export designs lacked night vision systems and then-modern rangefinders, though they did have some night fighting tanks with older active infrared systems or floodlights—just not the latest starlight scopes and passive infrared scopes as on the Abrams. Only 23 M1A1s were taken out of service in the Persian Gulf[8]. Some others took minor combat damage, with little effect on their operational readiness. Very few M1 tanks were hit by enemy fire, and none were destroyed as a direct result of enemy fire, with no fatalities due to enemy fire.[9]
The M1A1 was capable of making kills at ranges in excess of 2,500 meters (8,200 ft). This range was crucial in combat against tanks of Soviet design in Desert Storm, as the effective range of the main gun in the Soviet/Iraqi tanks was less than 2,000 meters (6,600 ft) (Iraqi tanks could not fire anti-tank missiles like their Russian counterparts). This meant Abrams tanks could hit Iraqi tanks before the enemy got in range—a decisive advantage in this kind of combat. In friendly fire incidents, the front armor and fore side turret armor survived direct APFSDS hits from other M1A1s. This was not the case for the side armor of the hull and the rear armor of the turret, as both areas were penetrated at least in two occasions by friendly DU ammunition during the Battle of Norfolk.[10]
On the night of February 26, 1991, four Abrams were disabled, possibly as a result of friendly fire by Hellfire missiles fired from AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, with the result of some crew members wounded in action.[11] The tanks were part of TF 1-37,[12] attacking a large section of Tawakalna Republican Guard Division, their numbers being B-23, C-12, D-24 and C-66. Abrams C-12 was definitively hit and penetrated by a friendly DU shot[13] and there is some evidence that another Iraqi T-72 may have scored a single hit on B-23, besides the alleged Hellfire strike. [N 1]
Tanks D-24 and C-66 took some casualties,[14] but only B-23 became a permanent loss. The DoD’s damage assessments state that B-23 was the only M1 with signs of a Hellfire missile found nearby.
Also during the Persian Gulf War, three Abrams of the U.S. 24th Infantry Division were left behind the enemy lines after a swift attack on Talil airfield, south of Nasiriyah, on February 27. One of them was hit by enemy fire, the two other embedded in mud. The tanks were destroyed by U.S. forces in order to prevent any trophy-claim by the Iraqi Army.[15]