>The U.S. has not built new Abrams tanks since the early 1990s. With the Cold War over, thousands of Abrams that were built to fight the Soviet Union were put into storage, according to Dean Lockwood, a military vehicle analyst with Forecast International.
>These days, defense contractor General Dynamics remanufactures Abrams tank hulls for the U.S. Army and allies in Lima, Ohio. The overhauls produce “essentially a spanking brand-new tank for about half price,” Lockwood said.
>Currently, the U.S. has about 8,000 Abrams, but “significantly less” are battle-ready, he said. The U.S. draws from those tanks in storage and remanufactures them for allies, such as Poland, which is buying upwards of 350 Abrams.
Why is nobody talking about the fact that America's main battle tank is an artifact from a bygone era of technology and that the US is unable to produce new ones. What is the strategic significance of giving these to third parties if the pool is limited and cannot be replenished? Is this a good idea, strategically speaking?
We getting the Abrams X instead
Abrams X is not happening
>this
it's the MBT70 all over again, the M1 will be the tank version of the B52, so we will likely see M1s on Mars
M1s armed with M2s and crewmen armed with M4s on the red planet.
Sadly this. It's a tech demonstrator and nothing more.
>this is what we COULD make but won't because the Armata is a parade float
>M1A2 SEP500 to Mars it is
There are more confirmed operable AbramsX right now than there are T14s
Our MBT is still decades ahead of what our enemies can field, and our air force is categorically superior to all of our enemies put together.
Including your worthless nation, piyavka
The Type-99 is hands down more impressive than the original Abrams and would wipe the floor with it. While perhaps not superior to the current M1 variants, there are far more of them and the M1 would take heavy losses in any major war with such an opponent, and, key fact here, while the US hasn't produced new units of its 43 year old tank in years and cannot produce them, China's 19 year old tank has been pumped out in huge numbers, with more updated models than the US has for the new M1 variant.
The US is Russia in the 90s-00s, coasting on old stockpiles and knowhow, but having lost all ability to actually keep up with these as rivals dramatically outpace it in production.
China quite literally produced 100 times more large seafaring vessels than the US did last year. The US can't even maintain its existing fleet without extensively using foreign dockyards, let alone large scale increases in production. China will soon produce more tonnage than the rest of the world combined by contrast.
Your decadent country is over. You will bend the knee. Your women will flock to men who can actually produce. Men who actually have discipline and pride, purpose and vision, instead of decadent party boys and incel man children. They will come over to our side, the desire for Big Chang Wang compelling them, while you just OD on more fentanyl or shoot yourselves / a daycare up in impotent rage.
it's over
I am demoralized.
>unironic chinese shill
Black person, china ain't shit lmao.
Impressive. With this most recent achievement, fate has in a single stroke, marked the decline of the west and spelled a new era of wondrous prosperity and peaceful global dominance for the Chinese dragon, which promises to firmly stand in sharp contrast to the historically bloody ascent of western powers and the cruel subjugation it brought to the humbler nations of the world. With the blessings of Chinese monocrystal turbines, plasma stealth technology, quantum direct-current electricity, quantum aircraft carriers and quantum enhanced railguns will be the instruments with which China affirms its noble stewardship of 21st century world politics and offers the non-western world a different option; an humanist alternative to the depredations of Western leadership and the opportunity for a more equitable and dignified world.
>IMPLESSIVE
>while you just OD on more fentanyl or shoot yourselves / a daycare up in impotent rage
Don't they barge into daycares with knives and start cutting off children's noses and ears in China as their version of a mass shooting?
>While perhaps not superior to the current M1 variants, there are far more of them
There aren't though
You mean the same tank, with the leaked technical manual that revealed that it was known that approximately half of all ammunition had been manufactured in the wrong dimensions, and included a section on how to hammer it into the breech?
The same tank that also fires sabots with 1960s tier penetration performance?
That's not even counting the space force and whatever black magic UFO tech they have.
Air is king
They are not making more because thousands of unused hulls in perfect condition are still there.
>Spend 30 years trying to make a light tank
>Fail with some abomination
Why didn't they just buy these?
>the US is unable to produce new ones
what makes you say that
do you really need more tanks when you have 8000 of them already
They can still make more, but decided to stop production because we made too many. There are thousands of them in storage waiting to be upgraded and activated. The U.S. is focusing on a new tank at this moment.
With all their losses Russia needs about 30 years of T90 production at the current rate to catch up with the US.
Or it just needs vassalage to China and a bit of their production rates to be fair.
>Russia is capable of churning out hundreds of T-90 per year
lol
If this was true we would have seen them at the parade. Where we saw zero. No they're not at the front either.
The US probably has the biggest tank stockpile in the world now that all the russian soviet junk got blown up, what's the point in making more?
>that the US is unable to produce new ones.
Where does it say that?
oh, it's you again
BTFO in two treads back-to-back and going double or nothing?
At least you're no longer spouting shit from the War Thunder aviation forums.
>unable to produce new ones
I dont get that talking point. It's not a fricking spacecraft, they arent building new ones because they already have more than they need.
We don't have a line for hulls currently. However if needed the US would probably just develop a new tank.
That too.
The only part of the line that doesn't exist is the initial steel forming, the rest exists because it's all needed for modernisation.
Making hulls is probably the easiest part to ramp up, you just dump steel into moulds that were kept around since the original production.
Anyone that says otherwise is literally a moron.
Steel Uranium hulls are probably a bit more difficult than that, but the same principle applies, and we know they're able to make them out of if steel too
Any situation where the United States has lost even half the number of it's Abrams as Russia has of its armor over the past year and a half is uniroincally close to a "muh nooks" situation.
Because if we need more, we might as well design a newer, modern tank.
>Lost technology
We can build the Booker which has electronics decades ahead of the Abrams due to not being confined to a chassis made in the 80s.
The Abrams is half-century old tech. We are more than happy to hand them out at this point if it means more zigger death.
It's hilarious that that vatniks regard it as some sort of cutting edge Western technology, though that's understandable considering that everything that they field is antiquated Soviet garbage.
There a big fuss a couple of years ago where Congress made the Army take new tanks they didn't want/need to keep the production line alive.
Since the Detroit plant was shut down no new ones have been made, since the 1990's really
>Start making a shitload of tanks to take on the USSR
>USSR collapses
>Have thousands of top-of-the-line tanks to fight an enemy that no longer exists and can barely keep themselves intact
It's easy to find the number of about 10k abrams built, but do we know how many more unbuilt hulls there are? or were all of them finished up to a point and then put in storage to make the activation/refurbishment process easier?
my understanding is that 10k hulls is all there is
>Why is nobody talking about the fact that America's main battle tank is an artifact from a bygone era of technology
In terms of design modern western tanks have more or less reached where they want to be on the triad of armor, firepower, speed, going for a bigger number is just going to increase the tanks weight to an untenable amount. That doesn't mean tanks are stagnant, just that improvements are in optics, computers, cameras, comms, networking, active protection and so on.
Look at the K2 and it exemplifies the problem of a "new" tank in that it isn't much more than an 80's tank with all the modern add-ons. Until we see a game changer technology like a new armor or main weapon, don't expect a new hull design to seriously outperform the current.
>and that the US is unable to produce new ones.
They absolutely can. The reason General Dynamics remanufactures tanks only to put them into storage is not only to keep the reserve up to date but also to keep the plant running and the workers employed to smooth over full reactivation.
>What is the strategic significance of giving these to third parties if the pool is limited and cannot be replenished? Is this a good idea, strategically speaking?
Hard to tell but the US already has way more tanks than their army can support, like 2-1 and it is in their best interest to prop up allied nations. The modern battlefield also doesn't rely on tank spam the way it used too.
>What is the strategic significance of giving these to third parties if the pool is limited and cannot be replenished?
so i can take a look at them when im doing my daily groceries
I think the next big western tank will mirror the leo 1 concept except with APS.
Armor it only against autocannons and rely on APS for full size cannons and missiles/rockets
Obviously this requires APS to mature
I don't think that the overall armor weight will decrease much, but it will be redistributed back to the sides, engine deck and turret roof due to the increased FPV and top attack missile threats. APS will be standard issue too, but I really doubt MIC boomers will ever let go of the last layer of the survivability onion
the trends with the next generation tanks are obvious
>massive focus on sensors and sensor fusion
>integrated drone launch capability
>NERA and new composite armor
>programmable ammunition autocannons
forgot to add APS
>massive focus on sensors and sensor fusion
Not something that requires a huge amount of size or weight
>programmable ammunition autocannons
Why do this on a tank instead of an IFV?
I think they'll be mobile EWAR assets focused on mobility and producing a lot of power.
we can make more we just don't need to, and it saves alot of money to not bother when our stockpiles are worth 10x all of our neer peers combined by dint of not being morons/ understanding what they're for
1. 8,000 Abrams is enough to exterminate every non-US-allied nations tank fleet in the world several times over.
2. The production line is mothballed. And the refits are being paid for to make sure the trained workforce remains, too. So if there was need to produce new ones, they could restart the line in a matter of days.
>all that greentext and no source
Get fricked, newbie.
>building hordes of tanks from the 70s
If there's going to be mass production of new tanks, it should be an actual new tank designed around current threats. Not just a tank designed when the original star wars was new with some extra tacticool bolted on.
We still produce all the complex internal components in order to keep the existing fleet running. The only thing we don't currently make are hulls, which are stupid easy to produce. If we need more tanks, we'll just start new hull production lines.