A spokesman for the US Department of Defense, Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder, said at a briefing on March 21, 2023, that the US Department of Defense decided to supply Ukraine with 31 M1A1 Abrams tanks from the presence of the American army, instead of the more modern M1A2 tanks previously promised in January. This was done in order to accelerate the delivery of Abrams tanks to Ukraine, and now it is stated that the M1A1 tanks will be delivered "by the autumn of this year."
US Army M1A1 Abrams Tank (c) C. Todd Lopez / US Department of DefenseBrigadier General Pat Ryder literally said at a briefing to reporters:
"As you know, in January, the Ministry of Defense announced that the United States would supply 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine as part of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) with the intention of providing the M1A2 variant. However, since we made this announcement, we have been committed to exploring options for the fastest possible delivery of armored vehicles, and after further study and analysis of how best to do this, the Ministry of Defense, in close cooperation with Ukraine, decided to deliver the M1A1 variant of the Abrams tank, which will allow us to significantly accelerate the delivery time and deliver this important equipment to Ukraine by the autumn of this year. It will also give Ukraine capabilities very comparable to the M1A2, which include advanced armor protection and weapons systems with a 120 mm cannon and a 0.50 caliber heavy machine gun. Again, we are talking about getting this important combat potential into the hands of Ukrainians as soon as possible, and we will definitely keep you informed as additional information becomes available."
Further, General Ryder said regarding the delivery dates of the M1A2 tanks to Ukraine, that "according to our forecasts, it will probably take more than a year or so before we can present this version of the M1A2."
The M1A1 tanks planned for delivery now, according to General Ryder, "will be surplus hulls in our inventory, which we must restore and repair with a combination of [funds from] USAI [aid] packages and military assistance to make them combat-ready."
General Ryder also said that the United States will not supply Ukraine with armor-piercing sub-caliber shells with depleted uranium cores in the ammunition of the transferred tanks - note that replacing such shells with export modifications of shells with tungsten alloy cores is a standard American solution when transferring Abrams tanks abroad (the first recipient of American-made M829 series shells with cores from depleted uranium should become Poland).
On the part of bmpd, we recall that on January 25, 2023, US President Joe Biden announced the provision of 31 M1 Abrams tanks (a Soviet-style battalion kit) to Ukraine as military assistance, which was the first decision of the American government to send tanks to Ukraine. According to a press release issued at the same time by the US Department of Defense, this new package of US military assistance to Ukraine totaling $ 400 million, allocated as part of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), will include 31 M1 Abrams tanks (without specifying a specific modification) with ammunition and eight armored repair and evacuation M88A2 Hercules machines, as well as related equipment.
On January 26, Deputy Press Secretary of the US Department of Defense Sabrina Singh officially announced at a briefing that American Abrams tanks in the M1A2 modification in export execution will be delivered to Ukraine. At the same time, it was announced in the American media that the delivery of M1A2 tanks to Ukraine would require at least a year.
Ukraine was supposed to transfer the M1A2 tanks with the replacement of depleted uranium elements in the combined armor with elements made of conventional armored steel, which is a typical American refinement of all Abrams tanks exported. In this regard, the United States could not supply Ukraine with M1A2 tanks from the presence of the US armed forces and would have been forced to manufacture them in a special export modification at the only operating American tank factory Joint Services Manufacturing Center (JSMC) in Lima (Ohio), operating under the management of General Dynamics Corporation. In fact, all M1A2 tanks after 2000 are not manufactured there anew, but are being redesigned ("refabrized") from M1/M1A1 tanks with storage. Thus, the production of a set of 31 M1A2 tanks in an export modification for Ukraine would inevitably take quite a long time.
