Thread: American tanks return to Europe after brief leave 01/13/2014

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American tanks return to Europe after brief leave

By Michael S. Darnell Stars and Stripes
Published: January 31, 2014

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The last of 29 M1A2 SEP Abrams tanks arrived at the Grafenwoehr railhead, Jan. 31, 2014. The tanks are part of a new set of heavy equipment positioned at the training base.
MICHAEL S. DARNELL/STARS AND STRIPES

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GRAFENWÖHR, Germany — Less than a year after they left European soil, American tanks have returned to military bases in Germany where they had been a heavy presence since World War II.

In April last year, the last Abrams tanks left Germany, coinciding with a drawdown of U.S. forces that saw the inactivation of two infantry brigades — the 170th and 172nd.

When the 22 M1A1 Abrams departed the continent it was seen as the end of an era, as tanks had been a fixture on American bases in Europe since landing at Omaha Beach in 1944.

Now, it appears that chapter of history may have been closed a bit prematurely.

On Friday, the last of 29 M1A2 SEPv2 Abrams tanks were offloaded at the railhead at the Grafenwöhr training facilities. These heavily armored vehicles are upgraded versions of the older Abrams that left 10 months ago and will become part of what the Joint Multinational Training Command at Grafenwöhr is calling the European Activity Set.

“The EAS is a pre-positioned, battalion-plus-size equipment set with headquarters pieces and command-and-control elements,” said Col. Thomas Matsel, operations officer with the JMTC. “Units that utilize the EAS will have access to the entire breadth of military operations they may have to conduct.”

The Abrams tanks will join 33 M2A3 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and dozens of other heavy support vehicles that will be positioned at Grafenwöhr to be used at the training facilities there, at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center at Hohenfels and at other training areas across Europe.

The concept of the EAS envisions units using the equipment in short stints before turning it over to the next group of troops.

JMTC officials hope the EAS will fill a gap in the capabilities of the training facilities that became apparent when the tanks departed last April.

“We have the best light infantry training facilities, the best medium training area with the Strykers,” Matsel said. “The only thing missing was the heavy piece.”

Several units are already scheduled to use the EAS. The 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, is first and will take temporary ownership of the vehicles, which will accompany them as they take part in three major exercises spanning from France to Latvia later this year.

darnell.michael@stripes.com

http://www.stripes.com/news/american...leave-1.264910

The U.S. Army's New 84-Ton Tank Prototype Is Nearly IED-Proof [Updated]

The new Ground Combat Vehicle weighs twice as much as the tank it's designed to replace, and it's massive enough to survive a roadside bomb.

By Kelsey D. Atherton
Posted 02.25.2013 at 11:30 am


The Ground Combat Vehicle

U.S. Army

Heavy does not even begin to describe the U.S. Army's new tank. At 84 tons, the Ground Combat Vehicle prototype weighs more than twice as much as its predecessor, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. The Bradley is designed to carry a six-man squad (and three-man driving crew) into combat, while the GCV will carry a larger, nine-man squad. Both vehicles will provide covering fire and damage enemy tanks. But the military has built the new GCV to withstand a kind of threat that didn't exist when the Bradley was deployed in the early 1980s: improvised explosive devices.

Part of logic behind the new tank's massive size is that soldiers inside a vehicle are more likely to survive an explosion if there's adequate space for them to wear armor while seated. The extra space also helps distribute pressure from the blast and thus lessens its impact. Another reason the GCV is so huge is that it's required to carry a larger gun than the Bradley does; the new tank will hold a 30mm cannon, probably the 344-pound Mk44 Bushmaster II. Finally, the GCV's extra weight means it will need to be manufactured from the start with a more powerful engine. (By contrast, the Bradley got heavier as the Army added armor to it in Iraq, and its original engine wasn't powerful enough to support the extra weight.)

The Ground Combat Vehicle is pretty much the opposite of the original plan to replace the Bradley. A high-concept proposal called Future Combat Systems aimed to make all U.S. Army vehicles lighter. But during the long ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (in which IEDs were the top cause of fatalities), it became clear clear that heavier, not lighter, was the better vehicle design. The U.S. canceled the Future Combat Systems program, and work on the GCV began in 2009. The Pentagon is scheduled to award the first contract to manufacture GCVs in 2019.

An earlier version of this piece misstated the transport capacity of the GCV as a six-man squad, instead of the correct nine-man squad. The 84 ton weight of the GCV only refers to the prototype, and the weight may easily change in the next six years of development.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/art...-tank-so-heavy