By CHAD HALCOM
August 30, 2015
Photo by COURTESY OF U.S.ARMYThe Abrams main battle tank (pictured in 2009) has been a proven asset in several wars, but its future depends on federal spending, currently uncertain, on equipment upgrades.
When the Abrams main battle tank entered a new era of production in 1985, it was still untested by enemy fire and had weathered some doubts in Washington about its effectiveness as a Cold War weapon.
Thirty years, nearly 10,000 tanks and more than $20 billion later, Abrams is a proven asset in several wars and an economic engine for Southeast Michigan's defense contracting community — but another battle for its future lies ahead.
The former Chrysler Defense Inc. XM1 Tank Program delivered its first two production vehicles to the U.S. Army in 1980. Virginia-based General Dynamics Corp. (NYSE:GD) acquired the automaker's tank-making division in 1982 for $348.5 million and renamed it General Dynamics Land Systems.
The Sterling Heights defense contractor wrapped original M1 tank production in early 1985 and, 30 years ago this month, announced it had delivered the first units of an upgraded M1A1 Abrams tank series.
To date, the company has produced about 8,000 of the Abrams in various models for the Army, and more than 400 for the U.S. Marine Corps. More than 1,200 tanks combined have also been produced or ordered over the years for armed forces in Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Morocco and Australia.
But future U.S. spending on equipment upgrades for the Abrams is still in limbo. Congress is supposed to finalize a new National Defense Authorization Act, which calls for about $400 million in spending on Abrams fleet improvements in the coming fiscal year, when it returns from recess next month.
That funding could sustain the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center, formerly the Lima Army Tank Plant that General Dynamics Land Systems operates in Ohio until production begins on a new high-technology variant of the Abrams, the M1A3, in fiscal 2017.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been procuring and upgrading the Abrams as U.S. allies since at least the early 1990s, but the tank had not seen combat anywhere until Operation Desert Storm in 1991. There, it widely outperformed Soviet and Chinese tanks in the Iraqi military under Saddam Hussein, and it went on to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan in the War on Terror.
The former Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant in Warren, which had produced the M1 Abrams since its early days, discontinued new tank assembly in late 1991 and closed down completely in late 1996. Since then, General Dynamics Land Systems has housed all Abrams production and equipment upgrades for the Abrams at the government-owned Lima Army Tank Plant.
That plant, which was refurbishing about 2 1/2 tanks per day in early 2009, is handling a small fraction of that volume today. At issue at least since sequestration began affecting defense budgets in 2012 is whether the Lima plant can remain operational on a mix of foreign military sales and some limited production orders until M1A3 production begins in two years.
"The Army's notion was they could mothball the plant and reopen in three years, but as GDLS can attest, you can mothball equipment but not people," said Loren Thompson, a defense industry analyst and COO of the Arlington, Va.-based Lexington Institute.
"They need to make a living, and, having lost their jobs once, they'd actually be pretty dumb to come back when you reopen. Instead either those skilled workers retire, or find an entirely new career. Even if they did return, their skills would have become rusty, and that adds to your startup time and cost."
But the Abrams has occasionally been a point of political controversy, for reasons outside of costs.
The Obama administration in March lifted a freeze on military equipment for Egypt including up to 125 component kits for the Abrams, even though the country had not instituted some reforms Washington had been seeking since a violent military coup in 2013.
Also, extremists within the Islamic State or ISIS have reportedly captured or destroyed dozens of the 140 Abrams tanks the U.S. has delivered to Iraqi national forces under the federal Foreign Military Sales program since 2010.
But Thompson said ISIS gets little more than propaganda value from its images of co-opted tanks, since it cannot expect to use them in combat against U.S.-backed forces.
"It's one thing for ISIS to get a hold of Humvees, which are basically cars. But it's another thing to commandeer an Abrams tank, which is a very skilled operator equipment," Thompson said.
"It's designed optimally to collaborate with air support, and it takes a level of training and teamwork that ISIS is not known for," he said.
The U.S. State Department last December approved a proposed sale of M1A1 tanks to Iraq along with associated equipment, parts and logistical support for up to $2.4 billion over the next five years. The sale is not expected to have a negative impact on U.S. defense forces, according to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.
Chad Halcom: (313) 446-6796. Twitter: @chadhalcom
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