The broken American Abrams main battle tank "escaped" from the M88A2 Hercules armored repair tow truck that tried to pull it.
This happened at one of the ranges of the Fort Hood base (Texas) in early 2019, then a heavy BRAM was sent to the disabled M1A1 to help. She picked up a tank weighing more than sixty tons. However, while driving from a small slope, the combat vehicle broke off from the towing devices and, slightly hitting the "eighty-eighth", under the surprised exclamations of the tankers watching the process, rolled away into the forest plantations.
As a result of the incident, no one was injured, and, most likely, this rescue operation was completed successfully.
During the discussion of the demonstrated footage on social networks, it was noted that in order to avoid such an incident, it was necessary to attract another tow truck, which would be behind and hold the tank with cables. Probably, then the process would have taken longer, but it would definitely have been possible to avoid an unfavorable development of the situation.
If Abrams tanks are among the most advertised foreign vehicles, then the M88A2 Hercules is not so well known.
They became a development of the BRAM, which appeared at the very beginning of the 60s and originally had gasoline engines with a capacity of 750 hp.
Then they were upgraded, as a result, a 1050-horsepower diesel engine was already installed on the latest production version. But even with it, the 63-ton Hercules accelerates only to 42 km/h.
Alexey Moiseev
