The lethality, maneuverability, and shock effect of the M1A1 Abrams main battletank is unparalleled throughout the world.When manned by a well-trained, aggres-sive crew, there are neither surfaces that itcannot overcome nor gaps that it cannotexploit. These strengths have been prov-en throughout several combat engage-ments, to include those most recently inIraq. However, since these attributes arenow known the world over, perhaps theAbrams’ weakness could be classified bythe way that the enemy chooses to defendagainst it. Potential adversaries are quick-ly learning, or have been studious of thelessons that others have learned, aboutthe implications of facing one of theseiron monsters head to head, tank versustank. In future conflicts, the enemy willassemble in smaller antiarmor teams andwill employ their weapons in a mannerthat uses maximum standoff capabilities.These teams will undoubtedly create adilemma for the Abrams mostly becauseof the limitations of the main gun ammu-nition; the Abrams does not have the ca-pability to effectively engage these area-type targets beyond the ranges of its ma-chine guns. A high explosive fragmen-tary round will be required for the M1A1Abrams to continue garnering success dur-ing future combat operations.The main gun ammunition load of theM1A1 consists of 120mm rounds with ar-mor-piercing, fin-stabilized discarding sa-bot (APFSDS), high-explosive antitank (HEAT), and/or high-explosive multipur-pose antitank (MPAT), which are designedto destroy various antiarmor capable tar-gets. Such targets include armored vehi-cles with powerful antitank (AT) arma-ment, such as tanks and infantry combatvehicles, antitank guided missile (ATGM)systems, antitank infantry weapons, andattack helicopters fitted with ATGM sys-tems. APFSDS (kinetic energy) is pri-marily used to defeat main battle tanks,while HEAT or MPAT (chemical energy)rounds with point initiating base detonat-ing (PIBD) fuses are used to engage oth-er antiarmor capable targets that oftenturn out to be more dangerous than com-bat vehicles and are more likely to appearon future battlefields. U.S. Marine Corpstankers experienced this more prominentthreat during recent combat operations inIraq.The 1st Tank Battalion, 1st Marine Di-vision, experienced the limitations of theMPAT round on multiple occasions dur-ing the 1st Marine Expeditionary Unit’s
M1A1 Tanks and Fragmentary Ammunition
by Gunnery Sergeant William J. Orr, USMC
44 — March-April 2004
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M1 Abrams Heavy Tanks Need Fragmentary Ammunition like our Light Ones Used To Have
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