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Tank Urban Survival Kit for M1A2

The Tank Urban Survival Kit, or TUSK, is a series of improvements to the M1 Abrams intended to improve fighting ability in urban environments. Historically, urban and other close battlefields have been the worst place for tanks to fight—a tank's front armor is much stronger than that on the sides, top, or rear, and in an urban environment, attacks can come from any direction, and attackers can get close enough to reliably hit weak points in the tank's armor, or get sufficient elevation to hit the top armor square on.

Armor upgrades include reactive armor on the sides of the tank and slat armor (similar to that on the Stryker) on the rear to protect against rocket-propelled grenades and other shaped charge warheads.

A gun shield and a thermal sight system are added to the loader's top-mounted M240B 7.62 mm machine gun, and a Kongsberg Gruppen Remote Weapon Turret carrying a .50 caliber machine gun (again similar to that used on the Stryker) is in place of the tank commander's original .50 caliber machine gun mount, wherein the commander had to expose himself to fire the weapon manually. An exterior telephone allows supporting infantry to communicate with the tank commander.

The TUSK system is a field-installable kit that allows tanks to be upgraded without needing to be recalled to a maintenance depot.

While the reactive armor may not be needed in most situations in maneuver warfare, items like the rear slat armor, loader's gun shield, infantry phone (which has already seen use on Marine Corps M1A1s as early as 2003), and Kongsberg Remote Weapons Station for the .50 caliber machine gun will be added to the entire M1A2 fleet over time.

In addition to this, a Transparent Armor Gun Shield may also be implemented as part of this kit, as it's already seeing use on some Abrams serving in Iraq.

Aug 10/06: General Dynamics Land Systems in Sterling Heights, MI received the full delivery order amount of $21.7 million for tank urban survivability kits for the Abrams M1A1/A2 tanks. Work will be performed in Lima, OH (61%), Tallahassee, FL (17%), Sterling Heights, MI (16%), and Westminster, MD (6%), and is expected to be complete by May 30, 2008. This was a sole source contract initiated on April 19, 2006 by the Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command in Warren, MI (W56HZV-06-G-0006).

March 5/07: BAE Systems announces a $950,000 contract from General Dynamics Land Systems to integrate and test their "Driver's Rear View Camera (DRVC)" rear-view camera system as part of the TUSK upgrade. The system is a derivative of BAE's Check-6, and installs into the tail light housings with no drilling or welding, and uses thermal imaging to let vehicle operators and crews see behind them while remaining inside the tank. The testing will happen in preparation for an expected initial production contract covering 505 DRVC systems for M1 tanks, which may indicate fits into the M1A1-SA "situational awareness" variant as well.

DRVC also will fit other vehicle types within the Army's Heavy Brigade Combat Team, including the Bradley Combat Systems, the M113 family, the M88 Hercules tank recovery vehicle, and M109 self-propelled howitzers. BAE Systems release.

'[3rd wrote:Sonders']the tank telephone has been there ever since the abrams was invented, 90% of all modern MBT in the world have this.

The M1A2 SEP is a formidable upgrade package, but it may be missing a small but crucial item. Troops in Iraq and elsewhere are also clamoring for a phoneset on the outside of the tank that will let them talk to the vehicle crew. This was common as far back as World War 2, and its lack is hampering coordination on the modern battlefield - especially in urban areas. A General Dynamics representative noted that future M1A2 Abrams TUSK (Tank Urban Survivability Kit) vehicles will have this feature, but the SEP tanks will not.

El_Vikingo wrote:I was thinking about adding tusks to the tank, to stab people with.

vassili wrote:we dont want this to be a tank sim right?,
stuff's getting over complex if you put to mutch stuff in/on the tank.