The vaunted and upgraded main battle tank may actually be around for many decades to come.
The Army’s current early work on designing a new Optionally Manned Tank for the future may bring implications for the services’ long-term plans for the Abrams tank, all while also introducing the possibility that a new, lightweight, potentially unmanned high-tech armored vehicle could complement and fight alongside the Army’s Abrams tank for decades into the future.
While any prototypes or actual bending of metal is still likely years away, Army war planners and weapons developers have launched a full-scale exploration into possibilities for a future tank, including armor, weapons, tactics and anticipated future threat scenarios. At the moment, the work is largely conceptual and also being done through design renderings, digital engineering and computer simulations. The Army plans to decide upon a plan within the next several years.
Creeping weight of Abrams tank concerns Pentagon’s chief weapons tester January 26
A GREYWOLF Trooper, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, prepares his M1A2 SEPV3 for a gunnery live fire exercise, Fort Hood, Texas, Aug. 30, 2020. The addition of the new M1A2 SEPV3 Abrams Main Battle Tank is a part of the Army s ongoing modernization efforts. The training these First Team Troopers receive now prepares them for future large scale ground combat operations. (Sgt. Calab Franklin/U.S. Army) WASHINGTON The Abrams M1A2 SEPv3 tank is heavier than previous iterations and that extra weight concerns the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester, but the Army’s program office told Defense News the newer version of the tank works like vehicles in the current fleet.