Supertank ‘like a Cadillac’

Press, 28 March 1979, Page 7

Supertank ‘like a Cadillac’

NZPA Fort Knox, Kentucky It accelerates from zero to 50 km/b in 12s and one driver says it is like ‘stepping out of a jet.” However, only someone with a thick wallet, such as the United States Army, can afford one. The price tag: SNZBSO,OOO each. The vehicle: the Arrays next-generation supertank, the XM-1. One crewman said after a test run at Fort Knox that the transition to the XM-1 from the current M6O tank was “like going from an under-powered truck steering to a Cadillac.” The turbine-powered tank is wrapped in topsecret armour. One officer says its sighting mechanism is so sensitive that it can spot a rabbit at 1400 m in the dark. Inside, there is little evidence of the flickering glamour of electronic control panels, but lasers and computers are a big part of the XM-1. There is little clanking of tank treads or churning of engines. The dominant sound is the whine of the 2000 k VZ (1300 h.p.) twinturbine engines. Sergeant Terry Spriggs, the XM-l’s driver at the Fort Knox demonstration, said that being at the controls made him feel like an airline pilot.

“When you shut the engines down it is like stepping out of a jet,” he said.

The tank is a prototype built by the Chrysler Corporation, the prime contractor on the XM-1 project. If the current model is accepted by the Army, the tanks could go into production in a year or two.

Pentagon planners intend the XM-1 to be the Army’s main battle tank for the rest of the twentieth century.