When the United States Army’s M1 Abrams main battle tank (MBT) entered service in 1980, it was considered a revolutionary leap forward in tank development. The platform has been steadily updated and improved, yet one needs to remember that when the base model M1 rolled off the assembly line, President Jimmy Carter was in office, while few Americans likely had ever seen a computer, and car phones were only gaining in popularity.
Despite being developed in the era of disco and bell-bottoms, the M1 Abrams will remain in service for years to come, but the U.S. military is seeking to improve its further modernize it.
As Defense News first reported, the U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George has called for the service and industry to avoid prior pitfalls that have plagued other programs.
“We don’t want to turn into Pentagon Wars,” Dr. Alex Miller, who serves as the chief technology officer under General George, explained in a recent interview with Defense News, referencing the HBO comedy that exposed the bureaucratic dysfunction of the 1970s development of the M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV).
Shifting Gears With the M1 Abrams
The current version of the Abrams is the M1A2 System Enhancement Package version 3 (SEPv3), which was developed to provide enhanced protection and survivability for the crew, while also offering higher lethality than its predecessors. Advancements include improved armor, communications, sustainment and fuel efficiency. It also introduced line-replaceable module technology that was meant to ease the maintenance of the Army’s fleet of Abrams.
The U.S. Army had previously announced plans to further enhance the capabilities of the tank with the SEPv4 upgrade, which was to include the integration of optics and fire control system technologies. The original timeline called for the test and evaluation master plan for the M1A2 SEPv4 to be submitted to the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation by early 2023.
But after there were delays with the upgrade, the service switched gears, and ended the SEPv4 effort entirely, and instead launched the Abrams M1E3 modernization program. The goal was to allow the enhanced M1E3 to remain a viable MBT through 2040 and beyond.
Lessons Learned From Ukraine
The decision to scrap the SEPv4 came from lessons learned in Ukraine, including how any further upgrades would add significant weight, which has already been a serious problem for the tank. Instead, the efforts had focused on providing better protection for the crew from within the vehicle instead of just adding more to it.
The service had been committed to including the “best features” of the M1A2 SEPv4 into the M1E3 Abrams, which promises to be a more survivable and lighter tank that could be more effective on the modern battlefield. In 2024, the Army also began working with General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS), the original maker of the MBT, on the effort to ensure the M1E3 restores the dominance of the Abrams.
As the preliminary design came into focus, key details remain unresolved. “Vague desires for the new variant included making it lighter, better protected and giving it an autoloader,” Defense News further explained, adding “little has been revealed over the last year about those plans.” What is known is that the Army seeks to align the fielding of the M1E3 with the replacement for the M2 Bradley, the M30 Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle (MICV) that is set to enter service in the early 2030s.
Accelerating the Timeline
Gen. George was told in a 2023 meeting with Program Executive Office Ground Combat Systems in Detroit, Michigan, that the M1E3 would require nearly six years for the first model to be built. He found that timeline to be unacceptable and sough to accelerate the efforts.
According to Miller, George ordered that risk was acceptable if it is “responsible and pragmatic,” and further told the team not to be encumbered on “policies and regulations that were made for different pieces,” and stressed, “stop trying to manage all the risk to the point where there’s no risk because there will always be risk.”
That directive could cut the timeline down from more than 65 months to within 25 to 30 months.
Some issues will be included in the M1E3, whiles other may not. That could include the autoloader – which could reduce the crew size by one while increasing the rate of fire.
It would seem to be a key feature to incorporate; yet, it has a critical flaw as well.
Soviet tank designs have employed autoloaders since the Cold War, but it was shown to be a costly mistake with the T-72. During the Gulf War in 1991, the U.S. and its coalition allies quickly found that ammunition stored in the turret’s autoloader could cause a catastrophic explosion that would blow the turret off the chassis if a round hit a key spot on the cupola. The “Jack-in-the-Box” problem continues to be exploited in the ongoing fighting in Ukraine.
Miller acknowledged that Western designers have explored the autoloader dilemma for more than a decade.
For now, the Army will focus on integrating active protection systems (APS), while also enhancing the other systems. A contract could be awarded to GDLS in the coming months to integrate the technologies into the new tank, while it is being funded throughout the next five budget cycles.
It might not fully result in a brand new tank, but it will improve the existing Abrams without simply piling on more and more to an already heavy chassis.
