Defense Focus: Betting on tanks -- Part 6

WASHINGTON, March 5 (UPI) -- The history of procurement and upgrades of the M1 Abrams tank over the past 30 years reflects the changing perceptions of the use of tanks by the U.S. Army.

The commitment of the Bush administration and of planners in the U.S. Department of Defense to maintaining a powerful ground army for the United States is not in doubt.

As recently as February, General Dynamics Land Systems announced it had won a new contract to upgrade 435 U.S. Army Abrams M1A2 Main Battle Tanks.

"The U.S. Army TACOM Lifecycle Management Command has awarded General Dynamics Land Systems, a business unit of General Dynamics, a multi-year contract to upgrade 435 M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks. The vehicles will be converted to the M1A2 Systems Enhancement Package Version Two configuration. The first increment of the multi-year contract is valued at $39 million and will fund the upgrade of 20 M1A1 Abrams tanks," the company said in a statement.

"This multi-year procurement contract will complete the modernization of all remaining M1A1 tanks which have been in the Army's inventory for more than 20 years," General Dynamics said.

These latest upgrades reflect the Army's two great preoccupations moving into the 21st century -- dealing with the challenge of guerrilla war that can utilize new and much more effective shaped charge explosives in improvised explosive devices that can disable or even destroy tanks.

A crucial defense against this kind of weapon is in fact the same kind of protection tanks have needed ever since the pioneering of blitzkrieg tactics by German Gens. Heinz Guderian, Erich Von Manstein and Erwin Rommel in 1939-40. Tanks need -- as Britain's Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and American Gens. George S. Patton and Omar N. Bradley also realized -- close coordinated motorized/mobile infantry support to protect them against such weapons.

Consequently, as GDLS pointed out, the latest Abram upgrades emphasize the importance of close infantry-armor coordination.

"The most technologically advanced digital tank, the M1A2 SEP V2 includes improved displays, sights, auxiliary power and a tank-infantry phone," the company said.

The latest upgrades will also "accommodate future technology improvements to ensure compatibility with the U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems," GDLS said.

Critics claim that the U.S. Army's continued commitment to maintaining a large, state-of-the-art armored force is obsolete in a world of improvised explosive devices and guerrilla war. But as we have noted in previous analyses in this series, that just isn't so. The continuing centrality of the Main Battle Tank to maintaining military and hence strategic power in the 21st century is recognized by the Russian, Chinese and Indian military establishments. And, for that matter, it is realized by the Israelis, Syrians and Egyptians, too.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates recognizes this reality much more than his predecessor Donald Rumsfeld did. It is no coincidence that the wave of procurement orders over the past year for M1A2 MBT upgrades has come since Gates took control of the Pentagon.

Thus, the current, long-overdue and so far highly successful focusing on the problems of guerrilla war should not obscure the need to maintain other, more traditional heavy armor and state-of-the-art artillery forces that can be used in more conventional conflicts. Gates and his top Army and Marine Corps officers realize that, which is why they are working hard to maintain the Army's massive heavy tank force in peak condition.

As it has for the past 90 years, the Main Battle Tank remains master of the land battlefield. Future military procurement policies -- as Gates and his generals well recognize -- need to be taken with that enduring reality in mind.