M1 Abrams variants

[thatguy96]

Fabio Prado's Armor Site has a pretty good set of pages on all this as well.

[Imp]

While the US Army uses depleted uranium munitions and armor, however, it has never offered it for export with its main battle tanks

Always thought that was the case but thanks for the confirm.

[jsallison]

I was part of the last unit in USAREUR to draw original production M1's, the 2d ACR. Early production IPM1s used the same armor suite as the M1 with later production going to what became the original M1A1 armor package. Externally all the IP's came with turret bustle racks which were also retrofitted to the M1's. You have to look closely and have both IP variants side by side to see it but the later ones have the turret front panels extended forward to accommodate increased armor on the turret front. As far as I know, all M1A1 variants were fitted so as to be able to have a CITV installed later but never were, this became the defining visible characteristic of the M1A2.