The M1 Abrams: Effective or Outdated?

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Recently the DOD has suggested cutting back on the routine refurbishment of the M1 Abrams tank as means to cut down their budget by about $2 billion. Their arguement was basically that it just doesn't fit in the whole picture of the conflicts we're involved in now. First off, it sucks up more supplies and fuel than most other vehicles out there, requiring more refueling and maintenance to stay operational than most other vehicles. Second, it's not cheap, costing over $8,000,000 per tank. And the biggest issue? Most insurgents tend not to fight in the open anyhow, often preferring to fight in close quarter areas such as cities, rough hills, or with bombs - things that the Abrams isn't designed for.

However Congress, as well as quite a few private interest companies, are opposed to the idea. The official stance seems to be that it's still practical to use in the battlefield and less expensive to maintain instead of building a completely new tank. Combat-wise, it's damn tough to actually "kill" a tank. You can ruin it's treads, outrun it, force it into terrain where it's weight will cause it to get stuck in the mud or even cripple it with an IED, but the chances of you actually completely destroying the sucker are slim. It's also got a cannon that excels at long-range targeting, which means that they can use it to flush out insurgents hiding in the distant hills or in dense shrubbery. That, and the crew is pretty safe inside of it.

Due to the deep connections General Dynamics has with Congress though I doubt it'll get any sort of budget cut. Yet I'm not here to talk about politics and favors. I'm just interested in seeing what the military crowd here thinks about the continued use of the tank itself. So what do you guys think? Is it still relevant and practical? Or outdated and in need of a next-generation replacement?

We don't have a rule that all military matters should be in the military thread, but in case you'd rather take this discussion there, I thought it would be a good idea to mention that we have such a thread.

What I've gleaned from others is that the Abrams isn't bad, but the Stryker is more suited to modern situations due to significantly reduced weight restrictions.

It would get muddled up there with all the other "topics". For example Deboss (who has posted here too lol) recently talked about rounds for the M1 Abrams over there...lol

While the other "recent" topic has nothing to do with uh...military matters. lol

edited 30th Jul '12 8:53:40 AM by entropy13

How many modern wars are fought with main battle tanks these days?

Iraq, both times, but that was against a standing army. We mulched the Republican Guard into scrap metal in quick order using that and close-air support.

So they obviously work when you want to go armor vs. armor.

It's just that they're not all that well-suited for COIN and all that other irregular combat. Plus an anti-tank landmine turns them into a really expensive and fairly cramped pillbox. Finally, they're fairly expensive to maintain, but I'd argue that a lot of our gear is like that nowadays.

Expensive? I'd say that we could outfit an M60 tank with some modern electronics and use them as a second-rate tank for far less cost than an Abrams. We still have them floating around in armories.

edited 30th Jul '12 11:10:51 AM by pvtnum11

Well, maintaining a state of the art field army is going to be orders of magnitude more expensive than picking a tech level and letting yourself plateau there. I suppose the concern is that if we let ourselves get too outdated, we'll be hosed if we ever do have to go up against a modern army. But who has one of those these days besides us? China?

Russia still have quite the military, as well as some members of the Eurozone. (not that we'll go to war with them anytime soon, just sayin')

I suppose the reason why we still maintain them in the numbers that we do, is that the Military Planners forsee a credible threat level from a large standing army - but discussing that particular reason is probably outside the scope of this topic.

In terms of mission effectiveness against other tanks, the M1 is incredibly effective, capable of turning an opposing tank into a firey mess with just one shot.

However, the Israelies seem to be happy their M60's, and have modified them to suit their needs with a high degree of success. M60's are a great deal cheaper to use and I'd hazard a guess that they're an order of magnitude cheaper to produce new than an Abrams.

You could probably afford to make three or more M60's for the price of one M1. Quantity is a quality all it's own, it's been said, and the M60 wasn't a slouch in the quality department anyway.

I suspect that our congress critters will want to keep the Abrams and not entertain any sort of possibility of introducing a more cost-effective tank to parallel or replace it, as they have re-elections at stake if they cut back on M1 production. They'll cite T-90's and other metrics that support keeping an inefficient eight-million-dollar-a-pop tank in service.

edited 30th Jul '12 12:37:23 PM by pvtnum11

Pretty much everything on the table here is correct. The Abrams is not outdated for its role, it's a main battle tank, and the absolute meanest and most well rounded battle tank in the world. It's an awesome tank.

Wars against insurgents aren't suited to tanks though, and that's what we're doing right now. The Abrams is a huge gas and maintenance hog(like any tank is) and just plain isn't suited to what we're doing right now.

As shown in the first desert storm though, the Abrams can really clean up against legit enemy tank forces in the open.

Here's the part that you have to think about, there will be conflicts in the future where the Abrams is needed. However, at the moment, the Bradley is probably the bar-none best heavy vehicle that we have for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's reasonably fast, small, lighter weight than the Abrams, and can still support infantry in spades with its bushmaster chaingun.

I think scaling down on how many Abrams we have and how much we use them is more ideal than getting rid of the whole fleet or not refurbishing them.

I mean there's improvements that could be made, sure, but I believe they were going to wait to do those for budgetary reasons. It wouldn't surprise me if they could rig up a COIN variant with a shorter barrel, diesel engine, angled bottom plate or other modifications to make it more effective for the role it's being given, but it would require mods to the frame which aren't as useful for other aspects. The Stryker and the Bradley seem like they can do most of what is needed with the Abrams not really necessary.

This is not directly related to the M1 Abrams, but I think I remember reading that Canada ordered the German Leopard II MBT on the basis of the Leopard I's excellent performance in Afghanistan. That would suggest that the MBT's role in modern warfare is not quite obsolete. I'll try to dig it up.

Edit: can't find the article, but after an assessment of the performance of the Leopard I against the Taliban Canada definitely decided to invest in Leopard IIs.

edited 30th Jul '12 1:27:55 PM by pagad

Yep, I think before Afganistan Canada were planning on not having tanks any more — I think they were planning on replacing them with the Mobile Gun System (a Stryker with the 105 tank gun), but their experience out there with them changed their mind, first with loaned Leopard IIs from the Germans, and then purchased ones of their own...

I would say it is a mix. Armored fighting vehicles are more useful against insurgents but the Abrams is a very tough vehicle packing a lot of fire power.

We have been doing quite a bit of updating to the Abrams based on experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. Items like the TUSK kits and Canister shells for APERS use.

Tanks in tight spaces are not so great but there is not a lot of terrain they can't get over, around, or through. The main gun packs some serious punch which can come in handy even when fighting insurgents.

I would say it really boils down to how you use the tank in whatever conflict your in. I still think that IFV/AFV are a better choice due to primarily fighting insurgents.

The good thing about IFV's is that they contain their own fireteam or squad of infantrymen in armored NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) safety. Tanks can't do that; any riders on them are at the mercy of incoming enemy fire.

So yeah - if you're looking for mounted and dismounted mechanized infantry stuff, tanks aren't your thing. If you're looking to kill armored vehicles and hardened targets, tanks are what's needed.

That or an A-10 gun run.

Uh, well about the Canadian experience in Afghanistan it was very political. I'll give you the shake-down.

• First we sent in troops ill-equipped to deal with insurgency in Afghanistan
• Eventually once we got a handle on the situation, the taliban and other insurgent groups switched to using anti-armour IE Ds and full-up anti-tank mines
• Under pressure because our troops were dying from anti-tank mines, they replaced some usage of the LAV III infantry fighting vehicle, which was "insufficiently armoured" and brought in German Leopard II tanks
• Anti-tank mines still blow up the tanks but the government can say "we did all we could." (A surprise, is it not, that anti-tank mines take out... tanks)

They didn't actually help that much and overall were totally useless for combat. They had absolutely nothing to shoot at. LAV III at least provided infantry support and fire support for our troops, the Leopard II didn't even do that. That being said, some of our soldiers said they welcomed the tanks anyway because of the "power" appearance of a freaking tank rolling in.

Locals however were mega-pissed at us. The tanks wrecked roads, busted up farmland walls and our lawyers couldn't keep up with the reparation bills.

edited 30th Jul '12 5:01:06 PM by breadloaf

Tanks do have a nasty habit of tearing up roads, yes.

An armored car is ligher and 4x4 (or 6x6, or 8x8) and is a lot easier to manage. Doesn't look as "powerful", but looks don't win you battles.

So if you're involved in an all-out conflict, there's no concern about local roads and logistics - you're there to win.

But if you're there in a peacekeeping role, tanks strike me as being overkill, and you don't get as much bang for your buck - what the tank can do for you, a dozen armored cars or IFV's can do better, cheaper, and not tear up the roads doing so.

Thing about Afghanistan is that the politicians in all the troop contributor countries do not have a clue what the whole point of the war is and never really had one either. Or they cannot make up their mind about it which is worse. It is pretty hard to decide which vehicles you are going to be using in theatre if you cannot decide what they are going to be used for.

Oh, agreed. You can't toss armor at a problem and expect it to go away, when Light Infantry would be more suitable for the problem. Light Infantry can deploy into an area and disappear, since they use the Leathersole Express for transport, and use whatever they can carry on their backs. Give them some air support and they're suited for environments that armor simply can't operate it.

But this isn't the fault of the equipment itself.

Well, I don't want to say whether M1 Abrams are "effective" or "outdated", we just don't have any current use for them. So it wouldn't make sense to expand spending on an item we aren't currently using and have no forseeable use for in the future.

All of the problems, both Iraq and Afghanistan, for the United States have been problems with respect to lack of manpower. There's just not enough bodies to go around and even more importantly, people properly trained to deal with the situations they'll get into. It's not just a matter of guys knowing how to use their machineguns, these soldiers need to be fully vested in local culture, know local language, mores, be able to build community relationships and so on.

So what's the point of an M1 Abrams tank rolling down Baghdad screwing everything up and smashing up cars that get in its way? Well, the alternative is a few hundred intelligent expensive soldiers that could get killed by a random insurgent. Except the latter method's soft touch gets you long term results that no politician can wait for.

Actually, the Hearts and Minds thing in Iraq was debunked; we had little to do with it. Other than that, no complaints. Eight million dollars will buy you a lot of training for a bunch of soldiers, and is probably four times my old unit's annual total replacement parts budget.

Tangentially from the last page, I don't know if the Israeli M-60s are really that good a cite, given their opposition is hardly the cream of the crop, militarily speaking.

And current American military opposition is? old Soviet monkey models crewed by half-trained conscripts are about the only armoured opponents Western countries are likely to face in the near future, surely?

Always plan for the next war, not for the last one. Tanks may be needed, or at least the capability to field them quickly, far sooner than you may expect.

Agree with Barkey on this. Scale down the fleet but always keep the capability just in case. As long as we have some guys training on tank tactics (for a certain definition of "some" guys) and keep enough of an Abrams fleet to be worth supplying and maintaining the manufacturing skills, we'll be fine. I feel the same about MRAPs after our current wars are over. The real problem, in my mind, is that I was reading a book the other day talking about how our Armor training companies down at Ft. Knox are staffed by non-promotables who are incredibly bitter and terrible teachers. No idea how true that is, though, but it's a disturbing thought.

edited 31st Jul '12 6:15:32 AM by HouraiRabbit

@ Tam

True enough, but don't fight the current war with the wrong technology either.