M1A2 Abrams

The United States' main battle tank — a heavily armoured, four-crew, 120 mm gas-turbine heavy tank whose latest SEPv3 standard adds the Trophy active-protection system, and which was supplied to Ukraine in 2023.

Overview

The M1A2 Abrams is the current production and service standard of the United States' M1 main battle tank, built by General Dynamics Land Systems and named after General Creighton Abrams. The headline variant, the M1A2 SEPv3 (System Enhancement Package version 3, briefly designated M1A2C), pairs the Abrams' signature 1,500 hp gas turbine and 120 mm smoothbore gun with a heavy composite-and-depleted-uranium armour array, a digital fire-control suite and — on fielded brigades — the Trophy hard-kill active-protection system. It is the armoured backbone of the US Army's heavy combined-arms brigades, the most widely exported Western heavy tank after the Leopard 2, and since 2023 a combatant in Ukraine.

Development

The M1 was developed by Chrysler Defense (the line later passed to General Dynamics Land Systems) and entered US Army service in 1980; the 120 mm-gunned M1A1 followed in 1985 and the digital M1A2 in 1992, according to General Dynamics Land Systems and Army Technology. The current SEPv3 standard delivered its first vehicle in October 2017 and reached its first unit in FY2020. A planned SEPv4 was cancelled in 2023 in favour of a more ambitious next-generation rebuild, the M1E3, as the Army concluded the design had reached the practical limits of added weight, per The War Zone and the Congressional Research Service.

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