Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has his “Arsenal of Freedom Tour” in full swing, visiting the nuclear submarine production floor in Newport News, Virginia and Blue Origin’s space launch at Cape Canaveral Florida. His goal: to restore American industrial prowess and secure freedom for generations to come.
You’ll never guess which program is moving the fastest: It’s the Army’s new M1E3 Abrams tank.
Get this: The M1E3 Abrams is five years ahead of schedule. Yes, five years. And it’s a hybrid.
While the Golden Dome missile defense, battleship design and other programs are on the drawing board, the Army has accelerated the M1E3 Abrams to wartime pace.
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The Army’s new M1E3 Abrams tank comes out five years early and incorporates what the US learned from the war in Ukraine.
Appropriations Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George and Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll. It’s part of their push to accelerate top programs like the MV-75 tilt-rotor air attack aircraft. In the case of the tank, the military had been studying upgrades and monitoring the war in Ukraine. George and his scientific advisor Dr. Alex Miller were told they wouldn’t see the tank until 2032. “We said no,” Miller recalls.
The result: the M1E3 prototype was launched at the Detroit Auto Show in January. The first platoon of the M1E3 will be ready for soldier testing in 2028.
As we saw in Detroit, the new M1E3 is a streamlined change from previous Abrams models. Gone is the top tower position. Now the three-man crew sits side by side in the hull where the armor is strongest. External cameras, sensors, heat-sensing thermal sights and laser rangefinders are featured in gaming-inspired cockpit displays. Their remote control? It is not intended for channel switching. An M1E3 tank crew can remotely fire a Javelin anti-tank missile with a range of 4.1 kilometers and a range of other weapons, including loitering munitions.
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Here are five great features of the M1E3 Abrams.
- Formula 1 cockpit. The M1E3 tank has a driver interface that “looks like an Xbox controller,” George said. Just as importantly, the tank uses a modular, “plug-and-play” software backbone for open systems. Soldiers can plug in new apps and upgrade them at a point in the vehicle software where all the things that make the vehicle run are protected.
- Silent mode. It’s a hybrid. No, the army is not environmentally friendly. The M1E3 gets a Caterpillar diesel engine and a SAPA transmission that allows it to switch to electric mode. The hybrid electric drive is all about silent stalking. Iraqis who faced the Abrams in 1991 called it Whispering Death, but the new Abrams takes silent mode to a new realm when the tank runs on electricity. Add heat signature reduction and electronic jammers. This is not eco mode. It whispers death. Iraqi soldiers reportedly feared the silent killing power of the Abrams in the 1991 Gulf War; the new Abrams takes silent lethality to a new level.
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- Active protection. Shoot an Abrams and “active protection” will detect, target and destroy you. This is the Army’s term for a system that can deal with a range of incoming threats, from recoilless rifles to anti-tank guided missiles, rockets, tank rounds and rocket-propelled grenades. And of course drones. The best part is that the detection system records the location of the enemy shooter. So the Abrams crew can destroy it.
- Reactive armor. Already an Abrams standard, tiles on the tank hull prevent RPG entry and deflect the explosion downward or outward depending on the tactical situation. The military doesn’t like to talk about this secret system, but guarantee you the M1E3 will improve it.
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- Big guns. Based on lessons from the battlefield in Ukraine, a .30mm chain gun replaces both the .50 caliber and the loader gun. The .30mm can hit light armored vehicles such as the Russian BMP. It can also eat drones. Remember that the crew can fire with the remote control without popping the hatch.
By the way, this is a tank on a diet. Older Abrams models weigh almost 80 tons. Expect the M1E3 to weigh around 60 tons, after shedding the top armor. Lower weight provides approximately 40% greater fuel efficiency. It also gives the M1E3 tank access to 30% more bridges in Poland and other NATO eastern frontline countries versus Russia.
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Why a new tank? To deter Russia. The war in Ukraine could end tomorrow, and Putin’s Russia would still pose a long-term threat. Russia has lost more than 3,000 tanks in Ukraine but can still produce 1,500 tanks a year, according to former NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Christopher Cavoli.
Ultimately, it is the tank that deters the conquest of territory. Just ask the soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, 66th Armored Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, who completed an armored live-fire exercise in Poland last month during Operation Winter Falcon. Polish and American troops fired their M1A2 Abrams tanks side by side. “We train to be ready for whatever might happen in the future… you did that [got to] do that in the place you may have to defend,” said U.S. Army Col. Matthew Kelley, commander of the 1st Armored Brigade combat team.
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