 Editor in Chief Bill   | 21 Jan 2026 1:23 p.m. PST |
Built largely of commercial parts, the first M1E3s will head out for testing this summer, the Army's chief of staff said. Defense One: link |
| jsmcc91 | 21 Jan 2026 1:43 p.m. PST |
One of my employees is a former tanker and tested some of the capabilities including the autoloader. He called it junk and a jamming nightmare. He also said dropping one crew member to the autoloader function would be catastrophic in the field. |
pmwalt  | 21 Jan 2026 6:35 p.m. PST |
A challenge with a 3 man crew is crew rest (when conducting sustained ops), maintenance, and the challenges of an auto-loader. I was a tanker for quite some time and the human factors aren't easily dealt with. |
 Legion 4 | 21 Jan 2026 6:52 p.m. PST |
Yes I'm not a fan of the auto-loader either … jsmcc91 +1 pmwalt +1 Iron Monsters require a lot of attention, before, during & after. Catering to those beasts is essential. Or you have a 60 ton+ War Memorial. |
| korsun0 | 21 Jan 2026 10:28 p.m. PST |
Isn't an autoloader one of the big problems with Russian built tanks, not enough crew? |
 Murphy  | 22 Jan 2026 5:30 a.m. PST |
Korsum0 Truth. The T-64 system was catastrophic. |
| Murphy | 22 Jan 2026 5:30 a.m. PST |
Maybe it's me but I'm getting some serious MBT-70 design vibes off of the ideas for this thing. |
| 35thOVI | 22 Jan 2026 5:47 a.m. PST |
I'm willing to wait and see. So many times initially things may look bad, but it ends up being small things easily changed (but at ridiculous "governmental" costs of course. 😉) |
| jsmcc91 | 22 Jan 2026 9:11 a.m. PST |
Pmwalt, That is exactly what my tanker employee said. He said maintenance is going to be a nightmare. Down one crewmember and now you will have the commander doing maintenance and no one on over watch. |
| Kuznetsov | 22 Jan 2026 10:59 a.m. PST |
"The vehicle itself is made of commercial parts: a Caterpillar engine, SAPA transmission, and a Roush race car cockpit with embroidered Recaro seats." Any pictures of the cockpit? |
| TimePortal | 22 Jan 2026 5:24 p.m. PST |
Always something in development |
| Legion 4 | 22 Jan 2026 6:04 p.m. PST |
Always upgrades and replacement systems to continuously improve any system. I'd like to think this autoloader will be better than the Russians experience. The more moving parts … the higher the probability something could fail. I was both a Mech Bn and then Mech Hvy Bde – BMO, in the late '80s. As a Mech Co Cdr, my Co was often attached to a Tank Bn. But we had M113s, M60A1s, a one M1IP Co. Kept everyone very busy. No autoloaders there … I guess the new guy in the crew was the loader. And with a crew of 4 they were again, very busy … many times. |
| Tango01 | 22 Jan 2026 10:59 p.m. PST |
The New Grey Wolf helicopter flies its first ICBM security mission link link
Armand
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