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Originally Posted by Schone23666
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As for the mileage....yeah, that was always one of the few chinks in the M1 Abram's package. Apparently the designers felt there was going to have to be tradeoffs between range, survivability, firepower, speed, etc. and chose to sacrifice range for the rest. They've been tweaking with the engine design for the Abrams back here in the U.S. but I don't think they've really come up with an effective alternative yet.
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The designers picked the best engine at the time. The power to weight ratio for the turbine in the late seventies was MUCH better than the piston diesel.
On the Engine development, we have had three or four engine replacements developed and the major factor for non-adoption is cost factors. The issue is requirements for the replacement engine, which are weight (equal to or less than current), reliability better than current engine defined in breakdown rate (ICR the exact term) and cost. The last one was a pretty good multi-fuel engine, but the cost factors killed its adoption. TIGER was the last attempt;
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/...s-tanks-01790/
However with the new SEP v2 upgrade all the Active duty M1A2SEP tanks will be upgraded to SEPv2 configuration, which also places a generator in the left rear sponson...something needed sine the SEP came out in 2000.