Army’s New M1A3: A Faster, Lighter, Drone-Killing Beast

The American M-1 tank has a long and storied history, from the last years of the Cold War to Operation Desert Storm to, well, today. And now the latest proposed revision to the world's finest main battle tank (MBT) has been unveiled, and it's... interesting.

Drone attacks from the air, top-down anti-tank guided missiles, hit-and-run ambushes from dispersed groups of armed soldiers and long-range enemy missiles and tank rounds…. are a few of the threats the Army’s new M1E3 60-ton tank will need to address. The explosion of AI and drone war is massively reshaping the landscape of modern warfare, and the success of anti-armor weapons have led some to posit that perhaps the main battle tank has become obsolete. Perhaps heavy armor is simply too vulnerable to dismounted anti-armor weapons and drones to be considered relevant in modern war?
The U.S. Army is seeking to address this problem and surge forward with a main battle tank adapted to a modern AI-and-drone-capable threat environment. One thing seems clear; with tactical and technological adjustments necessary to accommodate modern warfare scenarios, the main battle tank is going nowhere. There is not another way to fully “breach” an enemy perimeter, maneuver to contact and actually seize and hold ground. Despite the success of anti-armor weapons and the destruction of tanks in the war in Ukraine, the arrival of heavily armored vehicles did help the Ukrainians take back ground from Russia during their previous counteroffensive.

We do not yet know specifics on the proposed new tank's weapon systems, but it appears the main armament remains the 120mm smoothbore gun, that has been used in the Abrams since the M1A1 (before that, the first marks of the M1 used the 105mm gun also used on the older M60 series) But there is some speculation as to some of the M1A3's defensive capabilities:

Perhaps of even greater importance, it is nearly a certainty that the M1E3 will operate with new generations of EW, as advanced systems can now help deconflict the spectrum, identify enemy signatures and RF signals and “jam,” “disable” or even “take over” attacking drones. High-Powered Microwave weapons are also emerging quickly as a key area of focus when it comes to the challenges associated with countering drone attacks. It would not be surprising to learn that the M1E3 operates with AI-enabled C-UAS and threat-oriented computing able to find, verify and validate targets and pair them with an optimal countermeasure or effector … in milliseconds.
By operating with a diesel-electric hybrid engine, the M1A3 will not only be more fuel efficient, and operate with silent “watch” capability, but it will benefit from large sources of on-board electrical power generated by the diesel-electric engine. This will bring necessary on-board electricity to support electronics, sensors, targeting and AI-enabled computing at lighter weights without needing to add APUs.

I'm not so sure about the hybrid propulsion system. But in this new era of drone and electronic warfare, most of these modifications and capabilities make a certain amount of sense. Plus, let's face it, they're cool. We shouldn't adopt design features just because they're cool, of course, but adopting features that make good sense on the modern battlefield doesn't mean we can't find them to be cool as well.

How Does One Make an M1 Tank More Awesome? Put a Minigun on It!

There has been a fair amount of talk about whether there is a role for the MBT on the modern battlefield, which is dominated now by drones and air assets. I think that the role of the MBT is reduced, certainly; there's no longer much chance of a thousand Russian tanks suddenly storming through the Fulda Gap anymore, and that's the fight that the original M1 was built for. But there is still a place for tanks. The other side, as we have seen in the Russo-Ukrainian War, will almost certainly be fielding tanks in any land-based near-peer conflict, and one of the ways you counter tanks is still with tanks. Plus, there is the intimidation factor; the presence of a few 60-ton steel beasts on the battlefield tends to make dismounted bad guys feel maladjusted.

It's not sure when the new M1A3 will be fielded. When it is, it will present the U.S. Army and Marine Corps armor troops with a whole bunch of new capabilities, and that's never a bad thing.

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