AbramsX: The Army's New Tank Might Be a Waste of Time Like an Aircraft Carrier | The National Interest

Oct 20, 2024

The AbramsX is the latest iteration of the U.S. Army's iconic M1 Abrams main battle tank, designed to address modern warfare challenges. Despite criticisms of heavy tanks in conflicts like Iraq and Ukraine, the U.S. is advancing with the AbramsX, which features advanced Chobham composite armor for superior protection against kinetic and HEAT rounds. It retains the powerful 120mm smoothbore gun capable of firing various advanced munitions.

What You Need to Know: The AbramsX is the latest iteration of the U.S. Army's iconic M1 Abrams main battle tank, designed to address modern warfare challenges. Despite criticisms of heavy tanks in conflicts like Iraq and Ukraine, the U.S. is advancing with the AbramsX, which features advanced Chobham composite armor for superior protection against kinetic and HEAT rounds. It retains the powerful 120mm smoothbore gun capable of firing various advanced munitions.

-Powered by a 1,500-horsepower gas turbine engine, it can reach speeds up to 45 mph, enhancing mobility. The AbramsX also incorporates cutting-edge technology like a digital command and control system and a laser warning receiver for improved battlefield awareness and survivability.

-However, questions remain about its relevance in modern conflicts dominated by asymmetric warfare and whether it's designed for past wars rather than future ones.

In recent years, the main battle tank has come in for a lot of criticism – especially the more advanced versions of the weapons system.

In the Iraq War, MBTs were next to useless as the insurgency got underway. In Ukraine now, the Russians are so afraid of risking their advanced T-14 Armata tanks that they are relying on the old Soviet-era T-72 MBT to do the heavy lifting. (These systems are easy to produce and relatively cheap.)

Nevertheless, the Americans are moving ahead with another iteration of the Abrams, the tank that did so much to help the U.S. win during Operation Desert Storm and which remains the pinnacle of active MBTs – at least until the T-14 shows what it can do.

The coming version is known as the AbramsX.

Named after U.S. Army General Creighton Abrams, the Abrams is a third-generation MBT originally designed by Chrysler Defense, which is now known as General Dynamics Land Systems.

The original M1 Abrams first entered service in the 1980s and was designed to do one thing: stop the Red Army from breaching Western Europe via the Fulda Gap in Germany. That conflict never materialized, so the Abrams was put to work in other areas, most notably during Operation Desert Storm.

Sadly, the conflict in Europe that the Abrams was designed to fight appears to be upon us yet again in the killing fields of Ukraine. As a result, the Americans have promised 31 older M1 Abrams tanks to Kyiv. But Ukraine has resisted deploying these assets, because they are older and are too heavy for the soft ground of Ukraine.

Geography is important in war, who knew?

Still, the new AbramsX is on its way. One of its notable features is its advanced Chobham armor. This composite armor, developed in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, provides superior protection against a wide range of threats, including kinetic energy penetrators and high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) rounds.

The new Abrams is also armed to the teeth. It’s equipped with a 120mm smoothbore gun, the mainstay gun of Western main battle tanks for decades. This gun can fire a variety of ammunition types, including Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding Sabot rounds and high-explosive HEAT rounds.

But the AbramsX isn’t just about firepower and protection. It’s also about mobility. The tank is powered by a gas turbine engine that provides a whopping 1,500 horsepower. This allows the AbramsX to reach speeds of up to 45 miles per hour on roads, making it one of the fastest tanks in the world.

The AbramsX features other advanced technologies. Its digital command and control system allows the crew to share information and coordinate their actions more effectively. It also has a laser warning receiver system, which can detect when the tank is being targeted by laser-guided weapons and automatically deploy countermeasures.

America’s newest AbramsX MBT is a modern marvel of engineering – like, for example, America’s vaunted fleet of aircraft carriers. The new Abrams combines advanced armor, firepower, mobility, and technology to create a tank that’s a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield. Much like the U.S. Navy’s flattops, though, the AbramsX, while advanced, might be designed to fight yesteryear’s wars.

Brandon J. Weichert, a National Interest national security analyst, is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, the Asia Times, and The-Pipeline. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His next book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is due October 22 from Encounter Books. Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

Main image is from General Dynamics.

October 12, 2024