Hans-Hermann Bühling has been watching a thread on the M1 Abrams and its base coating; here he shares some images that may answer your concerns on the subject.

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If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

Thanks for taking the time to take these photos.

VERY helpful, thanks. I have two Abrams in my stash right now.

That's a lot of chipping for something so modern, though I don't know how long that tank's been sitting around. For WWII stuff, it makes me feel I've been underestimating wear and tear.

Is this representative of typical weathering/chipping due to use in service, or is this a redundant tank in reserve and not having had proper maintenance/repainting for too long?

Tanks have been "on the road" for Operation Atlantic Resolve since February. Been to Poland, the Baltic States and Romania.

Man, look at the wear on those center guides! Compare photo 1 with the unused links hung on the turret rails in photo 11. Quite worn drive sprocket ring as well. Thanks for the excellent photos !

Sean

I have been working on three separate Abrams and have delayed the finishing on all three because of the time I have spent validating the weathering. These are actually mild to what I have come across just from one tank in mind.

Could you give us some data on where this M-1 is? Is it on sisplay at an army base? Active duty with an armored unit?

Remember chipping doesn't happen by itself. Each place on this tank with a chip is due to direct action by the crew. Whether it's a tow bar or just feet and hands this is where you'd expect wear. None of this happened by itself as so many models show. Someone or something chips the paint.

Personally I would like to hear the story behind the muzzle end. Maybe it's too much break-free cleaning the barrel or someone clunked the barrel on something while traversing the turret.

The tank is from 1-68 Armor, 3rd ABCT, 4th ID. Number A34, nicknamed Alabama Slamma. Was on display at German-American Volksfest at Grafenwöhr Training Area.

Also remember the crew can't just get some cark paint and touch it up. Chips stay until the next repaint.

If its a tank on static display it could well be sitting for YEARS before anyone bothers touching-up any defects in paint, rust, etc. Nice to see but don't believe that a peace-time army would let anything get this worn without some sergeant's boots up someone's butts and out comes the steel wool, rust remover and paint. Was the tank still in service or only on display? I like the examples of wear that you show but wonder how it would apply in any active service unit.

Like mentiomed above, the unit s currently travalling Eastern Europe for Operation Atlantic Resolve.

I believe these tanks also were wearing whitewash back in February, as part of the winter camouflage, and spent the winter, spring and now summer traveling around Eastern Europe and now Germany, so there's been a lot of deferred maintenance, as some have pointed out in addressing the wear to the drivers and center guides. If they were back in garrison, they probably wouldn't be this beat up. One thing that I see modelers doing when they weather vehicles is forgetting the average lifespan of a vehicle in combat-- especially German ones-- they really didn't last that long, and while it's true that some might have been around longer than others, I doubt seriously many tanks or armored vehicles made it through all 6 years of combat-- without repair, but we tend to model them like they did. When this M1 gets back to garrison, it will be cleaned up and repainted-- or sent to depot for rebuild, they are not allowed to look like this for long.
VR, Russ

So this is an active duty tank doing a training rotation.

That could mean a hectic schedule with little time for cosmetic patches. Or it could mean that this tank was in the motorpool waiting on maintenance and touch up paint and it was pulled for the dog and pony show.

Having done "show the flag dog and pony shows " sometimes you pull the tank that runs but is deadlined for some internal issue. So this tank could have been sitting in the motorpool waiting on a part so the painting isn't up to spec. Or some guy has a sense of humor and pulls the most worn out tank to impress on everyone just how hard they've been working. So you can't be positive that this is typical wear but it does show the places that wear and how they do.

And remember each spot of wear show was the result of someone acting or doing and didn't just happen by itself.

Watching YouTube videos about the M1 repairs and upgrades at the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama and the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center in Ohio, will give a good insight, and a few moments of looking at, an M1's appearance of weathering/chipping/wear, as they arrive. Then, over a ten-month period, the M1 is gutted, refurbished, and rebuilt. Upon completion they go back looking new and spiffy! Quite the transformation...

Great walk around. Excellent shots of wear and tear for a modern combat vehicle. I would love to see the same from a Bradley IFV perspective.

I have been around active duty, home station vehicles quite a bit the last 15 years or so. There are many reasons for chipping even on CARC vehicles, but mostly it is because of the hard training these guys do on a regular basis. What is shown here is pretty typical.

Frontline units are supposed to quality twice a year at gunnery. There is plenty of lead up training just for that. Then there are the other training exercises like Field Training Exercises where they go up against OPFOR, then there are Combined Arms Live Fire Exercises where they get all tactical and work with other types of units like engineers, artillery, and helos. Then there are the visits (with their own tanks) to places like the National Training Center. The bottom line is that these vehicles are rode hard and put up wet. Lots of bent and scratched fenders and the like too.

As an anecdote, 1-64AR, 3rd ID returned home from a Europe deployment last year and due to the rain at Ft Stewart over those months, more than one tank was partially flooded from poor seals in the hatches. Moderate (not light) rust was evident on just about every AFV from sitting there for months without any use, so all of those little chips that were there before turned into rust. I was there for their first gunnery after that deployment and they looked pretty rough.

And USMC tanks are another matter too. Lots of rust, scratches, etc. Just about every tank at Camp Lejeune has its right front fender paint worn to the bare metal from the crew dismounting. Lots of scratches on the skirts in both Army and USMC tanks. Nobody cares about them either. Depending on the depth of them, these result in rust too. Crews just laugh when I mention that modelers would get questioned for chipping and rusting on their tanks. Until a repaint happens nobody cares about minor chipping and rusting.

To me, another point of interest for us modelers is that there are many bolts that are bare metal. Pretty much everywhere.

I'd post a few examples of my own, but I'm not up to speed yet on losing my Photobucket account.

Not knowing anything about the M1, what is the gray-ish devise on the top of the gun muzzle? Is that for simulated firing, or something else? And is it supposed to be gray, and why not the vehicle color?

Muzzle Reference Sensor (MRS)

Basically it lines up the muzzle/gun with the gunners sights. So whatever he is aiming at will be exactly where the gun is pointing. The one in that pic is CARC green, not gray.

A lot of people assume the crew is lax because of the chips and rust. CARC paint is not available to the crews so there can be no paint touch ups until the next repaint. You can straighten bent metal but there is no paint available.

This is the tank that I fell in love with just because of its wear. It was to me so worn and it just drew me in. It is the one that I am trying to mimic right now with a current build.

I love the multi color wear on the wheels. As you have the brown and green camo covered by tan fighting with rust.

Upside-down skull/crossbones? Are they in need of assistance?

Bradley was in a much better condition. A few chipped bolt heads here and there, thats it. But the tracks were really worn down.