Why America’s Tank Failed in Ukraine

This is the M1A2 Abrams, the US  Army’s Main Battle Tank and one   of the most advanced armored vehicles in  the world. It’s armed with a cannon over   5 meters long that can punch through nearly  a meter of steel from two kilometers away. Depleted uranium plates protect its turret and  hull. The latest upgrades added an additional   anti-mine underplate, reactive armor tiles  over the flanks and a TROPHY active protection   system on top, but these raise the Abrams’ fully  loaded combat weight to 78 tons. That’s as much   as a Boeing 737-800 on takeoff, or twenty  Ford F-450s stacked on top of each other. Yet here it is racing down dirt roads  at highway speeds. Jumping and firing   mid-air. Wading through meter-deep mud,  and drifting it like it’s aToyota AE86. And it’s possible thanks to this. Its powertrain  is a jet engine attached to a gearbox taken from a   helicopter, capable of generating 1500 horsepower  out of any fuel from gasoline to vegetable oil,   with enough torque to accelerate an Abrams to half  its top speed in 6 seconds. No other tank today,   bar one, uses something like this.   But the amount of fuel it consumes   is the Abrams’ biggest handicap, turning into a  logistical nightmare when fighting in Ukraine.    It can’t travel as far or sortie as often as  other tanks because of a turbine it wasn’t   even supposed to have and that the  US Army is going to ditch this year. Out of 31 A1 Abram tanks delivered to Ukraine,   27 have been lost. How did the Abrams  end up like this, and why did it fail? To explain this we have to follow the incredible   evolution of tank engines  going back a hundred years. Designing a tank engine is an exercise  in managing contradictions. Tanks want to   install as much armor and firepower as possible,  which comes with the cost of a lot of weight. To move all that, the engine  needs a lot of torque,   specifically low end torque. Torque  that’s available at low engine RPMS,   when the tank is just beginning to move  and has the most inertia to overcome. The easiest way to do that is to increase engine  displacement. Larger piston cylinders hold bigger   explosions, raising the twisting force at the  crankshaft. But an engine like this takes up more   space within a tank hull, which means a bigger  hull with more area to cover with heavy armor,   which then needs a bigger engine to  move around. We’re back at square one. There were no specialized tank engines to solve  that problem in world war 1, when tanks first   saw combat. These were secretive emergency  projects designed with what was available. The British Mark I and the French  Saint-Chamond trapped eight men in a   closed box with a carbon monoxide-fuming  tractor engine that barely managed 100   horsepower while rattling their ears  off or burning them with exposed   red-hot exhaust pipes. They only managed to  crawl over trenches at a mere walking pace. Tank evolution really began to accelerate  in World War II. Early engagements between   Allied and Axis forces quickly revealed  that the US Army’s 18 ton M2 Medium tank   was beyond obsolete. It didn’t have the  armor to stand up to German 75mm guns nor   the weapons to defeat Panzers from any  range. So, engineers rushed to create a   tank with heavier armor and its own 75mm  gun. The result was the slapdash M3 Lee,   with its main gun jammed into its side, later  perfected into the war-winning M4 Sherman. The Sherman was around 30 tons to 33 tons  depending on the variant. Why not more, like   the British designed Churchills? The US Army had  been trialling heavy tanks of their own but they   could never fit into the Allied logistics chain.   American forces needed to cross oceans before they   could fight on the battlefields of Europe, Africa  or Asia. That meant any tanks they brought with   them had to be easily shipped and deployed  by the equipment at hand. The Liberty Ship,   backbone of Allied logistics, used cargo hoists  that usually couldn’t handle more than 30 tons. The landing craft which brought tanks  ashore, like the LCM-3 during D-Day,   could only carry a single 30 ton load.   Prefabricated Bailey Bridges for crossing   rivers in enemy territory also imposed  their own size and weight restrictions.    It made no sense to build a super tank  that would never reach the battlefield. The choice of engine for the M4 Sherman was  similarly practical. It started with the 340   horsepower Wright-Continental R975, a lightweight  9-cylinder radial engine that was robust,   reliable and most importantly already in mass  production. Later versions bundled together   whatever engines that were available just  to keep up with demand from the front line. But other variants experimented with engine  arrangements looking for the perfect formula,   like M4A4, which came with FIVE Chrysler  inline v6 engines all driving their power

to a single driveshaft. Combining to create  a 370 horsepower, 20. 5 litre displacement,   30 cylinder multibank contraption called the  A57. Chrysler even claimed in a 1944 issue   of Popular Science that the tank could keep  moving with 2 of its 5 engines knocked out. The Germans didn’t have such strict  logistical restrictions on their   tanks. Their tanks could ride  trains with multi-axle flatcars,   and then just drive the rest of the  way to the front under their own power. The result was a number of designs with superior  guns and armor two to three times thicker than any   Allied vehicle. The infamous Tiger I was a 54 ton  box with 10 centimeters of steel over the front,   impervious to the Sherman. When the Allies  brought in bigger guns to deal with the Tiger I,   the Germans developed its successor, the 68  ton Tiger II with 15 cm of slopped armor,   which made the effective armor thickness 23  centimeters. In the last year of the war,   the 72 ton Jagdtiger appeared,  with 25 centimeters of armor   and a massive 128mm gun that could knock  out Shermans from over 3 kilometers away. To deal with the ever increasing weight,  the Germans simply used the same Maybach   V12 liquid cooled engine, and  scaled up its displacement. The first Tigers to roll off the  manufacturing line came with an   inadequate 21 litre engine (HL210). To upgrade it  they simply increased its cylinder bore by 5 mm to   create a 23 litre displacement engine (HL230).   At 700 horsepower it was still not enough. One of the best engines in the war, stretched  to its limit by ever increasing weight. It   gave the Tiger a power to weight ratio  of around 12-13 horsepower per tonne,   then they threw it into the 72 tonne Jagdtiger. The Germans had completely lost the  run of themselves at this point.    This engine was completely overstressed,  and their tanks were more frequently   abandoned and destroyed by their crews when  something broke than destroyed by enemy fire. Throughout the war, the Soviets took the  brunt of Axis aggression and they learned   hard lessons on how important it was to  balance offense, defence and mobility, and used them to design the T-44. Their genius  idea was to take the engine of the T-34 tank,   the most prolific military V12 diesel in history,  and simply turn it 90 degrees and package it with   its transmission in a compact bay in the rear.   This lowered the height of the hull by around 30   centimetres, not just making it a smaller target,  but allowed for critical weight to be shifted   to front armor where it was needed most, while  creating room for a wide turret that could hold a   high-caliber gun, granting the T-44 the firepower  and protection of a tank twice its weight.   While it didn’t get a notable service  record and was soon replaced, we can   trace the compact design and hull layout of  all Russian tanks today back to the T-44. What followed was a period of relative stagnation.   The Cold War meant that tank development   continued, but without technological breakthroughs  the improvements were just incremental. In the mid-1960s however, tank design  philosophy shifted radically.   Finding targets and devising a firing  solution had been considerably sped up   by the introduction of advanced optics,  rangefinders and stabilized barrels. High   Explosive Anti-Tank ammunition and Armor Piercing  Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot rounds had been   developed into high velocity projectiles that  could penetrate up to half a meter of steel,   so no tank could carry enough armor  to protect itself reliably. Combined,   these features meant that tank combat devolved  into a brawl where the first one to find and   shoot their opponent almost always got the kill,  and the only way to survive was to rapidly duck   behind cover. The implication for tank design was  that most armor could be discarded in favour of   maximum maneuverability, which raised the  importance of engine design even higher. West Germany met this design challenge  with the Leopard 1, with a 10 cylinder   supercharged 37 litre engine in 1965. It  carried minimal armor and a stabilized 105mm   gun. The Leopard 1 weighed in at 40 tons  despite its hull being over 8 meters long. Soviet tank design took another  direction with their T-64A.    They raised the stakes with a massive  125mm caliber cannon and developed an   autoloader system to handle ammunition that  exceeded 20 kg a piece. New composite armor   called Combination K placed glass-reinforced  plastic in between traditional steel plates,   offering better protection than the same  full thickness of steel at much loewe weight. They packaged it with an innovative  powerplant design. A two stroke   opposed 5 cylinder engine. With  two pistons in each cylinder,

pushing towards each other. Eliminating  heavy cylinder heads and valves. This resulted in an engine with  twice the power density of the   American’s M60’s Continental engine. The  38 ton T-64A entered service in 1967 as   the most advanced Main Battle Tank in the world. But that came with a cost. The engine  had to be driven perfectly to avoid   damage. The gear train keeping  everything running smoothly had   its work cut out for it in a tank  battling it out on rugged terrain. Heat is also concentrated in  the centre of the two pistons,   with no cylinder head, and  without adequate cooling,   the pistons could actually absorb enough  heat to expand and seize within the cylinder. So, the T-64A was reserved  for elite fighting units.    The most innovative high power density  engine isn’t always the best choice. Watching these developments, the US Army found  itself at a crossroads. It could continue with   incremental improvements of the M60, based on  a hull with WWII heritage, or take a great leap   forward to address present and future Soviet  threats. It chose the latter path by investing   in a joint venture with West Germany, in what  would become the disastrous MBT-70 program. On paper, the idea was great. Two NATO allies, the  US and West Germany, would combine their expertise   and share the costs of developing a revolutionary  tank that would glide over the battlefield at 70   km/h on hydropneumatic suspension, out-ranging  anything the Soviets had with a 152mm autoloaded   gun that fired missiles, all while staying  under 45 tons. In practice, it was a disaster,   with neither side agreeing on anything from the  choice of major components like the gun or engine,   or even whether to use metric or imperial  units. The US Army’s attempt to salvage   it later also failed, so after 7 years of  effort and 11 billion dollars in today’s   money spent, no new tank was ready. But not all of it went to waste. The   US restarted its search with a stricter budget  and looser requirements. Chrysler and General   Motors both made proposals that used a  conventional 105mm gun and incorporated   the latest NATO composite armor schemes. Their  main distinction was in the choice of engine. The Chrysler proposal was what was to become  the A1 Abrams, fitted with the AGT-1500 turbine   on traditional torsion bar suspension.   Chrysler knew this was a risky move.    Jet engines had an uncertain reliability record,  and an extreme thirst for fuel, even when idling. But they did offer notable advantages:  they could burn a wider selection of fuels,   and take up less space than a diesel engine.   Most importantly they could reach maximum   torque output nearly instantly. If we look  at the torque vs RPM curves of a turbine   engine compared to a diesel engine, we see  a massive gap all the way up to 2100 RPM,   or 70% of the maximum output shaft speed. In the  time it takes a diesel-powered tank to spin up,   a turbine-powered one would  already be moving behind cover. In the end, the Chrysler design won the  contract. Tactical mobility in the Cold   War era was deemed a sufficiently good  argument and the higher fuel consumption   wouldn’t matter in the lightning quick  battles NATO expected to have with the   Soviet Union. While others claim Chrysler  was chosen to save it from Bankruptcy. And so development of the Abrams began in 1976,   the first new MBT in America’s arsenal  in two decades. The Abrams had the best   survivability and cross-country performance  of any tank of its time, something it actually   demonstrated in trials against the Leopard  2. Where it fell short in fire control,   it made up for it with better crew experience.   More comfortable and easier to operate. But that lead did not last for long. The Soviets  entered their own turbine-powered tank into   service in 1976 too. The T-80 used a purpose-built  GTD-1000 turboshaft producing 1000 horsepower,   and used that excess power to move around  a heavier 42 ton tank with enough armor to   withstand Western 105mm guns. The Soviets  valued the turbine’s ability to start up   in arctic temperatures of -40°C and keep  running for longer between maintenance.    The T-64s' complicated opposed piston  engine struggled with both these issues. Soon after, the T-80B upgrade rolled out to face  the M1 Abrams in 1980. It had 1100 horsepower,   even thicker armor and the ability to fire   missiles from its barrel on the  move, with a 4 kilometre range. Two years later, reactive armor started being   added to Soviet tanks to deal  with shaped charge missiles. Shaped charges consist of an explosive shaped with  a hollow indentation, lined with a ductile metal.    When the charge is detonated a pressure  wave forms behind this metal liner,

deforming it and accelerating the metal  into a lance stream of particles. The   shaped charge effectively creates  a hypersonic projectile at point   black range. [REF][7] It’s highly  effective at cutting through armor. Reactive armor works b y placing an explosive  charge between two metal plates. When a jet   from a shaped charge strikes the upper  plate it detonates the inner explosive.    You may think this could damage the tank, but  tank’s lower armor is more than capable of   dealing with the relatively blunt pressure  formed by the reactive armor detonation. The outer plate then flies outwards  to disrupt the incoming jet while the   shockwave formed by the detonation also breaks  up the stream of metal approaching the tank. The US Army responded with a comprehensive upgrade  package. It got additional armor, including   depleted uranium plates so dense they can break up  sabot round darts, better fire control electronics   and the Rheinmetall 120mm gun the Germans wanted  to give it since the failed joint venture back   in the 70s. It became the M1A1, and would go  on to dominate in wars in the Middle East. After the Soviet Union collapsed, the  Russians kept designing better tanks.    The lesson they learned from the T-80’s  service record was that turbines are   much less reliable than expected, and  consume unsustainable amounts of fuel. The turbine engine was also ten times as  expensive as an equivalent diesel engine,   a critical factor in their decision  to never make a jet tank again. Since then, from Sweden to China, all  main battle tanks put into service   have good old reliable, fuel efficient,  easy to maintain turbodiesel engines. With one exception: the US kept its jet  tank, with the M1A2 upgrade coming in 1995,   followed by a System Enhancement Package every  few years to keep it competitive. Each upgrade   came with a hefty increase in weight and worsened  fuel consumption. Unlike the rest of the world,   the US military has an $850 billion and rising  budget. It can afford to keep gas guzzling tanks   full, and has a fleet of C-5 Galaxy cargo planes  to haul them across continents, that would be an   entire air force in another country. The problem  is that all this effort might be unnecessary. The M1 Abram was designed for a world that’s  long gone. Dashing between firing positions   to fend off a deluge of Soviet tanks pouring  into Europe for a few days before the bombs   fell. Extreme mobility being the only way  to survive tank combat was only true for   a few years. As the latest Leopard 2A7  or the British Challenger 2 demonstrate, Modern sophisticated composite armor  layer rubber, ceramic and metal,   and can absorb hits that would penetrate  over a meter of steel. A far cry from the   23 centimetres of the terrifying Tiger 2. The deployment history of the Abrams until   recently involved crossing the  deserts of Iraq and idling for   months in Afghanistan. In these conditions,  a jet engine in a tank is a disadvantage. An Abrams tank consumes a liter  of fuel to roll just 142 meters,   a German Leopard can manage twice the distance. The Abrams could be fully fueled  in the morning and running on   fumes by the evening just by standing still. The Abrams is finally facing  Russian tanks in Ukraine,   but instead of epic battles between rolling  columns of armor. Ukraine is preserving its   equipment. It has used the fuel hungry Abrams  in short skirmishes with hit and run tactics. And the losses are remarkable.   Out of 31 tanks delivered,   27 have been lost. And except for a single  case of a direct hit from a Russian T-72B3,   every other loss has been drone attacks,  anti-tank missile, artillery and anti-tank mines. The Abrams simply isn’t fit  for the modern battlefield. Additional armor can solve some of those  problems. The US Army is rushing to buy   Top Attack Protection for its Abrams,  sometimes referred to as cope cages,   and new additions provide thickened belly  armor and active protection systems. But these come at the cost of even more weight,   beyond the 78 tons it already rolls around with.   A major shift in the Abrams’ design is needed. The Russian’s newest T-14 Armata offers  a glimpse at the solution to all this. A remotely controlled gun sits in an unmanned  turret, while the crew is moved entirely to an   armored capsule in the hull. This drastically  reduces the volume that has to be armored,   cutting down overall size and weight. Powering  it is a new 34. 5 litre displacement 12N360   diesel engine producing 1500 horsepower from 12  cylinders arranged in an X-shape, an arrangement   that allows it to be a lot more compact  than the V12 diesels going back to the T-34. In an emergency, the boost pressure can be  raised to deliver 2000 horsepower at the cost

of some damage to the engine. While this tank may  never be produced in threatening numbers or even   complete its full development, it is an important  marker for where future tank design is going. Prototypes and proposals for replacing the Abrams   have appeared over the years. Unmanned  turrets, with enormous 140 mm guns,   and space age experimental materials. What they  shared was Cummins diesel engines producing   just as much horsepower as the turbine  engine while taking up 50% less space. The US Army seems to have finally shifted course.   With hard lessons learned from the Ukraine war,   they have developed the M1E3. With the latest  armor technology it aims to reduce weight to 60   tons. Powering it will be the Cummins ACE  Advanced Combat Engine. An opposed-piston   turbodiesel paired with an electric motor. This  is a hybrid tank, the tank version of a Prius.   It could cut fuel consumption in half,  and give the tank the ability to sneak   around in all electric stealth mode, or lie  in wait with the diesel engine turned off,   hidden from infrared sensors. Soon we will see if  this will really be the next step in tank warfare. But we already know what the next step in  poster technology is. It’s displate. Now,   I’m not gonna lie, I wasn’t really  sold on this sponsor straight away,   this audience is mostly adults, and I feel  like posters are for teenage boys rooms. But then they sent out the samples and honestly,  it’s a great product. They have millions of   designs that you can pick from including  licensed ones, like these automotive ones. The finish looks great, I was expecting it to  look metallic and have a huge glare off it,   but they have nice 3D texture that looks  much better than posters printed on glossy   paper. And because it’s metal and rigid  you aren’t going to get any creases either. To mount them to the wall you just stick this  magnet to a wall, which can be peeled away   without damage. The position of the magnet doesn’t  really matter, the poster is much bigger than it.    You can just slap that on the wall willy nilly,  and then just twist the poster. A lot easier than   trying to mount them with tack, where you ripped  the corners trying to take them off the wall. This also means you switch them out really  quickly. With their custom printing service   you could even use this as a dynamic signage  system. Or use them in a classroom that is   used for multiple subjects, switch out educational  graphics as needed. For all those reasons I think   it’s fair to say this is the best way to mount  a poster on a wall. So I think the adults in   the audience can find some use for them, or maybe  you want to gift it to the teenager in your life. If you use the code Real, or go to  follow the link in the description.    You can get 27% 1 Displate, or  35% off if you buy more than one.