THE "A3" ABRAMS MAIN BATTLE TANK AS IT NEEDS TO BE
Carlton Meyer
THE M1A3 TANK
The U.S. Army continues to spend billions of dollars to maintain thousands of surplus tanks. The U.S. Army deactivated five armor/mech divisions at the end of the Cold war and warehoused the excess tanks. It also keeps three divisions of tanks "pre-positioned" in bunkers in Western Europe. These eight armor divisions of stored tanks are maintained combat ready, even though they probably will never be used. The Russian Army would have trouble invading Belarus, and then would break down somewhere in Poland before the powerful German Army arrived to shoot up the remnants. Our Army deployed fewer than 2000 tanks to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War, and only a few hundred of these saw any combat. Therefore, our "two war" Army needs less than 4000 tanks, and half of its fleet of 7600 M1 and M1A1 tanks should be sold or scrapped.
The U.S. Army should also cancel its $692 million budget request to upgrade 120 tanks to the M1A2 configuration. The Abrams tank cost about $3 million each, so spending $6 million to upgrade each tank is absurd, especially since none of the enhancements are revolutionary. The U.S. Army claims that no tanks were lost to enemy fire during the Persian Gulf war (See Notes at page bottom), so why upgrade their anti-tank capabilities with a few gadgets which cost twice as much as the tanks themselves?
The U.S. Army should scrap half of its tanks, which would produce a 10-year supply of spare tank parts and engines, and upgrade the remainder to make them better people killers. An outstanding book on the employment of armor against light infantry is "Mounted Combat in Vietnam", which was produced as part of the U.S. Army's Vietnam Studies Series. If the Army would have paid attention to its own lessons learned books, it would have sent a mechanized infantry brigade to Somalia rather than a light infantry brigade. After the Ranger fiasco, tanks were sent to Somalia and convoys escorted by tanks were never attacked. As a result, the U.S. Army sent tanks for peacekeeping duty in Bosnia, and they have proven to be decisive intimidators in several confrontations.
Unfortunately, Abrams tanks are poorly equipped to combat infantry. The Army needs to immediately procure 120mm canister "beehive" APERS rounds and 120mm Improved Conventional Munition "bomblet" rounds. The Abrams also needs improved secondary armaments. The tank gunner has sights which allows him to engage targets at over 3000 meters. However, his 7.62mm coaxial machine gun only reaches out 1100 meters, so it should be upgraded to a .50 caliber (12.7mm) machine gun which can reach out over 2000 meters with far greater power. In addition, the loader�s basic M240C 7.62mm machine gun should be replaced with a M134 7.62mm mini-gun, which can fire ten times faster and pulverize nearby infantry. Finally, the tank commander also needs a better weapon to clean out infantry , so replace his M2 .50 cal HMG with the Mk-19 40mm automatic grenade launcher.
Another weakness is that the tanks� external gun mounts lack shields. When the M-113 Armored Personnel Carrier made its debut in Vietnam, at the battle of Ap Bac the .50 cal Heavy machine gun mounted atop the M-113 had no armored shields. Anyone who rose out of the top hatch to employ the weapon became the primary target for enemy infantrymen and was quickly gunned down. The Army soon mounted gun shields to correct the problem, seen today on the M113A3 model. The M551Sheridan light tank when used operationally by the 82d Airborne Division had a set of gunshields to form a "crow's nest" to protect its commander to fire the .50 cal HMG. Although the M-48 and M-60 tanks have large armored copulas over the tank commanders machine gun, the Abrams has nothing, probably because its designers wanted a clean/mean look. The machine gun can fired remotely from inside the tank, but visibility is poor, it may jam, and tank commanders have a fatal habit of riding in their open hatch anyway. The Abram tanks need armored shields on the tank commanders' and loaders� gun mounts, perhaps from unused M-113 parts, new manufacture from United Defense or maybe the armored copulas from the M-60s would fit?
There are low cost elements of the M1A2 program which should be adopted. GPS systems cost as little as $100 on the commercial market, and even the top-line military versions cost only $5000. An independent thermal viewer for the tank commander is a good idea, but it should cost no more than $10,000. Finally, a small external electric generator is essential, which cost less than $1000 on the commercial market. This allows the tank to shut off its gas guzzling engine while in defensive or overwatch positions.
All of these upgrades should cost less than $100,000 per tank, and the U.S. Army could designate these infantry killer tanks as M1A3s. This would allow the Army to upgrade thousands of tanks to M1A3s at a lower cost than 120 tanks with the M1A2 ultra-expensive system.
NOTES
"Iron Soldiers" is a good book, written by tankers of the Gulf war. The Soviet-made 125mm guns were unable to penetrate the M1A1 frontal armor even a close ranges. Their tungsten penetrators stuck into the armor like arrows. However, a T-62 took out two M1A1s at night with flank shots. This Iraqi understood IR sensors, so his crew stayed inside their tanks and left the engines off. They used the back-up hand crank and blew away two M1A1s at close range before they were hit.
All other Iraqis ran their engines to keep warm and power their turrent. Others left their engines off, but stood on top of their tanks to direct fire. U.S. tankers thermal systems were so good they could pick up the Iraqis "floating" off the ground, and simply fired at their feet. If all the Iraqis sat cold at night, XII Corps Army would have been bloodied in some battles.
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E-mail May 1998
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