Original subtitles

Today on Impossible Engineering, America's number one tank. This

is the battlefield heavyweight champ.

Military engineering driven to its limits.

Never a dull day when you're out of sight testing tanks.

And the pioneering historic innovations.

You really sense that this is a powerful machine, don't you? It's lovely.

This is a scene of total destruction.

That made the impossible.

Yuma County, Arizona.

1 ,100 square miles of the harshest terrain in the American Southwest.

Make up the U .S. Army's biggest testing ground.

which means this uninhabited desert is anything but peaceful.

This is the Army's biggest land combat vehicle, the mighty Abrams

tank, known as the Beast.

Beast is an absolutely amazing machine.

Abrams is the best tank in the world, hands down.

Deployed in every U .S. conflict since its introduction in 1980, these amazing

machines have stood the test of time.

There's no tank out there that is more lethal, more maneuverable, more ability

to provide shock effect on the battlefield. This is the ultimate ground

system.

The Abrams M1 tank.

Weighing as much as a herd of 20 elephants.

This 70 -ton combat vehicle is turbo -powered to reach speeds of 45 miles per

hour.

It carries four crew, the commander, gunner, and loader in the turret, with

driver below in the hull.

The Abrams is put together in Lima, Ohio.

Former tank commander Bill Goyne is the project manager.

If we were going to kind of walk around the tank, this is what we call the front

glaciers of the tank. So you can see the driver's hole is right in there. So the

driver's down inside the hole.

The driver sits in kind of a kickback position. He's laid back.

He's got kind of motorcycle -type control.

Where that site is up there, you can see those two windows. That's the gunner's

site. So the gunner is the one that is primarily engaging with this 120

-millimeter smoothbore cannon.

Then you've got up on top here, you'll see there's a remote weapon station.

Put a .50 caliber machine gun on there.

Then you've got this kind of almost looks like R2 -D2 kind of thing sticking

right here. That's the commander's independent thermal viewer.

Over in this hatch here, that's the loader's hatch.

That's where you're going to be reloading from because it's kind of the

diameter hatch on the tank.

And then back here, this is where the turbine exhaust comes out of.

The Abrams tank needs to be able to perform a variety of vital tasks.

Maneuvering across the battlefield and providing accurate firepower while

keeping its crew safe.

But making all that possible requires solving a long list of huge engineering

challenges.

How do you power a 70 -ton monster at speeds in excess of 45 miles per hour?

How do you protect its occupants against all the threats of a modern

battlefield?

And how do you create a vehicle capable of taming whatever kind of terrain is

thrown at it?

So this is a Mark IV tank and it's the first mass -produced tank of the First

World War.

Former British Army Captain Patrick Beury is at the Tank Museum in Dorset,

England, to find out how these machines came into existence.

Now, there's three basic things in tank design which this actually encapsulates.

Protection, mobility, and you've got firepower. And all those design elements

are still seen today in the design of modern tanks.

It was the brainchild of William Tritton, Walter Wilson, and draftsman

Rigby, who came up with this entirely new type of war machine.

World War I saw a deadlock on the Western Front, with both sides dug into

trenches.

Crossing no man's land in between was seemingly impossible on foot.

So the British government asked this engineering trio to devise machines.

that would allow troops to advance across the torn -up terrain, and

get them over the enemy trenches.

And this was their solution, the British tank, a tracked and armored fighting

machine. The tracks are really an amazing design for the time, because

spread the waste, and they also are able to deal with the mud.

It traveled at four miles per hour, and the infantry walked behind it.

using it as cover until they reached the enemy lines.

You just got a sense of terror.

If you were in the trench and you'd never seen a tank before, one of these

unleashed against you.

They're just slowly trundling towards you, firing its weapons.

There's nothing you can do about it.

It took an eight -man crew to operate the Mark IV, all squeezed into its

interior.

This would have been the driver's position when this hatches up. You

got a really good field of view.

And then when you went into action, you'd close down this hatch like that.

And you'll be using this periscope, which is just a tiny little slit.

And obviously your sort of situational awareness is much more limited when

you're in battle.

Next to me, you would have had the commander of the tank. He basically is

responsible for the direction and also the target indication.

In the din, you know, he can tap the driver and tell him which way to go, but

crucially, for the tank to move, he needs to communicate with the gearsman

the back. So often they would bang a spanner for the gearsman to stop.

The driver would engage the clutch, the gearsman would change the gear. The tank

track would either change direction, one would go, one would stop, and that

would rotate the tank.

Many of these early machines broke down, and the crew was either poisoned by the

fumes from the engine beside them, or captured by the enemy.

Despite this, engineers continued to develop this original design, and a

vehicle soon became a vital part of the military arsenal.

Although it's simple and basic inside and indeed out, it was really effective

when it was unleashed against the enemy in the First World War.

In Lima, Ohio, former tank commander Bill Goyne and his team are standing on

shoulders of those early pioneers to build the most advanced tank ever made.

Really, it's drawing on pretty much every decade of tank innovation if you

all the way back to World War I. It's a tracked vehicle, just like you see with

the Mark IV.

And this tracked vehicle solution is the best, most maneuverable in all of those

types of difficult terrain. That's why we prefer this tracked solution still,

even after 100 years of tank development.

The 65 foot long tracks are made up of linked steel plates with reinforced

rubber treads.

Each track weighs a staggering two and a half tons.

Product manager David Moore oversees the process.

We hold the track up and over the road wheel.

We're now joining the track with the last coupler. So use that hydraulic

actuator to pull the track together.

And then once we adjust the final tension, it'll be done with the track

tensioner on that last.

Road wheel.

With the track on, the hull section is now complete.

Once fully assembled, those tracks mean that nothing can get in the beast's way.

It's a very confidence -inspiring feeling that you have when you're inside

tank.

But for this mighty machine to be effective on the battlefield... When the

bullets start to fly, you're just trying to stay in the fight.

Its crew has to be able to defend itself.

It's a life -and -death situation out there, and you want to be able to engage

that target before it has a chance to fire back in.

It's a huge responsibility for project manager Bill Goyne and his team.

There's no second place when it comes to the battlefield, right?

You either are the winner or you're in trouble. So in the back of our mind,

there's always the tank crew.

Since its inception, the weaponry on the Abrams has been continuously improved

and updated.

Its first major modification in 1985 was replacing a 105 -millimeter cannon with

a 120 -millimeter model.

Its secondary weapon is a 7 .62 millimeter M240 machine gun.

And, fixed to the highest point of the tank, there's a .50 caliber M2 machine

gun.

As a former tank commander, Bill knows it's vital to find ways to control all

this firepower in a simple, intuitive way.

There's a tremendous amount that's coming at you as a tank commander.

You're on the radio, plus you're looking for targets, plus you're trying to

maneuver. The bullets start to fly, and your pupils dilate, and you can't read

anything, and your breath is going out of control, and you're just trying to

manage yourself physically and still stay in the fight.

So the engineering has got to develop a system that's usable under duress and

allows the crew to work as a team. If it doesn't do that or detracts from that,

then you've actually made it less capable.

In live combat, locating the enemy is crucial.

Threats can come from any direction, at any time,

day or night, in any climate or terrain.

It's essential to be able to respond to danger quickly.

Every second counts when they're in a combat situation.

For the crew operating an Abrams M1 tank, a matter of seconds can be the

difference between life and death.

Abrams Test Chief Greg Duda knows the importance of rapid target acquisition.

It's a life and death situation out there, and you absolutely want to be

detect, recognize, identify the target, and engage that target before it has a

chance to fire back at you.

Coming up with ways to locate and defend against surrounding threats from inside

a tank is a huge challenge for the current Abrams team and one faced by

engineers of the past.

Here we go.

This is incredible.

Engineer Dan Dickrell is taking this 100 -year -old French tank out for some

target practice to discover how it radically changed tank design.

Can I describe to you the noise, the vibration, like being inside a belly but

still everywhere?

It's very visceral.

Known as the FT, at just over 16 feet long and weighing under 7 tons, compared

to the Abrams, it's relatively small and lightweight.

The brainchild of automotive engineer Ardolf Ernst Metzmeyer and renowned

carmaker Louis Renault.

The FT was designed to be used in large numbers, with many sent at a time in its

swarm to overwhelm the enemy.

But what made this tank so effective was its ability to target the enemy.

You ready to go?

All right.

Three, two, one, go.

All the tanks built during World War I had a fundamental flaw.

In order to get the gun pointing in the right direction, they had to reposition

the whole tank.

Main gun slowly coming on target.

On the battlefield, this was highly ineffective.

And we're gonna call it right.

So about 48 seconds, 48 seconds to take the tank, spin it around, effectively

180 degrees.

If that was trying to kill us, almost a minute to turn this thing around. That's

not very fast.

But the Renault FT solved the problem.

It was the first production tank to have a turret that could rotate 360 degrees.

To demonstrate the difference the rotating turret makes.

The tank will find the same target from the same starting position, but this

time with a spin.

To rotate it, there's no motor.

It's me. It's my power. I have this strap. I'm strapped to it. I hang on to

handle, and I press with my legs as hard as I can to make this huge metal turret

rotate around.

It took the tank about 48 seconds to rotate the entirety of it.

180 degrees to put the gun on target.

I'm going to give it a go. I got my stopwatch. Let's see how fast it takes

In three, two, one, go.

It's rotating.

That's a little bit of effort.

I took about four and a half seconds.

In a situation where every second counts, that's a huge deal on the

The rotating turret was truly revolutionary.

The ability for the turret to rotate a full 360 degrees was a huge leap in

battlefield effectiveness.

To be able to see all around and then position this tank gun

on whatever target I can see all over the battlefield, it laid the basis for

modern tanks we see today.

The 33 -ton turret of the Abrams tank weighs about as much as five Renault

But incredibly, it can also rotate 360 degrees in under 10

seconds.

The turret can slew 700 mils per second. That's one of the many things that make

the tank amazing, is the ability to move as much mass as it has just so quickly.

Like the FT, it can fire in any direction.

But the big difference is that the Abrams locates its targets using state

-the -art optic.

We can see the vehicle's sighting systems.

We have the gunner's primary sight on the left beneath the commander's weapon

station. And then on the right is the CITV, the commander's independent

viewer. The sighting systems allow us to see at night.

And then there's levels of focus and zoom that can be brought in to scan the

battlefield for targets.

The tank is not just hardware, heavy metal.

There's also a lot of software, electronics, and high -tech equipment.

There's 1 .4 million lines of code on the tank.

All this technology feeds into the turret's interior compartment.

This is the nerve center of the tank.

20 years ago when I was a tank commander, you felt like you were

suit of armor.

You and your three closest buddies, your tank crew, now it's a little bit more

like getting into an Iron Man suit.

You're getting in there and there's so much tech.

Known as the basket, this space, not even 10 feet wide, is shared by a three

-man crew.

The loader's position is next to an armored ammunition compartment.

The commander has controls for rotating the turret and firing the cannon or

machine gun.

The gunner down below has his own sights and weapons control.

So what is it like to be at the controls of this powerful machine?

Former U .S.

Army Tank Commander Joseph Murrieta has first -hand experience of its

capabilities. We have ourselves in the tank commander's seat.

The tank commander has an extension of what the gunner sees so that he can

verify. We also have usage of our 360 degree viewer.

Gone are the days of having your head out and getting your own situational

awareness, which was really hard for a tank commander to break because it's

really comforting to be able to see outside your tank and see the

That generation is pretty much gone. You have a new generation that's trained to

be undercover to use his situational awareness and to rely on his thermals.

This new generation is also operating the machine gun by remote control and

controlling the cannon with the joystick.

Like any full -size video game in an old -school arcade, you will just give the

input left, right, down, and up.

And then you have the trigger, just like everything else.

So you have a gun here that weighs more than 15 tons.

You can see how effortlessly it elevates and depresses.

So when the tank is on uneven terrain and traversing, the gun will stay

stationary to its target.

So while the tank is traveling, the gun is basically looking like this inside.

And the reason it's doing that is it's actually staying on target.

The cannon can lock onto targets up to two and a half miles away, even when

traveling at speed.

The vehicle can be moving up to 40 miles an hour over very rough terrain, and

the weapon is stabilized. So from the gunner's standpoint, he's sitting still,

and what that results in is accuracy on the move. That means he's going to hit

what he's shooting at.

But hitting those top speeds requires serious motoring muscle.

So you've got a 70 -ton vehicle. You want it to go over 45 miles an hour. And

what does it take to do that?

It's all about the speed of the battle.

It's being able to outmaneuver. That's really the hardest part of the

engineering.

The iconic Abrams M1 is the U .S.

Army's main battle tank.

Keeping it ahead of the curve for over four decades of service is a great

achievement for former tank commander Bill Goyne and the team involved in

building this unique vehicle.

Even though from the outside it doesn't look like it's very different than what

we fielded, you know, 40 years ago, on the inside it's completely different.

The most updated electronics you're going to find on the battlefield are

inside of this.

A tank is effectively two separate machines in one.

The turret controls sights and weaponry.

The hull is its set of wheels.

Almost 33 feet long.

The rear is elevated to house the engine, with the driver's compartment at

front.

The turret and the hull are worked on separately on two giant assembly lines,

overseen by David Moore.

When the turret finishes at the end of the line, the turret then gets its final

gun shield, the turret basket guard's on.

At that point, we'll load it onto the finished hull.

Once the two halves are united, the combined weight is an incredible 70

This one looks like it's about ready to go for a ride.

So how is it possible to get this massive machine moving at high speed?

You've got a 70 -ton vehicle. You want it to go over 45 miles an hour.

And what does it take to do that?

That's really the hardest part of the engineering is getting that balance

You need to have something that's giving you all the power that you need.

but as light as you need it to be.

Designing an engine that's heavy -duty but lightweight seems like an impossible

mission.

Solving it requires imaginative engineering from the past.

Aerospace engineer Ben Evans is taking to the skies in a pioneering aircraft

that may hold the key for the team working on the Abrams tank.

Wow.

Mike Cattell owns this iconic 1963 Alouette II helicopter.

The Alouette II helicopter really became one of the most influential helicopters

in the middle of the 20th century.

It set the trend for modern -day helicopters.

The first helicopters were powered by piston -driven engines like those used

cars. And as the aircraft grew in size, so did their engines.

But ambitious helicopter designers struggled with this weight problem.

They wanted to make helicopters bigger and more powerful, which meant bigger

engines. But increasingly they were finding that as helicopters got bigger,

and more of the power from those piston engines was actually being used to lift

the weight of the piston engine.

Another thing the helicopter wanted to left, which was the cargo, the

passengers. They faced the same problem as the team behind the Abrams tank.

They needed an engine that was powerful but lightweight.

In 1950s France, one man came up with the perfect solution.

Joseph Szydlovsky was a Polish -born engine designer who pioneered the use of

the turboshaft gas turbine engine in helicopters.

The Alouette II was the first mass -produced helicopter to use the new

So basically what we've got here is a jet engine, but instead of generating

thrust, we're generating mechanical power down a shaft.

This is one of the air intakes, and there's another one on the other side of

engine. It's sucking air in at the front of the engine here, and that air passes

into a compressor.

That compressor is squeezing the air, increasing its pressure and its

temperature before it passes into the combustion chamber.

So in this region here, fuel gets added and ignited, and then you end up with

lots of hot, high -pressure exhaust gases which need to escape somewhere.

they come out of the back of the engine through the exhaust.

But unlike a jet engine, where those exhaust gases are accelerated into a jet

push the aircraft forward, what we have inside here is a turbine.

And that turbine is connected to a shaft running down the centre of the engine.

You can actually see the shaft coming out the front of the engine here into

this. gearbox system here, converting that power and sending it vertically

upwards into the propeller system.

The key elements of the turboshaft engine are the compressor, which

pressurized air for added turbopower, and the turbine, which turns the shaft

that spins the rotors.

Although the engine weighs just 315 pounds, it generates 530 horsepower.

So this engine system is revolutionary because you can generate more power for

less weight than the conventional piston engines that were being used before the

Alouette II. This makes it perfect for something like a helicopter where you

need a lot of power, but you really need to keep the weight of the aircraft down

as low as possible.

Delivering maximum punch for minimum weight, the turboshaft engine took

helicopter design to new heights.

The turboshaft really was a game changer. And what this allowed designers

was to build bigger and more powerful helicopters.

So how can the team building the Abrams battle tank make use of a helicopter

engine pioneered in the 1950s?

By supersizing it.

Engineers behind the U .S.

Army's premier fighting machine, the Abrams Tank, are taking inspiration from

1950s engineer Joseph Shidlovsky and his innovative helicopter engine.

This gargantuan gas guzzler is a 1 ,500 -horsepower version of Shidlovsky's gas

turbine turboshaft.

In tank terms, it's known as the Power Pack.

What we've got here is what we call a full -up power pack. It has the AGT 1500

gas turbine engine, basically the same kind of turbine that you'd find in a

helicopter.

So this will kick out the 1500 horsepower that we need to move the 70

beast. At 1 .25 tons, it's a whopper.

But it's the optimal power -to -weight ratio.

A diesel engine with the same output would weigh twice as much.

So the turbine is actually about here. It's very small. So you have the air

that's coming in through where this kind of red bag is.

Goes in through a compression stage just like you'd find in any other jet

engine. We've got our turbine.

The turbine is spinning.

There's a shaft that goes right through here and interfaces here into the

transmission. And this transmission here, all that power gets translated out

final drives that attach the rocket, drive the track and the tank.

The engine may be super powerful, but it doesn't make a lot of noise.

This gives it a key strategic advantage.

So what you're hearing right now is the turbine sound of the engine.

Most tanks are going to be diesel, and so you're going to hear them. They're

going to be very loud, very smoky. But as you can see with this turbine here,

there's almost no visual signature.

Although it sounds loud to us on the battlefield, this is actually very

You can be within a few hundred meters of this in the forest, and you won't

hear it at all when it's running.

It makes it more survivable because if you can't be seen, you can't be hit.

And so that's what's great about the turbine engine.

Oh, it's the greatest sound in the world.

It has such a unique quality to it, and it just sounds like high performance,

right? It sounds like it's ready to go. It's just chomping at the bit.

That's the real advantage that we get from an engineering perspective over a

diesel engine is you effectively have immediate torque, meaning when you turn

the throttle in this one, the tank's going to move.

I think we're ready. Yeah, we're good.

Clear to start.

There's only one way to put the engine through its paces.

Engine's firing up.

By taking it for a test drive at the Proving Ground in Yuma, Arizona.

All right, we're about to go out on course.

Today, test chief Greg Duda is taking the Abrams off -road.

When we do testing out here, we test on all the road surfaces.

We're ready to roll.

The Abrams can go from 0 to 20 in 7 .2 seconds.

And has a top speed of 45 miles per hour.

The engine can run off most types of fuel.

And although it gets less than a mile to the gallon, It gives the tank the turbo

force it needs.

It's always a good day to be out here and experience the power of the Abram.

But before it's sent into combat, the number one priority for the engineers is

working out how to keep the tank crew safe.

How can we make this vehicle more survivable? And that's a real challenge

from an engineering perspective.

It's a challenge Supervisor David Moore does not take lightly.

As the product manager, I oversee them all the way through the process to when

they're delivered.

All these tanks, I consider my babies.

Right now we have a completed tank.

Gave them a final coat of paint and then put it onto a rail car.

And once they get a train load, we ship them.

It's quite a sight when you see these tanks line up.

They'll line up until you get a row of 24 of them or more.

It's pretty impressive.

Before they're sent into the field, each one has to undergo a series of vital

tests at the military proving ground in Yuma.

Let me know when you're ready for a round.

Today, Test Chief Greg Duda and his team are test -firing the cannon on this

newly built tank.

The test crew are unloading ammo, and they're going to bring it into the safe

compartment in the tank as we prepare for firing.

We're going to be in a safe location behind a blast shield.

We expect to see a big bang and a large fireball.

And you'll feel it. You can actually feel the sound waves in your body.

So never a dull day when you're out at the test site testing tanks.

Roger, guys.

Is there a load?

What they're doing right now, the weapon's been loaded.

They're going through all their weapon checks, and they're going to go ahead

fire the weapon.

Roger. They're going to fire.

They get the on -the -way command.

There you go.

Hard to beat.

That was amazing as always.

It never gets old.

I love the smell, too.

Serious shock waves, serious power.

Lots of energy being released.

But major firepower is just half the battle.

The tanks must deliver force.

They also have to withstand it.

Using the best possible armor has preoccupied tank engineers since the

beginning.

Originally, tanks were all made from steel plating.

But post -World War II, as weaponry became more powerful, new armor had to

developed.

And when a new type of anti -tank weapon appeared, For tank engineers, once

again, the pressure was on.

Firing! Three, two, one!

Wow, that was a big bang.

Physicist Andrew Steele is at a secret location in the British countryside to

find out what they were up against.

This steel represents the armour plating on our tank.

We've got four 2 .5cm thick steel plates of 10cm of armour in all. And as you

can see, there's a pretty big hole in that.

And if we go through number two, there's a hole.

Number three, there's a hole on both sides.

And finally number four, there's a pretty big hole in that one too. It's

straight through.

So what sort of weapon could blow a hole in 10cm of steel?

Well, I've got a little model of one here. It's called an RPG, or rocket

-propelled grenade.

In here, you've got your high explosive crammed in the back, and when that

explodes, it crushes this inverted copper cone.

It turns it into an incredibly hot, thin stream of copper metal, and it just

cuts through it like a hot knife through butter.

Engineers had to find a way to defend against these new weapons.

For inspiration, they turned to German ballistic scientist Manfred Held.

and a technology he pioneered in the 1960s.

What we've got here is a modern version of Helt's invention.

It's called an explosive reactive tile.

The top layer is just this very thin piece of steel.

Inside we've got a couple of bits of foam, which are representing the high

explosive, and then on the back we've got a much thicker steel plate.

Now, imagine an RPG impacting on this tile.

What happens is that thin, hot jet of copper pierces this outer layer very,

easily. And that then detonates this high explosive inside.

And what that does is sends this front piece of steel flying, which is why it's

known as the flyer plate.

That means this piece of steel can deflect the RPG, deflect that explosive

energy away from the thicker plate behind, and keep the tank and its

safe. So what we want to do then is place loads and loads of these plates

over different parts of the tank.

It might seem like a counterintuitive idea that covering the exterior of your

tank and explosives can make it safer, but this simple invention is very

effective.

To see it in action, the team's creating a reactive tile to try to protect a new

set of steel plates from another blast.

We've got 10 centimetres of steel plate back here, but this time in front of it

we've got two mill of steel, and then just in there we've got a couple of

sheets of SX -2 high explosive, which is representing that tile of explosive

reactive armour.

We can set this thing off.

Arm the explosives.

Firing! Three, two, one!

Whoa!

Wow, this is the scene of total destruction.

If we come down here, have a look through the rubble, you can see this is

piece of that flyer plate, the thin bit of steel that was on the front, and as

you can see, it's been pretty heavily deformed.

Now, our four steel plates are nowhere to be seen. They've probably been thrown

back somewhere into that pile of rocks.

If there was the weight of a tank behind them, they'd still be in place

probably, but because they've just been completely free to move, they've been

scattered by that huge, huge explosion.

Once all four plates have been found... That's warm as well.

Wow. ...it's possible to see whether they've been protected from the blast.

You can see here we've got piece of armour number one. You can tell that

it's got a really big hole in it and because it's got this indentation here

where the high explosive was just pressed directly against it.

Then we go through to plate two, still quite a big hole, little bit of a dent.

Plate number three, you can see that jet has been split into two, disrupted by

that explosive reactive armour.

And finally, plate number four... You can see, still two jets, but they've not

quite made it through to the other side. So we've saved our tank, and we've

saved its occupants.

The success of the explosive reactive tile turned armor design towards a

new concept.

Fighting fire with fire.

Held's invention was a real game changer.

Just by adding a thin layer of explosive and a thin layer of steel on top of

existing armor, you could massively improve the safety of the crew inside.

And with some strategic placement and 21st century updates, Held's pioneering

technology just might help the engineers behind the Abrams tank pull off the

impossible.

The team designing the Abrams tank adapted the explosive reactive tile

technology of the 1960s and developed their own exploding tiles that can be

added to its outer shell.

The reactive armor on the Abrams mounts to the skirts. So the skirts are

replaced with a very similar but different version.

And then the tiles, they're called, are slid all the way down the hole.

That provides protection for the hull, for the tank itself, and also the

The Abrams Reactive Armor Tiles, known as ARATs, are fitted to each side of the

tank.

Flat box tiles are attached to the hull and turret.

Then an additional layer of curved tiles are hung over the top of the hull, just

like Held's original invention.

If they are hit by an incoming shell, they detonate.

It is an incredible technology.

We do ballistic testing on the performance of the tiles themselves, and

does is it creates just a tremendous explosion and very loud noise, not

the weapon firing.

I'd say the ARIDE is critical for certain threat environments when you're

operating the vehicle, having that protection.

increases the chance that the tank is going to survive any time it gets

And with the addition of the ARAT, the Abrams tank is nearly unstoppable.

There is no safer place to be on the battlefield than inside of this vehicle.

The things that can be updated have been updated, and the things that worked

really well, no reason to break them, that's why we're sticking with this

and true design.

The original designers of the tank are really truly amazing to me that they

built so much margin into this tank. It's a testament to the longevity of

tank that we can still make upgrades to it and it can still maintain its

performance over such a long period of time.

The Abrams tank is a victory for impossible engineering.

After 40 years of service, This powerful piece of machinery remains the Army's

top gun.

Engineers are curious and like to work problems, and there's a lot of things

us to do in order to deliver something this complex.

But it's almost impossible to keep up with the latest technologies that are

there.

But driven to do their best work for the tank crews, they're building on

pioneering innovations of the past and creating new capabilities for the

To make the impossible possible.

We believe this is the best tank built in the world.

Everybody's in awe.

It's bigger than they imagined.

It's faster than they imagined.

We take great pride in what we do.

And it brings the soldiers home.

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