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M1-A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank |
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OverviewThe M1-A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank is Australia's newest fighting vehicle. It is one of the fastest, most manoeuvrable, heavily armoured and deadly tanks in the world today. Main GunThe 120 mm smoothbore cannon is the main weapon of the M1-A1 Abrams. A key feature of this gun is the smoothbore barrel which unlike hand held guns, has no rifling. This allows for a greater muzzle velocity and a longer effective range (up to 4000 m). The drawback is it requires the projectiles to have their own stabilizing fins to retain their accuracy during flight. Gas Turbine EngineThe Abrams tank uses a gas turbine power-plant as opposed to a traditional diesel engine. This was chosen because it offers a better power to weight ratio and takes up much less size. It also has the value of running on any available fuel and is much quieter. TracksTracks are used instead of wheels on all heavy tanks. Tracks help a tank to distribute its weight evenly over a larger surface than wheels can, allowing it to keep control in areas where a wheeled vehicle of the same size would sink and to be able to cross holes and gaps that wheels would drop into. Fire Control SystemThe Abrams also has an onboard digital fire control computer. Range data from a range of sensors is transferred directly to the fire control computer, which automatically calculates the fire control solution. |
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