The U.S. Army pushed back the start of work on a new integrated active protection system (APS) and autoloader for its planned next-generation iteration of the M1 Abrams tank, or M1E3, into the current fiscal year. The service announced last year that it had axed plans for another incremental upgrade for the M1 in favor of a major rework of the design focused heavily on new advanced capabilities, reduced weight, and increased fuel economy.
The disclosure of “the decision to delay the start until FY 2025 of the Integrated Main Battle Tank System effort which is specifically focused on the maturation of the autoloader and the active protection system” was included in a Pentagon budget document detailing various so-called reprogramming actions. The U.S. military has to, by law, seek approval from Congress to reallocate funds from one part of its budget to another.
The Pentagon document, which is dated September 11, does not say exactly when the Integrated Main Battle Tank System work is expected to start, if it hasn’t already. Fiscal Year 2025 began on October 1.
“This decision maps with the schedule for the related program of record,” the reprogramming document says, as well as that the action helped free up $1.451 million for other priorities. General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS), the current prime contractor for the Abrams, received a preliminary M1E3 design contract last year.
An APS that is not just an add-on system, but deeply integrated into the design, as well as an autoloader, are currently key planned elements of the future M1E3.
“That’s going to be substantially better than what we had with the installed Trophy system, which gives us great capabilities, but it’s not integrated,” Army Brig. Gen. Geoffrey Norman, head of the service’s Next-Generation Combat Vehicle Cross Functional Team, told an audience at a Maneuver Warfighter Conference in September 2023, according to Breaking Defense.
The Army has been integrating the Israeli-designed Trophy onto a portion of its existing Abrams tanks since 2017. Trophy is a hard-kill APS designed primarily to protect against anti-tank guided missiles, as well as other types of infantry anti-armor weapons, such as shoulder-fired rockets and rocket-propelled grenades. The system uses an array of small radars positioned around the vehicle it is installed on to detect threats and cue pre-loaded launchers. The launchers use a small explosive charge to expel a burst of kinetic projectiles to defeat or at least disrupt targets through force of impact. Trophy’s manufacturer Rafael just recently unveiled a new version of the system that adds additional capabilities against top-down threats, including drones.
An APS that is better optimized specifically for M1E3 and more streamlined into the design overall could have benefits both for the tank’s physical structure and when it comes to auxiliary power and weight requirements. Add-on APSs like Trophy are often characterized by the addition of bulky and heavy protrusions around a vehicle, as well as sometimes onerous additional power demands. These issues have stymied Army attempts to add APSs to its Stryker light armored vehicles in recent years.
Hard-kill APSs are only expected to become more important for tanks and heavy armored vehicles going forward. The new version of Trophy also underscores how these systems could help provide a critical additional layer of defense against growing threats posed by uncrewed aerial systems, something The War Zone previously explored in an in-depth feature.
An autoloader for the main gun, a feature the U.S. military has historically eschewed on main battle tanks, is also set to be a key element of the M1E3’s design.
“Are we looking at autoloaders for the tank to potentially reduce the crew size or allow for members to do different tasks? The short answer is absolutely, yes,” Brig. Gen. Geoffrey Norman said at the Maneuver Warfighter Conference last year. “What that solution looks like, is one of those series of experiments that’s ongoing right now.”
The autoloader will allow the tank to be operated by just three individuals, rather than the four currently required to crew existing Abrams variants. An auto-loading main gun and reduced crew also offer an avenue to make substantial changes to the tank’s internal and external physical architecture, especially when it comes to the turret, which could help lower its profile and trim weight.
It is worth noting here that autoloaders have been developed for the Abrams in the past, but have not been integrated onto any fielded variants of the tank to date. Whether the M1E3 might also come along with a new larger caliber or otherwise advanced main gun in place of the 120mm type found on Abrams today remains to be seen.
Significantly reduced weight and a more economical hybrid propulsion system in lieu of the Abrams’ existing fuel-hungry gas turbine powerplant are also expected to be key features of the final M1E3 design. Brig. Gen. Norman told Defense News that the goal weight-wise was to get the next-generation tank down to around 60 tons. With a full combat load, the latest M1A2 SEPv3 version tips the scale at around 78 tons.
“That might be a little aggressive, but we’re pretty ambitious,” Norman said. “In order to do that, we anticipate having to change the crew configuration, potentially looking at opportunities to go to a remote turret or an optionally manned turret in order to save the space under armor.”
GDLS has already presented one vision for what a future lighter-weight, hybrid-powered, autoloader-equipped, and otherwise redesigned Abrams might look like with its AbramsX demonstrator, which it rolled out in 2022.
More broadly, the M1E3 effort, and lead-in work on APSs, autoloaders, and other systems, comes at a time when the Army is looking at a future where tanks, in general, might have a very different and de-emphasized role on the battlefield. While the ongoing war in Ukraine has underscored the continued relevance of heavy armored vehicles, the Army also expects the growing anti-armor threat ecosystem to present ever-more substantial challenges going forward, especially in any future high-end conflict.
“Based on our findings, The M1 Abrams will not dominate the 2040 battlefield. All of the M1’s advantages in mobility, firepower, and protection are at risk,” an Army Science Board study published last year declares. “The M1A2 SEP V3&4 upgrades will improve effectiveness but will not restore dominance. Near transparency in all domains will significantly increase the lethality our forces will experience. China and Russia have studied our forces and doctrine and are fielding countermeasures.“
You can read more about that study and its findings here.
With all this in mind, risk reduction work on key systems like APSs and autoloaders, which the Army is now scheduled to start this fiscal year, will be important as the service presses ahead in firming up its requirements for its next-generation Abrams tanks.
Contact the author: joe@twz.com