Author Topic: The Biggest Problem With Ukraine’s M-1 Tanks: They Don’t Like Staying Dirty  (Read 922 times)

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Offline Bob Riebe

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The biggest problem with Ukraine’s new fleet of 31 American-made M-1 Abrams tanks isn’t the tanks’ 1,500-horsepower turbine engines. Not really.

No, it’s the filters in the engines’ intakes. The filters keep dirt and debris from fouling and wrecking an M-1’s delicate—but powerful—engine. They require constant cleaning.
If an Abrams’ four-person crew neglects to clean its tank’s filters every 12 hours or so, it might so badly damage the engine that the battalion has no choice but to remove the engine, and potentially the transmission, and ship it away for a lengthy overhaul.

That would remove one of Ukraine’s few M-1s from the battlefield as surely as a Russian mine or missile might do. Deep maintenance of Ukrainian Abrams takes place in Poland.
The 68-ton M-1A1SAs that Ukraine operates are thirsty machines. In the weeks before the administration of U.S. president Joe Biden pledged the M-1 to Ukraine, early this year, many pundits and even some officials worried aloud over the tank’s fuel requirements.

Laura Cooper, a U.S. deputy defense secretary, called the Abrams “a gas-guzzler.”

It’s true an M-1 typically travels just .6 miles per gallon of fuel. But its turbine is flexible if not terribly efficient. The U.S. Army feeds its M-1s jet fuel, but other armies pour cheaper diesel into their Abrams. The Australian army, for one.
There are no indications swapping jet fuel for diesel significantly weighs on the M-1’s performance. So there’s every reason to believe the Ukrainian army will keep things simple and fuel up its Abrams with the same diesel its other tank types burn.

No, it’s the Abrams’ filters that might prove to be the biggest headaches for Ukrainian troops. Twice a day, an M-1 crew must rev its tank’s engine to high revolutions-per-minute in order to trigger a pulse-jet system that blasts air out of the tank rather than into it, shooting dust and debris from the back grille.
That keeps the filters clean across lengthy deployments. Before the Americans added the pulse-jet system to the M-1, in the early 2000s, tank crews—especially those fighting in the desert—openly complained about their vehicles’ reliability.

“Army officials are aware of the problems with high fuel consumption, unreliable fuel pumps and sand-ingestion,” the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported in 1992. “They are working on solutions.”
The solution to the sand-ingestion problem was the twice-a-day pulse-jet cleaning process. It works just fine, as long as crews rigorously adhere to its schedule. Even when they’re getting shot at.

"All those things can be taught to the crew, but if ever they make a mistake—and they will—it blows a million-dollar engine that can't be repaired in the field," Mark Hertling, a retired U.S. Army general, told The Kyiv Independent.

Online Graybeard

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Yeah well, it's NOT a GAS guzzler cuz it doesn't use gasoline but rather diesel mostly. Jet fuel is nothing but kerosene really which is basically same as diesel but with less stink. I worked at Anniston Army Depot where they are worked on and overhauled. All I ever saw used was diesel. When they went by the smell was clearly diesel not kerosene aka jet fuel.



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Offline Dee

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The Biggest Problem With Ukraine's M-1 Tanks: is the Divided States is footing the bill while Europe sits on its ass.
You may all go to hell, I will go to Texas. Davy Crockett


Offline ironglow

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Folks not knowing what’s really going on is another problem.

https://www.eeas.europa.eu/delegations/united-states-america/eu-assistance-ukraine-us-dollars_en?s=253#:~:text=To%20support%20Ukraine%20itself%2C%20since,assistance%2C%20with%20this%20increasing%20regularly.

  I think we were all aware of the expenditures, some of them ineffective.  The one point that stands out like a sore thumb in the above report,
  is point #4... Where The EU ...'works with lightening speed... to diversify and DECOUPLE from Russian petroleum'.

     About the time th EU labors to decouple from Russian petroleum, Bull_ _ _ t  Biden severely curtails our oil production.  That way he
    not only passed by a chance for the US to prosper, but opened the door for Russia to afford to prosecute the war they started.

   ..And Russia still hauling in war funds from the same sources.

   In much the same way, both Obama and Biden have been handing billions upon billions of $$$ to the #1 terrorist state, so they can continue their
   war upon Israel, as well as their strikes upon our troops in Syria and Iraq.... and possibly soon to hit HERE !. 
  One striking feature of that handover, was a total departure from accepted ways of transferring wealth to a country, was the use of Benjamins by
   the ton...on pallets !
      ...Cash is hard to trace or account for...Hmmmm.

   Now for the concerns with the Abrams tanks, and I previously voiced it here.. The Abrams is more effective than most tanks, but by the same
   token, it takes more strenuous maintenance than most tanks.  I wondered if they were up to the task.
 
If you don't want the truth, don't ask me.  If you want something sugar coated...go eat a donut !  (anon)

Online Mule 11

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Russia and China have to get one somehow so they can reverse engineer and find it’s weaknesses, oh, maybe they got one already left In Afghanistan...

Offline ironglow

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Russia and China have to get one somehow so they can reverse engineer and find it’s weaknesses, oh, maybe they got one already left In Afghanistan...

   THey already have them...part of the deal when Biden left $85 billion worth of military materiel at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan..

  They also got some Apache helicopters and advanced ground -to-air...

   Have you ever wondered, just whose side some folks are on?
If you don't want the truth, don't ask me.  If you want something sugar coated...go eat a donut !  (anon)
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Offline Dixie-Dude

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Russia is now selling oil to China and India.  China and India not buying Arab oil, so Arab oil is sold to the US and Europe.  Drilling our own oil and selling it to Europe would have brought in a lot of money to the US.  But no, oil is bad. 

France went nuclear, and 85% of their power is nuclear power.  Some wind, some solar, very little gas or oil power plants.

Germany went natural gas several years ago and bought from Russia.  Now they are buying some from the US, and other places, like Nigeria.  They are taking their windmills in the North Sea and making hydrogen gas from water, and blending the it with natural gas (20% hydrogen gas, 80% natural gas) which cuts 20% of their imports.  Hydrogen burns with oxygen and turns to water, so no carbon dioxide.  But, they have to import natural gas.

England and Scotland are banking on windmills in the North Sea, so is Norway. 

Because of the big push to get rid of fossil fuels in Europe, their power prices are much higher than the US. 

The US with heavy subsidies, are going wind mostly, as well as pushing electric cars.  The grid is very old, some parts over 100 years old and is in bad need of upgrading before pushing for electric cars.  Cart before the horse.  America banked on natural gas to replace coal and cut carbon dioxide emissions.  This is not good enough for far left environmentalists.  They want to get rid of natural gas. 

Anyway, Ukraine is in a stalemate right now with Russia.  I think it is time to push for peace talks instead of war. 
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Offline ironglow

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.
     Russia and China are both ignoring the global warming crap. 

    As Pres Reagan said;  "Russian agriculture has 4 problems, ..spring, summer, fall and winter..'  Meaning their northern latitude is not the best for
    growing most grains etc.

  China, with much of it's land mass at the same latitude, shares the same problem.. So, even if 'global warming' were true..why should they care if the
  growing season moves a couple or three hundred miles north, from where it is at?
If you don't want the truth, don't ask me.  If you want something sugar coated...go eat a donut !  (anon)

Offline Lloyd Smale

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wont have to worry about it when they push us to ev tanks and planes and smart cars to transfer troops so we dont pollute the planet. im waiting for them to ban gunpowder because it pollutes. heck id bet a 500lb bunker buster causes more pollution than any 10 of us cause in our whole lives. maybe we should just surrender to china now. can you imagine the uproar from the left at the pollution a world war would cause ::)
blue lives matter

Offline ironglow

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  When these "elites" go strutting about, loading unnecessary work,travel and living penalties on Americans.(who BTW ,have the best  record  on earth
   for success in reducing CO2).   These elites, who are striving to break our economy, appear totally disinclined to speak to the REAL polluters

    China, Russia and India...along with rather unorganized Islamic and sub-Saharan countries, are the world's worst polluted/polluter countries.

   If the bossy billionaires are at all serious about cuttion carbon emissions, why are they not speaking strongly to China, Russia and India..and scolding
   them far harder, than what they are doing to Americans?
If you don't want the truth, don't ask me.  If you want something sugar coated...go eat a donut !  (anon)

Online Mule 11

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Because these turds are only interested in breaking our balls and destroying the U.S.A...

Offline JeffG

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 Russia and China are both ignoring the global warming crap.

Most sensible people would. Eating bugs makes the weather better, right?  ::)
Young guys should hang out with old guys; old guys know stuff

Offline ironglow

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Because these turds are only interested in breaking our balls and destroying the U.S.A...

  ^^^THAT^^^ ...BINGO!
If you don't want the truth, don't ask me.  If you want something sugar coated...go eat a donut !  (anon)