Twilight 2020

[Legbreaker]

As of two years ago the ADF stated that the next batch of M1s will have DU and they'd like the old ones upgraded

So essentially both people RN7 referred to are correct.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Put me on the list of people disputing the Quora comment from Ryan Parkinson (someone who hasn't had any experience with the Australian version of the Abrams). His answer infers the initial Aussie Abrams have DU armour. They don't.

All the Aussie vehicles were zero-hour rebuilds to M1A1-AIM ver1 standard. The extra equipment added by the AIM ver1 programme included FLIR, Far Target Locating sensors, a tank-infantry phone, more comms gear, FBCB2 & Blue Force Tracking for crew situational awareness as well as a thermal sight for the .50 cal. Plus some other mods for Australian conditions (just like our Leopard 1's were not the same weight and configuration as any other Leo 1 in service elsewhere in the world)

Now I'm not saying all that extra gear totals up to exactly to Ryan's "missing" two tonnes but it'd be pretty damned close when you add in all the upgrades to airconditioning to mitigate heat from the extra electronics, the extra cabling to connect everything and so on.
I pay more attention to the Quora answer given by Fahkyou Thatsmyname because I was in the Australian Armoured Corp and his language rings true to me so I am inclined to believe him when he says he has experience with the Aussie Abrams.

Now Chalkline says that we are asking for the next lot of M1s to have DU armour and the old ones to be upgraded. I'm inclined to believe Chalk because in the past I've typically found his research to be reliable.
Given two separate comments from Australians about an Australian topic, yes I am going to be guilty of jingoism and say that maybe we know more about it than someone who while having served on the Abrams in US service, doesn't actually have any experience with the Aussie variant.

EDIT: It needs to be kept in mind that at the time the Abrams was being considered for Australia, the government at Federal, State and Local levels (and a lot of the public) were generally, staunchly anti-nuclear. If Australian Abrams did have the DU armour, it would not have been a secret for very long and it would have caused protests. It's the same reason why we did not get DU penetrator ammuntion. The Abrams have been in service since 2007 and nobody here has heard so much as a whisper that they secretly have DU armour.

[RN7]

As of two years ago the ADF stated that the next batch of M1s will have DU and they'd like the old ones upgraded

With all due respect to you ChalkLine what is the explanation for the weight of the Australian M1 Abrams if they are not fitted with DU armour.

[RN7]

Put me on the list of people disputing the Quora comment from Ryan Parkinson (someone who hasn't had any experience with the Australian version of the Abrams). His answer infers the initial Aussie Abrams have DU armour. They don't.

All the Aussie vehicles were zero-hour rebuilds to M1A1-AIM ver1 standard. The extra equipment added by the AIM ver1 programme included FLIR, Far Target Locating sensors, a tank-infantry phone, more comms gear, FBCB2 & Blue Force Tracking for crew situational awareness as well as a thermal sight for the .50 cal. Plus some other mods for Australian conditions (just like our Leopard 1's were not the same weight and configuration as any other Leo 1 in service elsewhere in the world)

Now I'm not saying all that extra gear totals up to exactly to Ryan's "missing" two tonnes but it'd be pretty damned close when you add in all the upgrades to airconditioning to mitigate heat from the extra electronics, the extra cabling to connect everything and so on.
I pay more attention to the Quora answer given by Fahkyou Thatsmyname because I was in the Australian Armoured Corp and his language rings true to me so I am inclined to believe him when he says he has experience with the Aussie Abrams.

Now Chalkline says that we are asking for the next lot of M1s to have DU armour and the old ones to be upgraded. I'm inclined to believe Chalk because in the past I've typically found his research to be reliable.
Given two separate comments from Australians about an Australian topic, yes I am going to be guilty of jingoism and say that maybe we know more about it than someone who while having served on the Abrams in US service, doesn't actually have any experience with the Aussie variant.

EDIT: It needs to be kept in mind that at the time the Abrams was being considered for Australia, the government at Federal, State and Local levels (and a lot of the public) were generally, staunchly anti-nuclear. If Australian Abrams did have the DU armour, it would not have been a secret for very long and it would have caused protests. It's the same reason why we did not get DU penetrator ammuntion. The Abrams have been in service since 2007 and nobody here has heard so much as a whisper that they secretly have DU armour.

StainlessSteelCynic if you want to go on Quora and dispute what Ryan Parkinson said then feel free to do that.

The Australian M1 Abrams is a very heavy tank, far heavier than it should be if it is not fitted with DU armour.

The only way to prove this is if they are sent into combat. If the Australian Abrams start getting creamed then we know they don't have DU armour just like the Arab M1's. If they don't then we know they have DU armour.

The Australian government says they are not fitted with DU armour and the Australian commander's answer follows that line. Fine. He was in the Australian Army although from what he said he was with AFV's not tanks. He put down Ryan Parkinson's comments but did not give any explanation whatsoever as to why the Australian M1's are so heavy.

Ryan Parkinson did serve as a M1 Abrams tank commander. He gave a very detailed explanation to account for the weight of the Aussie Abrams. Don't believe what he said if you don't want to, but until I am given an explanation as to why the Australian Army tanks are so heavy I will.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Respectfully RN7, I disagree and nothing that's been presented by anyone proves that Aussie M1s have DU armour. If anything the math indicates they wouldn't have DU armour based on the improvement package they recieved - base weight 60 tons + AIM package Ver1 approx 3 tons (but modified for Australian requirements + DU armour 2 tons would give a total weight of at least 65 tons.
The Aussie M1s are listed as 62 tons.
As for the Aussie on Quora, he explicity states that he worked with the Aussie M1.

[ChalkLine]

With all due respect to you ChalkLine what is the explanation for the weight of the Australian M1 Abrams if they are not fitted with DU armour.

No idea mate. I gleaned that info from the ADF magazine and they didn't mention weights, only procurements

[Legbreaker]

I'm with SSC. There's no way Australian M1's have DU armour, not without first breaking physics or some form of antigrav tech involved.
Australian tanks have always been modified with additional equipment and the M1 is certainly no different there. The "missing" 2 tonnes is easily accounted for with this additional equipment. Further vehicles MAY have DU armour, but not without it being a huge issue in the media and possibly one of the worst political moves in Australian history.

[ChalkLine]

I'm with SSC. There's no way Australian M1's have DU armour, not without first breaking physics or some form of antigrav tech involved.
Australian tanks have always been modified with additional equipment and the M1 is certainly no different there. The "missing" 2 tonnes is easily accounted for with this additional equipment. Further vehicles MAY have DU armour, but not without it being a huge issue in the media and possibly one of the worst political moves in Australian history.

I'm a greenie but if they whinge about DU in the media I'll lose my bottle. Ordinary RH armour stopped working in WW2 and the journos have the responsibility to inform the public of that fact. It's not like Oz isn't loaded with uranium anyway. Anything less than some sort of advanced armour turns those MBTs into gun-carriers, and gun-carriers only survive until they shoot the first time.

[RN7]

All official information about the Australian Army M1 Abrams will tell you that the Aussie Abrams do not have DU armour. Not only that but even Australian government papers relating to the arms deal and the Australian Army guys themselves who tested it with US forces in the Middle East will state there was no DU armour fitted if you care to look online. Fine. All the environmentalists and green minded people in Australia including politicians are happy to hear that.

I've always had an issue with the weight of the Australian Abrams and thought it was a bit heavy for a non-DU armoured tank. I looked it up on the Australian Army website a few years ago and it was listed as 68.2 tons. But now it has been changed and the weight of the tank is officially 62,000 kilograms. A simple error perhaps, but this information has been completely retracted and changed to 62,000 kilograms everywhere you look. What happened Was someone asking to many questions

62,000 kilograms is 62 metric tons but this is equivalent to 68.2 US tons. The Americans use US tons not metric tons.


Australia bought either the M1A1-AIM or the M1A1-AIMSA

1) M1A1AIM v.1 (Abrams Integrated Management): Older units are reconditioned to zero hour conditions; and the tank is improved by adding Forward-Looking Infra-Red (FLIR) and Far Target Locate sensors, a tank-infantry phone, communications gear, including FBCB2 and Blue Force Tracking to aid in crew situational awareness, and a thermal sight for the .50 caliber machine gun.

2) M1A1AIM v.2/M1A1SA (Situational Awareness): Upgrades similar to AIM v.1 tanks plus new 3rd generation DU armour.

There is no available data stating which block of the AIM Australia purchased, but it does indicate that it was M1A1 AIM/SA tanks. The AIM v.1 does not have DU armor, but all subsequent blocks do (starting with block v.2, 3rd generation DU armour, which is slightly heavier than the 1st and 2nd generation DU armour and was the standard used in AIM upgrades. The Abrams has the capability to have DU armour packages added on fairly easily, but supposedly the Australian M1A1s do not have these add-on packages.

Quoting our friend Ryan Parkinson about the difference in weight between a DU armoured tank and one without DU armour. " This difference is about 3 tons and is NOT accounted for by ANY other equipment known to be installed on ANY version of the AIM tanks. Coincidentally the DU add-on armour package weighs just about 3 tons".

But as we know Australia didn't purchase DU armour right So Australia got a tank with some bells and whistles but which has basically the same armour as the export model that America sold to Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Morocco and Saudi Arabia despite being a first world country and a very close ally of America. Australia is in fact one of America's closest allies in the world alongside Britain, Canada and New Zealand, and all five countries closely share intelligence secrets with each other that they don't share with anyone else. However Australian Abrams have the same armour as the tanks sold to five second rate armies in the Middle East, and in the case of Iraq and Saudi Arabia have been fighting third rate armies and terrorists and losing their Abrams tanks. God help the Australian Abrams if they have to face front line Russian tanks.

The Weight of main variants of the M1 Abrams in US or short tons

M1: 61.4 US tons
M1IP: 62.8 US tons
M1A1: 67.6 US tons
M1A2: 68.4 US tons
M1A2 SEP: 69.5 US tons

The Australian M1A1-AIM weighs 68.2 US tons which is basically the same weight as M1A2 with DU armour.

Don't believe me if you don't want to cause I'm only saying!

[StainlessSteelCynic]

We've given the armour aspect a fair thrashing now so I'm going to instead bring up a different aspect of the Australian Abrams and it does have a bearing on a T20x0 setting.
Australian defence policy is that the tanks will not be deployed outside Australia (hence the change to the Australian camouflage pattern). The attitude is that if we ever send amoured support to fight alongside the US, we'll send crews to man US vehicles.

So that all basically means, if future governments stick with that policy, we'll be unlikely to see Australian tanks facing off against anyone, let alone someone equipped with Russian tanks - unless of course they choose to invade Australia!
An outsider could be forgiven for thinking our defence policy is... schizophrenic.

[Raellus]

Back on Topic.

I think a 'Twilight 20x0' set on China's eastern seaboard might be an idea. An international coalition gets cut off after taking a large swathe of the area. This would have the flat terrain of China's coastal plain and the urban terrain of the various mega-cities

But how does said coalition get there Or does that matter

The Chinese navy isn't quite up to par with the USN, but it also doesn't need to operate in both oceans, so the USN's dwindling numerical advantage is even smaller, in practice. By 2020, the naval parity gap will be even narrower, as the Chinese navy is currently growing faster than the USN is. Even if you add in naval forces from U.S. allies in the region, landing a large ground force on China's eastern seaboard is a monumental task.

You'd need an armada comparable to the ones employed by the Allies on D-Day or by the USN at Okinawa in WW2. You'd need to contend with Chinese surface and submarine forces, and land-based air. The "Allies" would need to cross oceans/seas to resupply their ground forces in China; the Chinese have internal lines of supply.

And then there's these...

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/25904/china-wants-u-s-to-know-its-ships-in-s-china-sea-can-be-targeted-by-long-range-ballistic-missiles

Then, IF you somehow manage to get a large ground force ashore, you've got to to stop the massive weight of the steadily-modernizing PLA from pushing your bridgehead into the sea.

IMHO, all of this makes a significant Coalition ground force in China c.2050 a pretty unrealistic scenario.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

In view of what you've just mentioned Raellus (and similar thoughts others have raised), it's plain to see that the typical "war" approach to creating a T:20x0 is not going to be particularly satisfying and not particularly easy to achieve.
I'm tending towards the idea of some natural or man-made disaster as the trigger for breakdown of societies etc. etc. - along the lines of some of the scenarios outlined in the survey GDW did way back in the 1990s.

[ChalkLine]

This is a very good point. As I was reading last night it may be that peer-to-peer warfighting is as outdated as trench fighting in WW1.

In that case there may well be more fighting as in Merc:2000; PMCs and varying amounts of regulars with massive aircover fighting asymmetrical wars against irregular proxies. Turkey seems to have taken over from Saudi Arabia as the main exporter of jihadism while China and Russia seem more content to act as the unaligned world's armouries

[Raellus]

In that case there may well be more fighting as in Merc:2000; PMCs and varying amounts of regulars with massive aircover fighting asymmetrical wars against irregular proxies. Turkey seems to have taken over from Saudi Arabia as the main exporter of jihadism while China and Russia seem more content to act as the unaligned world's armouries

That seems to be the trend over the past 20 years or so. Africa seems like the next battleground in this sort of asymmetrical, low-intensity, proxy war.

China is investing heavily in the continent and, IIRC, just opened up its first military base there. Russia has PMCs in Central African Republic (where they may have murdered some Russian journos), and the U.S. has SOF all over the place, due to multiple Islamic insurgencies. Oil and mineral companies employ PMCs to guard their operations, and as leverage during mineral rights negotiations with the local rulers. And, as the recent election in Congo demonstrates, many African nations are a crisis away from a coup or oppressive dictatorship.

[swaghauler]

That seems to be the trend over the past 20 years or so. Africa seems like the next battleground in this sort of asymmetrical, low-intensity, proxy war.

China is investing heavily in the continent and, IIRC, just opened up its first military base there. Russia has PMCs in Central African Republic (where they may have murdered some Russian journos), and the U.S. has SOF all over the place, due to multiple Islamic insurgencies. Oil and mineral companies employ PMCs to guard their operations, and as leverage during mineral rights negotiations with the local rulers. And, as the recent election in Congo demonstrates, many African nations are a crisis away from a coup or oppressive dictatorship.

There are a number of countries including the US, UK, France, Russia, and China as well as PMCs (considered "Mercenaries" by UN forces in Africa) supported by mining and energy companies with vested interests in the region, all of whom are conducting training, counterinsurgency, or nation-building operations in a dozen African nations, add in ISIL, Al Queda, Christian Militants, and various Revolutionary Movements and Africa is a modern-day "Wild West" that can involve both civilian AND military professions. This is why my Merc campaign is set in Africa. If you consider African Union forces, both Kenya AND Uganda are operating armored units in Eastern Africa with everything from T-55s to wheeled APCs. The Algerians and the French are using AFVs in Mali and Nijer as well as on the Libyan border. It will be easy to set up a "low-intensity conflict" involving platoon or even squad level engagements.