Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has his ‘Arsenal of Freedom Tour’ in full swing, visiting the nuclear submarine production floor at Newport News, Virginia and Blue Origin’s space launch at Cape Canaveral Florida. His goal: restore American industrial prowess and secure freedom for generations to come.
You’ll never guess which program is moving fastest of all: 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 Golden Dome missile defense, the battleship design and other programs are on the drawing board, the Army has accelerated the M1E3 Abrams to wartime pace.
Credit Army Chief of Staff General Randy George and Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll. It’s part of their push to accelerate top programs like the MV-75 air assault tilt-rotor plane. In the case of the tank, the Army had been studying upgrades and watching the Ukraine war. George and his science adviser Dr. Alex Miller were told they would not see the tank until 2032. ‘We said no,’ Miller recalled.
The result: the M1E3 prototype rolled out at the Detroit Auto Show in January. The first platoon of the M1E3 will be ready for testing by soldiers in 2028.
As seen in Detroit, the new M1E3 is a sleek change from earlier Abrams models. Gone is the top turret position. Now the three-man crew side by side in the hull where armor is strongest. External cameras, sensors, heat-detecting thermal sights, and laser-range finders feed into gaming-inspired cockpit displays. Their remote? It’s not for changing channels. An M1E3 tank crew can remotely fire Javelin anti-tank missile with a 2.5-mile range and a range of other weapons, including loitering munitions.
Here are five killer attributes of the M1E3 Abrams.
Formula One Cockpit. The M1E3 tank has a driver interface that ‘looks like an Xbox controller,’ said George. Just as important, the tank uses a modular, ‘plug-and-play’ open systems software backbone. Soldiers can plug in new apps and upgrade it in at a point in the vehicle software where all the things that make the vehicle run are protected.
Quiet mode. It’s a hybrid. No, the Army isn’t going eco-friendly. The M1E3 will have a Caterpillar diesel engine and a SAPA transmission that allows it to switch into electric mode. The hybrid electric drive is all about silent stalking. Iraqis facing the Abrams in 1991 called it Whispering Death, but the new Abrams takes the silent mode into a new realm when the tank is running on electric. Add in heat signature reduction and electronic jammers. This is not eco-mode. It’s whispering death. Iraqi soldiers reportedly feared the quiet killing power of the Abrams in 1991 Gulf War; the new Abrams takes silent lethality to a new level.
Active Protection. Shoot at an Abrams and ‘active protection’ will detect, target and obliterate you. This is the Army’s term for a system that can sort out a whole 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 the detection system nails the location of the enemy shooter. So, the Abrams crew can destroy it.
Reactive Armor. Already an Abrams standard, tiles fitted on the tank hull prevent penetration by RPGs and deflect blast downward or outwards, depending on the tactical situation. The Army really doesn’t like to talk about this secretive system, but guarantee you, the M1E3 will improve on it.
Great Guns. With lessons drawn from the Ukraine battlefield, a .30-mm chain gun replaces both the .50-caliber and the loader’s gun. The .30-mm can hit light-armor vehicles like the Russian BMP. It can also chew up drones. Remember remote control permits the crew to fire without popping the hatch.
By the way, this is a tank on a diet. Older Abrams models weigh close to 80 tons. Expect the M1E3 to weigh in at about 60 tons, after shedding top turret armor. Lighter weight yields about 40% greater fuel efficiency. It also allows the M1E3 tank to access 30% more bridge crossings in Poland and other NATO Eastern front-line countries facing Russia.
Why a new tank? To deter Russia. The Ukraine war could stop tomorrow, and Putin’s Russia would still be a long-term threat. Russia has lost over 3,000 tanks in Ukraine but can still produce 1,500 tanks per year, according to former NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Christopher Cavoli.
In the end, it is the tank that deters the taking of territory. Just ask the soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, 66th Armored Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, who wrapped up an armored live-fire exercise in Poland during Operation Winter Falcon last month. Polish and U.S. forces fired their M1A2 Abrams tanks side by side. ‘We train to be ready for anything that might happen in the future … you’ve [got to] do that in the place you may have to defend,’ said U.S. Army Col. Matthew Kelley, Commander, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team.