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 Gen. 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 advisor 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 a 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.
HEGSETH TO HIGHLIGHT REBUILDING THE 'ARSENAL OF FREEDOM' IN SPEECH AT REAGAN NATIONAL DEFENSE FORUM
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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 Gen. Christopher Cavoli, former NATO supreme allied commander.
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.
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