"Inside the M1." (XM1,M1,M1A1,M1A2,M1A2 SEP,M1Griz

FO Seaman

FO Seaman

Active member
The M1 has a long and illustrious history. When the project was started it looked like another one of the army's failures, turbine trouble, gun trouble, ammo storage trouble, ect... Now it is the worlds leading tank along with the Merekava M.k4, Leopard 2, and Challenger 2. This topic is on the M1 and its development from a probable failure to the worlds leading tank.

m1a1-pic57-s.jpg


The M1 program was started in 1979 with the 9 test bed units called the XM1, problems started right off the bat, trouble with the turbine and sand, the sands fine particles would eat away the turbine and would need to be replaced in a few hours of operation, the the 105mm rifle gun started in with having accuracy and ammo trouble, the ammo storage then wasn't working properly the the doors would jam and the blow-off panels didn't blow.

This was all fixed by 1980 and was shown at Aberdeen Proving Grounds and the high brass agreed to its production the XM1 hit the production line as the M1 it had spaced armor, new thermal sights, and turbine engine. Its upgrade or newer version the M1A1 and M1A1HA where bettered with a larger main armament, better 2nd generation thermal, Chobam composite armor, and a state of the art Fire Control System. The M1A1-HA was a M1A1 with heavily armored plates attached to it. The M1A1 was produced in 1982. The M1A2 was put into planing and made it into the approval stage but was never produced and the kits where sold the allies such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The M1A2 SEP (System Enhancement Package) is a new design of the M1A1 with a new thermal sight and better FCS, and integrated computer system, a lot of the A2's are built on M1A1 platforms or are built by General Dynamics. The M1 Grizzly is a engineering vehicle using the M1 chassis and it has a shovel and hydraulic lift on it to dig trenches of defeat anti-tank barriers.

M1
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M1A1

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M1A2 SEP
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Crew Compartment of the M1A2
m1a2_abrams-turret-s.jpg


M1 Grizzly
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wuts so great about a smoothbore cannon, is it relly much better than a rifled one?

i know it is needed to launch apsds rounds and sabot types of rounds, but how does it work
 
The M1 progarm was started in 1979 with the 9 test bed units called the XM1, problems started right off the bat, trouble with the turbine and sand, the sands fine particles would eat away the turbine and would need to be replaced in a few hours of operation, the the 105mm rifle gun strated in with having accuacy and ammo trouble, the ammo storage then wasn't working properly the the doors would jam and the blowoff panels didn't blow.
Click to expand...

this is what i ment in my other thread btw...
 
In a rifled gun the barrel is rifled with small grooves to spin the round, a APFSDS round does not need to spin in order to be stable as you see in the names FS is Fin Stablized, on the 105mm the rounds where small and less accraute and at times the grooves would fill with metal and or wear away and then must be replaced.

m829-3s.jpg


In the Civil War if units had rifled cannons they would look for enemy smoothbore after a battle because it was more accurate and faster.
 
I see Rocco but that was on the test model the 9 test beds, look at my avatar thats one of the 9 and the one in picture I put at the bootm of the post is one at Aberdeen. It was the XM1 all those problems where fixed and then the M1 went into being produced. High brass had alot of doubt about the program.
 
"In the Civil War if units had rifled cannons they would look for enemy smoothbore after a battle because it was more accurate and faster."

Oh please. You are not an artilleryman. Show me any main artillery pieces today that use smoothbore. Stating that smoothbore is more accurate shows a lack of understanding of rifling. Also in the Civil War both rifled and smoothbore were muzzleloaders. They took the same amount of time to reload and fire. It was only the perfection of breachloading that increased the rate of fire the first time and the invention of the recuperator in the French 75 that speeded it up again as guns didn't need to be relayed after every firing. It had absolutely nothing to do with the bore.

The use of the smoothbore in the M1 has to do with the rounds that it uses and that it is a _direct fire_ weapon.
 
Charge_7 said:
"In the Civil War if units had rifled cannons they would look for enemy smoothbore after a battle because it was more accurate and faster."

Oh please. You are not an artilleryman. Show me any main artillery pieces today that use smoothbore. Stating that smoothbore is more accurate shows a lack of understanding of rifling. Also in the Civil War both rifled and smoothbore were muzzleloaders. They took the same amount of time to reload and fire. It was only the perfection of breachloading that increased the rate of fire the first time and the invention of the recuperator in the French 75 that speeded it up again as guns didn't need to be relayed after every firing. It had absolutely nothing to do with the bore.

The use of the smoothbore in the M1 has to do with the rounds that it uses and that it is a _direct fire_ weapon.
Click to expand...

feel free to "T-O-T" me on this charge...but weren't cannons from the civil war period more or less direct fire weapons?
 
Charge_7 said:
"In the Civil War if units had rifled cannons they would look for enemy smoothbore after a battle because it was more accurate and faster."

Oh please. You are not an artilleryman. Show me any main artillery pieces today that use smoothbore. Stating that smoothbore is more accurate shows a lack of understanding of rifling. Also in the Civil War both rifled and smoothbore were muzzleloaders. They took the same amount of time to reload and fire. It was only the perfection of breachloading that increased the rate of fire the first time and the invention of the recuperator in the French 75 that speeded it up again as guns didn't need to be relayed after every firing. It had absolutely nothing to do with the bore.

The use of the smoothbore in the M1 has to do with the rounds that it uses and that it is a _direct fire_ weapon.
Click to expand...

Weren't the majority of Civil War era artillery pieces direct fire cannons? Then the smoothbore vs rifled thing becomes relevent again.
Anyways... about the M-1...
 
It would be relevant if we were still fighting the Civil War - we aren't. And though much of the time cannons were used in direct firee roles 140 years ago in that conflict they weren't by any means always used so. Totally irrelevant to apply that concept to todays tanks and artillery.
 
Not really. A lot of Soviet style armies use direct fire guns. But we're getting really off topic here.
For MBT, the smoothbore seems ideal when it comes to the more powerful rounds.
 
Did I ever say once that the M1 shouldn't have a smoothbore? No, I said that smoothbore is not more accurate than rifled bore in the Civil War or ever for that matter, and that it did not take longer to fire rifled cannons than smoothbore in the Civil War either.

Kozzy Mozzy is correct about the muzzle velocity of the APFSDS _now_. I don't believe they were using those that much 140 years ago.

The M1 has the tube it needs. That could be said without making irrelevant and inaccurate comments about artillery.
 
Indeed it is. That's why they're taken out of service after a set amount of rounds and have their lands and grooves replaced.
 
ai, cant u people already see it

smoothbore is designed for sabot rounds that can stablize itself and therefore it doe snot need a rifled barrel

on the whole it is used for anittank work

north artilery pieces still needed rifle grooves to enhnace accracy
 
Yes AA we established the APFSDS rounds use fins to stablize their trajectory, hence Armor Peircing Fin Stablized Discarding Sabot.

What do you mean north arty peices still have grooves? So do southern peices, besides most arty peices are built at Waterlet Arsenal in New York.
 
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