M1 Abrams Armor: Unmatched Strength and Recent Developments for Ukraine

It has been a while since we have written here and we decided today was the day!

The M1 Abrams in the News

Largely viewed as the benchmark of the tank world, the M1 Abrams is back in the news with recent reports that the US Army will now elect to refurbish an older variant to speed delivery to Ukraine. Today’s article will briefly share a sample of historical knowledge and shed some light about the armor protection for US variants, circa 2003.

Many have speculated, some wildly and incorrectly, about the toughness of the Abrams armor. All is expected when many get their information from World of Tanks and Wiki. Having said that, a single question that many across the world ponder continues to pop up. This question can be surmised as the following; “ Just how strong is the Abrams armor (US DU variant)?”

A few leading civilian authors have written extensively about it and have come close enough to guessing the range and degree of protection this tank has. It is very impressive to say the least.

Assessing the Abrams’ Armor Strength

I will not disclose the numbers nor the exact ranges concerning survivability (due to legal issues associated with this topic), but let’s put it this way, the US Army designed the tank to take a direct hit and shrug it off from the very best ANY adversary has to offer as well as to defeat whatever it engages without fail.

Here is another example of just how tough the old Abrams “D” was back in 2003:

In this example, a US Abrams was determined to be unrecoverable due to a lack of immediate recovery assets available (EAPU). It was decided to destroy the tank in place to prevent any potential capture and compromise of sensitive tech. To accomplish this feat, it required two AGM-65 Maverick missiles, each with a 126 pound (58 Kilogram), shaped charged penetrating warhead targeting the turret side as well as an additional engagement with an optimally placed DU sabot round into the rear of its turret, to set off the stowed ammunition to effectively destroy the vehicle and to actually “compromise the armor package,” rendering it “secured”.

Again, that’s two Maverick missiles, each with a 126 pound, shaped charged warhead, as well as an M829A3 DU sabot to compromise the armor package of an old variant Abrams with 1st generation DU plates.

Kindly,

Sam141 and Mel Daniels