Latest news with #M1Abrams
Epoch Times
5 days ago
- Epoch Times
Active-Duty US Army Soldier Charged With Allegedly Leaking Military Secrets to Russia
The Justice Department announced on Wednesday that it has charged an active-duty soldier for allegedly attempting to transmit national defense information to a foreign adversary, among other counts. Taylor Adam Lee, 22, is accused in a criminal complaint of seeking to 'transmit sensitive national defense information to Russia' relating to how to operate the United States' primary battle tank, the M1 Abrams, Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said in a statement.
Yahoo
30-07-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Minigun-Equipped M1 Abrams Tank Being Tested By Army
A U.S. Army armored unit recently tested an M1 Abrams tank armed with a 7.62x51mm M134 Minigun in place of one of its secondary machine guns. The configuration, which looks like it was pulled straight out of an entry in the Call of Duty or Battlefield video game franchises, offers a boost in the volume of small-caliber firepower that an Abrams can pump out. The 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division (1AD), based at Fort Bliss in Texas, shared pictures of the Minigun-armed Abrams, seen at the top of this story and below, last week on its official Instagram page. 'Tank crews from the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division showcase their lethality during live-fire testing of the M134 Minigun, mounted on an M1 Abrams tank,' an accompanying post reads. 'This cutting-edge integration of high-volume rotary firepower with heavy armor amplifies the brigade's combat versatility, giving Ready First the tactical edge in close-quarters and complex terrain. As the brigade continues to evolve, innovations like this ensure dominance on tomorrow's battlefield.' TWZ has reached out to the public affairs office at Fort Bliss for more information about this testing, including whether this is a capability the 1st Armored Division is looking to field operationally or is just experimenting with at present. The pictures show the M134 installed in place of the 7.62x51mm M240-series machine gun that is typically mounted on a ring around the loader's hatch on the roof of the turrets on Abrams tanks. Though the M134 and M240 family fire the same ammunition, the two guns are completely different in every way. The six-barrelled Gatling-type Minigun can be set to fire up to 6,000 rounds every minute compared to the 650 to 750 rounds per minute rate of fire of a typical single-barrelled M240. The latest M1A2 System Enhancement Package Version 3 (SEPv3) Abrams tanks in Army service today are typically armed with a .50 caliber M2 machine gun in a remotely operated weapons station on the turret roof in front of the commander's hatch. The tanks also have another M240-series machine gun mounted coaxially with the 120mm main gun. To go along with the M134's high rate of fire, the Minigun installation tested on the 1/1st Armored Division's Abrams also features a 3,000-round magazine. The gun itself is fitted with a Trijicon MGRS non-magnifying optical sight, which the Army started acquiring in recent years for use on M2 machine guns. MGRS sights have at least been evaluated by other branches of the U.S. military, including special operations units, for use on various types of machine guns mounted on ground vehicles and helicopters, as well as warships and smaller watercraft. Variants of the Minigun have been in U.S. military service since the 1960s in a wide variety of air, ground, and maritime applications, and the core design has been improved upon multiple times since then. Historically, the use of Miniguns on ground vehicles within America's armed forces has been largely confined to the special operations community. A vehicle-mounted Minigun provides the ability to rapidly bring a very high volume of fire to bear on an individual target or a general area, like a building or a treeline. This can be particularly valuable for breaking up ambushes or otherwise suppressing enemy forces. This is highlighted in the 1/1st Armored Division's Instagram post's mention of the weapon offering the tank's crew a 'tactical edge in close-quarters and complex terrain.' In U.S. military usage, the term 'complex terrain' includes dense urban environments, where tanks and other heavy armored vehicles can be especially vulnerable to ambushes, given the limited room to maneuver and ample cover for hostile forces. In those conditions, armored vehicle crews typically operate in a buttoned-up configuration with hatches sealed, offering added protection, but also reducing situational awareness. The U.S. military sees combat in sprawling 'megacities' as an ever-more-likely feature of future conflicts, especially high-end conventional fights. Tanks and other heavy armored vehicles are also now increasingly challenged by drones, especially small and highly maneuverable weaponized types, against which a weapon like the Minigun could be more effective than their slower-firing cousins. The pictures shared by the 1/1st Armored Division show that the Minigun mounted on the Abrams is capable of being fired at higher angles, which would be useful for engaging aerial threats. At the same time, at least in the configuration that has been shown so far, the Minigun has to be manually operated by a soldier standing in the loader's hatch, exposing them to enemy fire. A new section on counter-drone tactics that was recently added to an Army tank warfare manual drew criticism in part because of its recommendations for tank commanders to stand in open hatches and use hand signals to alert other friendly forces to incoming enemy drones. Critics also highlighted advice to rapidly disperse off established paths (and potentially into nearby minefields) and to use M1028 canister rounds (essentially very large shotgun shells) from the M1's 120mm main gun as the prime anti-drone weapon, as not just unlikely to be effective, but also likely to add risk. The plan to leave a track and break into a herringbone will most likely result in multiple landmine hits. And the laughable instructions to shoot canister at a rapidly moving FPV could only have have emanated from a General. — Roy (@GrandpaRoy2) July 13, 2025 Installing the Minigun in a remotely operated mount could help address the vulnerability issue. The Army has also been separately pursuing new automated targeting capabilities for larger mounted guns, leveraging developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning, which could also be applicable in this context, especially for spotting and engaging small drones moving erratically. The Army is also fielding computerized optical sights for individual rifles to aid in targeting small drones, and it might be possible to integrate them with machine guns on armored vehicles. There is also just the matter of the Minigun's appetite for ammunition, which has historically been a limiting factor for the weapon. Since they are electrically powered, the guns can be set to fire at slower rates. Even at a rate of fire of 3,000 rounds per minute, it would take only 60 seconds of continuous fire to expend the full magazine seen installed together with the gun on the Abrams. Still, if the gun is set to fire too slowly, the firepower advantage over a traditional machine gun would also be lost. Larger magazines also translate to higher vehicle weights. A heavy armored vehicle like the Abrams does have the benefit of having an array of weapons that can be employed as appropriate. The Minigun testing conducted by 1/1st Armored Division comes amid a broader surge in interest within the service in new defensive features for its Abrams tanks and other heavy armored vehicles. This has been driven in no small part by observations from the war in Ukraine, where tanks remain an important fixture, but face an ever-expanding threat ecosystem in which drones are a huge factor. Reposting this video showing a Russian T-80BVM tank with a roof screen and deploying smoke surviving multiple FPV hits and — Rob Lee (@RALee85) December 13, 2023 An Army Science Board report published back in 2023 had already concluded that heavy armored vehicles like the Abrams will continue to have a role in future conflicts, but will also be a steadily less and less dominant presence on the battlefield in the coming decades. In the meantime, the immediate future for Army Abrams tanks may now include the addition of Miniguns to their arsenals. Contact the author: joe@ Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
18-07-2025
- Yahoo
The Army has a novel solution to its drone problem: Shoot them with tanks
The Army has solved its drone problem. What you do is: you shoot them with a tank. Problem solved, right? Not quite, but that describes some of the reaction after the service released its latest update to its 'Tank Platoon' manual, known as ATP 3-20.15, late last week, and a set of diagrams deep in the appendix caught the eye of many online. It's not hard to see why. Taken by themselves, the diagrams do come across as a bit… optimistic. They present an extremely simplified vision of a hypothetical tank-vs-drone encounter, a subject that combat in Ukraine has proven is neither simple nor hypothetical for armor formations. In the diagrams, a squad of M1 Abrams main battle tanks aim at a passing drone — which the Army calls an unmanned aircraft system or UAS — and shoot it down with fire from their main 120mm cannon. The course of action instructions alongside the diagram suggest that crews employ the M1028 120mm canister rounds for the takedown. The M1028 is a fairly awful weapon to contemplate, a 120mm shell stuffed with over 1000 tungsten projectiles designed to scatter like grapeshot and mow through dismounted infantry or, in this case, clip a fragile drone in its wide field of disbursement. At least that seems to be the thinking here. Gunners should lead a straight-flying UAS, the manual says, by that most All-American of distance estimates, 'one-half football field.' A second diagram addresses the quadcopter variety of drone, which are rarely seen flying straight and narrow but instead loop and dive directly at their targets. For those, the diagrams say, aim 'slightly above helicopter body.' The new manual represents the Army's first rewrite of its armor procedures to address the threat of drones, but the simple diagrams are hardly the service's first crack at counter-UAS tactics. In fact, missed by most of the online commenters is that the diagrams are pulled from the section on intentionally simple immediate action drills. Immediate action drills, or battle drills, are familiar to any soldier as the building blocks of combat tactics — simple, short, easy-to-memorize instructions for specific scenarios that units practice until they are second nature. But revisions throughout the rest of the tank manual make clear that 'second nature' is what the army wants drone combat to be. Drones now a 'critical task' The revised manual mentions unmanned systems over 100 times and puts combat with UASs into two of a tanker's 12 'Critical Tactical Tasks,' alongside such tank basics as field maintenance and casualty care and evacuation. Drone engagements now also gets its own section in the manual's operating instructions. 'The platoon should assume they are being observed by enemy reconnaissance and targeting systems, and not assume they are under a protective umbrella of friendly air and missile defense units,' the section begins. 'The platoon must react quickly and appropriately respond and report when recognizing signs of possible enemy observation or attack.' Tankers think of defenses against UAS in two categories: active and passive. Passive defense is a relatively straightforward idea: more armor, more hiding. 'Limiting damage and attack avoidance measures are passive defense measures that are used to avoid detection from aerial threats and limit damage if attacked,' the manual says. Those measures include a checklist with everything from smearing mud on headlights for light discipline to OPSEC in the planning stages and using decoys — both real and electronic — to draw drones away. Another passive defense the Army is looking into giving its tanks, as the War Zone reported last month, includes more armor and even 'cope cages' on the top, a weak spot made famous in Ukraine but exploited by ISIS as far back as 2017 in Syria. Active measures are a whole different ballgame, which are manual and automated systems designed to shoot drones out of the sky as they approach a tank. They vary from decades-old reactive armor, to new and in-development laser or radar-directed rockets and 30mm cannons that can swat drones away as they approach. Adding an 'air guard' to the crew Perhaps most interesting though is the manual's instructions for a designated member of the crew to act as 'air guard.' This job — which the manual says will likely fall to the crew's loader — will be used 'for every vehicle and position to establish 360-degree security.' The air guard's job, the manual says, is 'to be vigilant with eyes on the horizon. Air guards are responsible for spotting aerial threats within proximity to the unit's location and providing early warning.' And while drone battles are likely to continue to be a technology race between drone makers and counter-measure builders, the Army seems to think a key to that race will be the very human skill of listening. 'Air guards should position themselves where they can best observe and, more importantly, listen for threat UAS,' the manual says. 'When listening, OPs should exercise noise discipline, ensure all engines are of,f and remove their headgear to listen. Early warning is the key for air guards.' Read the full 432-page 'Tank Platoon' manual here. 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India.com
17-07-2025
- India.com
India's smartest ground weapon: Bad news for China, Pakistan as India develops tank with AI control, hit and kill mode, its name is...
Arjun Mk 3 tanks- File image Arjun Mk 3 tanks of India: In a significant development for India's defence development, India is developing the Arjun Mark 3 tank as its next-generation main battle tank. Expected to be ready by 2030, the tanks will be lighter and more agile than its predecessors. Equipped with a powerful 1500 hp engine and advanced AI systems for target recognition, along with drone coordination, electronic warfare, and autonomous functions, the Arjun Mk3 tanks are expected to be game-changer for India. Why are Arjun Mk 3 tanks so dangerous? The Arjun Mk 3 builds on the success of the Arjun Mk 1A, which already features AI-enabled fire control and long-range missile capability. With these upgrades, the tank is set to become one of the most intelligent and lethal ground weapons in the Indian Army's arsenal. Being equipped with a 1500 HP turbocharged engine, the Arjun Mark 3 puts it in competition with foreign technologies like M1 Abrams, Challenger 2 and China's Type 99 tank. Why are Arjun Mark 3 tanks called 'smart tanks'? The Arjun Mark 3 tanks of India, which has a 'smart tank' equipped with Artificial Intelligence (AI) will use indigenous ammunition be specially designed for long-range firing. India recently conducted successfully carried out the test-firing of two of its key strategic assets — the short-range ballistic missile Prithvi-II and the ballistic missile Agni-I, the Ministry of Defence officials said. The test-firing was carried out from the Integrated Test Range in Odisha's Chandipur. According to the Ministry of Defence, the launches were conducted under the aegis of the Strategic Forces Command as part of routine training and validation exercises. Both missiles successfully met all operational objectives and technical parameters, the Ministry said in a statement. The Ministry of Defence confirmed that the tests validated key capabilities, reaffirming the reliability and accuracy of India's nuclear-capable delivery systems. (With inputs from agencies)
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
How U.S. Strikes May Have Helped the Iranian Regime
Governments are not nations, especially in the Islamic Republic of Iran, but governments wage the wars that can define a nation. Until 2:00 a.m. Iran Standard Time on Sunday, the conflict between America and Iran had remained on a low boil for a solid 45 years, flaring into actual military encounters only on the territory of others, notably Iraq. There, every sixth U.S. fatality perished by the efforts of Iran. President Donald Trump alluded to this history in announcing the U.S. air strikes on three nuclear facilities inside Iran—bringing the conflict to a regime that, even when it attacked the U.S., invariably arranged for someone else to do it. In Iraq, the U.S. was an army of occupation, and its soldiers obliged to patrol the roads. They did so in Humvees heavily armored against the roadside bombs insurgents planted along the route. Iran, which wanted U.S. troops off its doorstep, organized its own insurgents, and gave them a new kind of roadside bomb, a shaped charge that could send a slug of copper through any armor, including an M1 Abrams tank. The soldiers who survived often lost limbs. The U.S. Army history of the Iraq War takes note of the U.S. unit intercepting crates of the copper plates fitted atop the explosive: 'All were turned on the same lathe in Iran.' Israeli officials had been warning the Americans about those bombs. Their own troops had encountered them while occupying Lebanon, where the diabolically lethal innovations had been planted by Hezbollah, the militia Iran helped establish and subsequently armed. When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, Tehran directed them to be used against an enemy it had been fighting, in one way or another, since 1979. Read More: Iran Delivers Furious Warning, Speaks of 'Unprecedented Level of Danger and Chaos' After 'Heinous' U.S. Strikes That was the year everyday Iranians rose up against the King (or Shah) who had been put in place a quarter century earlier by the U.S. and British, in a CIA-directed coup bringing down a democratically-elected government (one that had kicked a British oil company out of the country). A half century later, Iranian citizens could be relied upon to bring up the coup to American reporters doing in-person interviews on Tehran streets decorated with wartime propaganda. The entire side of a tall building in Tehran shows the American flag with the stars replaced by skulls and the stripes formed by descending bombs. The mural, which had faded over the decades, was redone with fresh paint a few months ago. The famous 'Death to America' slogan is still on the wall of the park-like compound that once held the U.S. Embassy. The place was officially dubbed 'the Den of Spies' when it was overrun by supporters of the regime that replaced the Shah—a revolutionary movement led by a charismatic Shi'ite cleric named Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. (TIME's Person of the Year in 1979 is not to be confused with his similarly named successor, 86-year-old Ali Khamenei, who finally has reportedly nominated his own candidates as successor.) The former embassy is now a museum and, as TripAdvisor makes clear, an effective one. When Iranians were coming over the gates, American diplomats and spies scrambled to feed secrets into paper shredders, reducing their secret documents to strips of paper maybe an eighth-of-an-inch wide. The zeal of the 1979 revolution is still visible on the tables of the Den of Spies, in the papers true believers re-assembled strand-by-strand. Over 50 U.S. diplomats remained in the embassy as hostages for 444 days. The humiliation the nascent Islamic Republic of Iran inflicted on the United States may have been on par with the humiliation the regime is experiencing now. The hitch, for both the U.S. and Israel, is that bringing the attack to Iran, as a country, risks stirring the nationalist response of a nation that goes back 2,500 years. Most Iranians loathe their government, and may have looked on with a certain interest on June 13, when the Israeli warplanes and drones descended, both from abroad and from a base Mossad set up near Tehran. (A joke making the rounds in Tehran had one of Iran's retaliatory strikes hitting the headquarters of Mossad, but it was empty: All the agents were inside Iran.) At the time its secret nuclear program was revealed in 2002, people still held out hope that they could alter their government at the ballot box. But the political reform movement failed, and the stiffening, increasingly unpopular regime understood that it could no longer count on its population. Instead, it placed its hopes for survival in thugs beating protesters in the streets, and acquiring a nuclear weapon. A large majority of Iranians have no love for the regime. In small towns and cities alike, they have been rising up against their oppressive government at irregular intervals, for decades. But any kind of bomb is terrifying, and after the first night of attacks, Israel's warplanes moved beyond military targets and assassinations. An oil refinery was bombed. The casualties of a strike on Tajrish Square, a bustling bazaar in Tehran's north, included a water main and a well-known graphic designer, who was waiting at a red light. The specter of Gaza now looms over every Israeli military operation. After Iran's retaliatory missiles claimed Israeli lives, Israel's defense minister threatened that 'Tehran will burn.' Inside Iran, opposing the government does not extend to supporting attacks by foreign militaries. A group of human rights, civil society, and political activists who, as they put it, 'have always been critical and opposed to the current wrong way of governing,' posted a statement on Telegram saying: 'At this critical juncture in our country's history, when we are confronted with the aggression and arrogance of the racist Israeli government, which has a long history of warmongering, genocide and breaking the fundamental principles of morality and international law, we firmly condemn this attack. We emphasize our serious opposition to any foreign interference. We consider it to be detrimental to the human rights and democracy-seeking efforts of Iranian civil society, and we stand united and steadfast in defending the territorial integrity, independence, national defense capability of our homeland, defending the lives and dignity of human beings, and peace in the region and the world.' Dread swelled in the neighborhoods around the Tehran atomic research reactor, with the distribution of iodide potassium pills to protect the thyroid against radiation in the air. Experts say the risk of radiation exposure is fairly small around the atomic facilities that the U.S. and Israel have bombed to date, because the ones in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan all deal with enriching uranium, rather than sparking nuclear reactions. But though small, the Tehran reactor (set up by the U.S. in 1967, when the Shah still ruled), operates as Chernobyl or Three Mile Island once did, and in the center of a city of more than nine million people. Those living closest to the reactor were told the pills should be taken by those over the age of 60 and under 40, but only when instructed by state TV, which Israel has also bombed. Read More: A New Middle East Is Unfolding Before Our EyesSo, where do things go from here? To a large extent, that depends on the actions of an Iranian regime that was already unpopular at the start of this assault. But any government bringing its own military inside Iran's borders should understand the nature of the country. Among Iranians, opposition to the government is grounded in a bedrock pride in their nation, which predates not only the Islamic Republic, but Islam itself. Some on the Iranian plateau still practice Zoroastrianism, the world's first monotheistic faith, and the foundation for an ancient empire that still informs Iranians' sense of themselves. That identity can be glimpsed in first names like Darius and Cyrus—the names of Persian emperors—and actually visible in the ruins of Persepolis. There, in the friezes depicting supplicants from nations lining up to pay fealty to the ruler of an ancient empire, some Iranians find themselves seeing the nuclear program exactly as the modern regime has cast it—as the 'inalienable right' of any signatory to Non Proliferation Treaty to pursue a nuclear program, so long as it's in Tehran, there was evidence the regime was gaining ground with a public it had largely lost. In a private chat, a university professor told a friend: "Even if Khamenei had packed up the whole nuclear program, Israel would have attacked. Their whole plan was to weaken Iran's military." Contact us at letters@
