More on Unwanted Abrams

Gen. Ray Odierno, U.S. Army Chief of Staff, reiterated that his kind of army does not need to present more new M1 Abrams tanks. There are plans to also reduce the number of armored brigades.


Gen. Odierno during a meeting with parliamentarians urged them to support the proposals for the land, to refrain from ordering new or rehabilitation of a type of Abrams tanks, up to 2017, repeating the argument in the last month. However, new data presented.

He stated that it is not true that the potential closure of the assembly line in factories Land Systems General Dynamics in Lima, in 2014 and its re-opening in 2017, will cost more than keeping her in motion. According to estimates by the industry's first solution will cost $ 1.5 billion. Meanwhile, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army reduces this amount to only 600-800 million. Gen. Odierno said, however, that the minimum required to use the assembly line to produce annually 70 new tanks, which together with the additional costs will translate into a total expense of about $ 3 billion.


The American army orders proposed the extinction of the plants in Lima as early as last year, but parliament finally decided to contract for the current year 42-44 vehicles. Also now have serious doubts regarding the suspension of production. This applies above all, a possible departure of skilled workers. Some legislators proposed therefore to continue production and modernizing the standard M1A1 to M1A2 SEP variant (for activities in urban areas) and transmitting them to the U.S. Army Reserve and National Guard.

Ray Odierno pointed out, however, that the reserves are now sufficient, and the M1A1 model is still a very good tank . He added that the army is currently preparing its new structure, adapted to the reduced size. Preliminary findings show the need to solve the heavy brigade combat teams (armored brigades). This will increase the amount of unnecessary operational service to the current primary tanks.


The issue of domestic orders of the armed forces is now becoming essential to the factory in Lima. Although Americans are counting on large export orders, but they are not certain. The greatest potential buyers - Egypt and Saudi Arabia - not so far led to the final negotiations, for reasons of political upheavals in the Middle East.