Tanks have been built and have roamed the battlefield since their first introduction of World War1. They have been driven across France fighting along the hedgerows advancing on enemy positions, fought in the North African Campaigns of WW2 up through Italy and finally advancing into Germany. The main battle tank has been a M1A1 Abrams, Sherman, a Walker Bulldog, an M60 and more reaching its zenith as an M1A1 Abrams.
M1A1 Abrams
About 5000 of these main battle tanks were produced from years spanning from 1986 to 1992. Built by General Dynamic this is the 33rd generation main battle tank produced for the United States military.
Over 400 were in service with the United States Marine Corps and roughly 4400 for the US Army. Front turret and hull armor of the M1A1 features advanced composite armor reinforced with depleted uranium mesh for better protection. Like in the previous version ammunition is stored in the turret bustle with blow-out panels for better survivability and crew protection.
Kevlar protects the interior of the main battle tank to help prevent spalling.
One of the most significant improvements over the M1 tank is the M256 120 mm smooth bore gun on its main turret, originally developed by Rheinmetall and produced in the United States under license. The same main gun is fitted on the Leopard 2 up to the version of the 2A5. This primary tank gun is loaded manually. One noticeable change was that the ammunition load was decreased to 40 rounds due to the larger size of the round. The M1A1 Abrams has a killing range of effective fire in excess of 4 kilometers. This feature was successfully demonstrated during the Operation Desert Storm in 1991 where it was remarkably accurate and effective against its Russian built Iraqi driven tank adversaries.
Devil Dogs Of Desert Storm
The M1A1 Abrams main battle tank is featured as one of the primary Marine Corps challenge coins with the collection of Devil Dogs of Desert Storm challenge coins. This series of collectible military coins was developed as a source of pride with our team of veterans and military artists to present a collection of coin art based on the weapons of war used and fought with during Desert Storm. Releasing the M1A1 Abrams coin is just one of the many coins this collectible coin series will host at DevilDog Shirts.
