The legendary American Abrams tanks, which were severely criticized in the Armed Forces for their poor security, were modernized by the hands of Ukrainian engineers. At the moment, our version of the American machine version M1A1SA is one of the best.
The well-known Ukrainian military and political columnist Oleksandr Kovalenko writes about this. According to his data, Abrams tanks in the Ukrainian army, in addition to the mounted ARAT dynamic protection kit, began to be equipped with the Soviet “Kontakt — 1” anti-tank system.
For reference: dynamic protection &mdash ; these are plates with explosives that, when a projectile hits them, detonate and provide a protective explosion in response.
Kovalenko noted that at the time when the American ARAT was installed on the sides of the machine, “Kontakt” in Ukraine decided to cover the “fired” hemispheres on the tower. At the same time, in Kovalenko's opinion, in addition to this, the “new version” of Abrams would not be hindered by anti-cumulative gratings (An element of passive protection of armored and tank weapons and equipment, designed to prevent or reduce the destructive effect of a cumulative jet of anti-tank weapons).
“In any case — this is the best option for strengthening the M1A1SA Abrams armor from those that have recently appeared in open sources. It is very good that “SOME” began to understand that Western MBTs in modern conditions are not impenetrable Wunderwaffe, but a good technique that requires improvements in terms of security. Anyway, Ukrainian tank builders were pioneers and revolutionaries in matters of increasing the security of tanks in Soviet and post-Soviet times, only the Russians always put logs in their rinks. , with its limitation, thirst for monopolization and talentless plagiarism of promising ideas”, — noted Kovalenko.