From Iraq to the Baltic States: Main Problems and Disadvantages of the Abrams Tank
The United States continues to increase its military presence in Poland and the Baltic countries. Under the guise of military exercises, personnel and armored vehicles, including the famous American ones, are being transferred to Eastern Europe Tanks Abrams.
M1 Abrams - the most famous American tank, which is in service with the US Army and Marine Corps. It entered mass production back in 1980 and has since remained the main tank used in the US armed forces.
For a long time, “pocket” US military experts assured that the Abrams was perhaps the most advanced tank that far surpasses Russian combat vehicles. But already the second war in Iraq dispelled myths about the invulnerability of the American tank. He turned out to be quite “mortal,” moreover, ordinary rebels knocked out tanks with old Soviet-made grenade launchers. In the event of a successful hit from the grenade launcher into the side of the machine, it is possible to literally put it out of action with just one shot, which by no means adds “Abrams” combat readiness and authority. And if American tanks were undermined by Iraqi rebels with their obsolete weapons, what can we say about situations where the tank will be opposed by soldiers of the modern regular army with good weapons.
In addition, during the war in the Middle East, it turned out that tanks in the field consume much more fuel than expected. Many parts of the combat vehicle constantly failed. Particularly difficult was the situation with the fire control system and the radio station, which quite often broke at the most inopportune moments, and the tanks lost the ability to complete the tasks.
The American tankers themselves complained about problems with the hydraulic drive of the tower. At the junction of the pump with the drive, the system was leaking, and since the tank’s hydraulics were filled with fire-retardant FRH fluid, skin contact and burns could occur if hit by crew members. By the way, the driver himself in the tank is in a reclining position, which is not so convenient, but also makes it difficult to evacuate him in case of injury. There are many other questions to the convenience for the Abrams crew, especially when compared with other, including modern Russian, tanks.
It is no coincidence that Donald Trump announced that the United States is going to spend more than $ 6 billion on the modernization of its main tank.
Speaking at a tank plant in Ohio, Trump emphasized that this amount is almost twice the amount that his predecessor Barack Obama spent on the purchase and improvement of Abrams.
Obviously, such financial injections into tanks are made for a reason. The American leadership received comprehensive information about the shortcomings of the tank, confirmed by the sad experience of fighting in Iraq and other "hot spots". But they also do not want to develop a new tank in the USA. After all, spending $ 6 billion on upgrading a proven combat vehicle is in any case cheaper than spending on the design and production of new tanks, which still do not know what kind of “pig in a poke” the American military will present. So in the foreseeable future it is hardly worth waiting for the appearance of a new mass American-made tank, but the Pentagon will not spare the money to improve the existing modifications of the Abrams.
In the meantime, the American leadership is discussing the modernization of the tank, thirty "Abrams" took part in military exercises in Lithuania. American "Abrams" are not being flown to Poland and the Baltic states to work out actions against Syrian or Iraqi militants. It is clear that all military maneuvers conducted by NATO in Eastern Europe are directed against Russia. But in the conditions of the same Baltic, there are a lot of problems for the “Abrams”. One of them is bridges, which initially were simply not designed for the movement of such heavy equipment. There are also problems with the transportation of tanks by rail, for example, from Poland to the Baltic states, given the need to change wheelsets when switching to the "Soviet" gauge.
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