All,
I understand that Eduard has an exhaust cover for the Abrams for OIF in etched. I've been to the sight and it is "grill armor" for the exhaust something like the Strykers are fitted with.
The only issue I have with it is that I have yet to find a single photo anywhere on the Internet that shows a tank fitted with this. Is it an Army or USMC thing....has it even been fielded and if so when?

Dave

Hello Dave

You'll find at least one large picture of an Army M1A2 in Iraq fitted with such a cover here (from Webshots.com) :
http://image28.webshots.com/28/2/53/36/236625336ErZelV_fs.jpg
It looks like the one you can find in Eduard's set #35600 ("Late" exhaust cover)

HTH
Frenchy

Henri-Pierre,

Could you please post a link to the whole album from which the photo came? Is there more armor pics there?

Pawel

Hello Pawel !
Here's the link to the album it comes from :
http://community.webshots.com/album/236604981hLqHZP
I came across this one looking for Abrams pics on Webshots, a task that requires some spare time as you obtain more than 5890 pics if you type "abrams" in Webshots search engine ....But it is worth a try !

Frenchy

Talking with a few guys in the know with the Abrams management in the Army, the birdcage in the rear will not become a standard part of things to come.

Going back through stories traded over some beer, the initial reason why we looked into it was someone getting an RPG to the rear. Upon further review, there was no damage done by the enemy in that way.

It was fielded briefly by some vehicles in Iraq, and it may still be there in some forms, but crews reported it was difficult to perform some maintenance steps because it was rather heavy.

I'll dig around some and see what I can find that's more concrete.

Jed Sargent

The unit I was with in OIF fabricated its on grill armor that looked similar to the one shown in frenchy's post. Unfortunately I did not take any photos of the armor. I can tell you it was not popular with the crews or the mechanics who worke don the tanks. It was very heavy and awkward to install and remove. Afew generals and civillian design people came to look at it to come up with a generic design for all Abrams. They seemed very excited about the idea however I do not know what became of it. I do know my entire battalion was outfitted with them. We paid local Iraqis to construct the armor.

The slat armor on the rear of the Abrams is part of the TUSK (Tank Urban Survivability Kit) kits.

They also have armor around the loader's hatch, a remote weapon station for the commander (M1A2 only), reactive armor on the sides, thermal sights for the loader's weapon, infantry phone, etc, etc.

Current reports from the Program Manager for Abrams identify the grill slat armor as not going into the upgrade.

This may be one of the earliest versions as the image was supplied quite some time ago.

Jim

Glad to have been of help, I wish I had seen Jim's thread as I searched for ages on the web to find this picture on a foreign site somewhere.


John