I understand Morocco is a friendly country. But when we are in great need of anti-tank capabilities for our infantry brigades should they find themselves in combat against enemy heavy formations, what's with this?
The Donald Trump administration greenlighted the delivery of 162 Abrams tanks to Morocco last year to help the kingdom respond to regional challenges.
US government documents reviewed by Al-Monitor indicate that the delivery of the vehicles was approved in September as part of an effort to move forward with deals to outfit the North African nation with more than $115 million in US equipment the Pentagon no longer needs. Under the Excess Defense Articles program, or EDA, surplus military equipment that hasn’t been offered to domestic police forces can be made available at reduced or no cost to foreign allies.
We do have a lot of tanks in storage. But I don't buy the notion that these tanks are useful for strengthening Morocco’s military "to deal with drug-trafficking and terrorist networks[.]"
And as I call for in "Look to Abrams Tanks to Support the Infantry," in the April issue of Army magazine (sorry, not publicly available online although there is a subscription service that has them online), we need those tanks to reinforce the too-light (for high intensity combat) American infantry units that evolved to fight insurgents and terrorists to fight conventional armies; and replace combat losses for them and the armored brigade combat teams.
And honestly, I worry that Army will screw the pooch on building a replacement for the Abrams (and adding to the misery by blowing the Bradley replacement, too) by again aiming too high, leaving the Army with the need to upgrade aging Abrams (and Bradleys) well into the future.
UPDATE: The Army is starting to get a newer version of the Abrams:
U.S. Army soldiers at Fort Stewart in Georgia have started field training with the new M1A1-SA Abrams tanks, the Army announced this week.
A related article notes that 786 Abrams tanks will be upgraded to the "System Enhancement" version.
I'm not sure how the "Situational Awareness" version fits with the SE. It seems odd to have a contract for upgrading to SE yet a SA version is being fielded. We don't have many tanks in our active units. Actually, 786 sounds about right for 10 brigades, which is what we plan to have in the near future.
Wikipedia says the M1A1 version gets the SA upgrade while the M1A2 gets the SE package (SEP).
We have tanks in our National Guard and Marine Corps, too, of course. And would need tanks to replace losses. And we sure as heck need extras to attach to our infantry brigades of various types (infantry, airborne, air mobile, and Stryker) to give them a chance to survive against heavy opponents.
But Wikepedia also says that the vast majority of the M1A2s built went to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Although some M1A1s would have been upgraded to A2 status.
I should really get a firmer grip on what exactly America fields.
