According to the US Defense News website on April 15, US Army Chief of Staff Randy George has ordered the Army and its industry partners to speed up the action to modernize its nearly 40-year-old "Abrams" tank instead of blindly following the routine complicated procedures for defense procurement.

  This is what George's chief technology officer Alex Miller told Defense News.

  Miller said the Army has long followed a procurement schedule where a project can be approved, but then it takes up to 10 years to complete the technological maturity process “so that the government feels assured about the project and understands all the potential risks that may occur.”

  "You have to be very familiar with all the environment and all the technology to make sure the decision you make today is right for the next 30 years. And that doesn't make sense now," he said.

  In September 2023, the U.S. Army decided to carry out a greater modernization of the "Abrams" tank to improve the mobility and survivability of this tank on the battlefield.

  Subsequently, the U.S. Army signed a contract with General Dynamics Land Systems, the tank's original equipment manufacturer, in the spring of 2024, to begin determining the demand for a new Abrams tank modification and conducting preliminary designs.

  Initial requirements for the newly modified tank include weight reduction and protection performance, and equipping them with automatic loading equipment. But in the past year, there have been little details about these plans, except that the Army hopes that the XM30 mechanized infantry fighting vehicle, a replacement for the Abrams-M1E3 modification and Bradley fighting vehicle, can achieve the same period of deployment. The latter is expected to be deployed in the early 2030s.

  Miller said George was told at a meeting of the Executive Office of the Ground Operations Systems Project in Detroit that it would take another 65 months to build the first new tank.

  George thought this time was nothing short of a fantasy, and he immediately asked the team to try to speed up the progress. "In the past two or three months, we have been very free to say, 'Hey, stop doing stupid things, speed up where you have to speed up, accept risks in a responsible and pragmatic way. Use all legal, ethical and acceptable ways. Don't try to zero in, because there will always be risks.'"

  Miller said the Army now plans to significantly shorten the timeline and plans to create new modifications within 24 to 30 months. He is working closely with the project leader at Abrams to achieve this.

  Miller said the Abrams tank has many excellent parts, such as the 120mm smoothbore gun, and "what we really want to know is what has been going on in the driveline and power generation systems over the past 40 years."

  In the future, the new "Abrams" will also have automatic loading capabilities. The tank's automatic loader is technically difficult and may take more time because it is a unique problem for the Army.

  "We have been paying attention to this issue for 10 years. Now the Army wants to see how the industry can solve it technically while making sure it is designed specifically for tanks," Miller said. He also said the Army also wants to integrate active protection into the tank type and believes that progress can be made faster in this field, too.

  The potential for rapid transformation of the tank's internal ergonomic structure, tank control system and aiming system is already on the table. "There is no reason not to make it look like the cockpit of an F1 race car, because this technology already exists," Miller said.

  He pointed out that this work requires the Army to work with the industry in a different way. “What if we work with the industry and allow them to do some internal coordination and splice the right things together instead of the government pretending to know everything?”

  “The benefit of doing this is that allowing the industry to choose parts on its own allows them to build their own supply chains,” Miller said.

  "What we kill the foundation of the defense industry is that we have too many rules and regulations for solutions, and then when the industry delivers exactly as we ask, we get angry again." (Translated by Julie)

[Editor in charge: Wang Jinzhi]