A few questions for our Aussie members

[Schone23666]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

The Australian Abrams are former US Army & USMC models built to M1A1 standard rather than new builds. They are rebuilt to "zero hour/zero kilometer" configuration. This was probably done so that they would not be fitted with the depleted uranium armour.
The reason for not using the depleted uranium armour was a government decision because they didn't like the idea of radioactive material trundling around the place (yeah, yeah, I know and you know it has no chance of contaminating anything or anyone but the government did not want to upset the greenies who are fanatically opposed to radioactive materials - although they don't seem to mind all the benefits from nuclear medicine or seem to care that the sun provides more radiation but that's another story for a different thread).
They are also fitted with the Tank Urban Survivability Kit i.e. TUSK.

We purchased 59 M1A1 AIM* MBTs and seven M88A2 recovery vehicles (some sources say five M88 but Australian government sources say seven) along with MAN TGA 8x8 prime movers (AKA tractor truck) towing trailers designed & built by Drake Trailers Australia to form 14 heavy tank transporters.
The trailer has a split deck that spreads to the width of the tank when needed just like other oversized load bearing trailers. It can also lower itself to the ground for loading so the suspension takes none of the loading forces.
* AIM - Abrams Integrated Management.

The tanks are run on diesel rather than avgas and this has no appreciable impact on the operational range of 430km. The decision for diesel is that every other vehicle in the Army (aside from staff cars and the like) runs on diesel.
The operational range is a sore point as the Leopard AS1 MBTs got about 500km. It's not a big problem for Europe or North America where there are many more facilities but it's a serious issue for Australia where the distance between rural towns may be anywhere between 200 to 500 kilometers. Particularly relevant for the Abrams because as far as I know, it does not have a fuel pump to allow it to refill itself. It still relies on an external pump to transfer fuel.

There are two specific reasons the Abrams was chosen (not taking into consideration the political reasons for buying it) - it was already wired up for network centric warfare and it makes for easier inter-nation operability and support (including parts, training etc. etc.) with the US.

They don't have the DU armor inserts? Urgh. Well, here's hoping your guys won't be needing those, though geopolitical events in the Pacific as of late don't seem to be boding well...

With that said, does that mean the Australians aren't using the DU sabot rounds in their tanks as well? Are they using something else, standard HEAT rounds perhaps?

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. You still got a lot of heavy armor to push with that engine and you need plenty of horsepower to do so. So hence there's always a long logistics chain that follows the M1 Abrams convoys.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Nope, no DU armour and no DU rounds.
I'm also given to believe that friendly nations cannot use DU rounds during training shoots here either.

As for the mileage of the Abrams, to be fair, it was originally designed to fight in Europe and everything was centred on that idea. To the best of my knowledge there are no tank designs that have addressed every aspect of a requirement for tanks in Australia. All our tanks with the exception of two designs, have been from the UK or the USA and these have generally been designed to fight either a European war or with a massive manufacturing and/or logistics tail (that we don't have the population to support).

Australia's Abrams will likely never leave our shores and so will bustle around the outback for most of their career (the last time we sent tanks outside the country was for the Vietnam War when we had Chieftains -- Edit: err, make that Centurions, we didn't have the Chieftain... I had a brain fart).

For those interested, the two non-UK/US tanks were the Australian designed/built Sentinel and the West German Leopard 1. The Sentinel was something of an achievement for Australian industry as it was the first time we had ever undertaken to design and build tanks and the armoured steel required for them. It was built to make up the shortfall in tanks able to be delivered from the UK during WW2 but unfortunately for the Sentinel, the USA was able to make up that shortfall so our indigenous tank was not needed in the numbers projected.
The Sentinel is also notable for being the only tank of the WW2 era to have a hull cast as one single piece.

[robert.munsey]

Originally Posted by Schone23666

<snip>
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.

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.