Editing M1A1 Abrams Storm (section)

==History==
Class: Main Battle Tank<br>
Developed: 1981-1984<br>
Service: 1986+<br>
Vehicles Built: cca 5000<br>
Operators: USA, Australia, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco

The Abrams Main Battle Tank is the current service MBT of the U.S. Army and several other countries. It was developed in the 1970s to replace the aging Patton series in American service. Unlike the failed MBT-70 project, the downfall of which was the widespread use of experimental technologies along with an extremely high price tag, the Abrams was designed to use modern but affordable and reliable components. What made it different from the Patton series was the use of Chobham composite armor and a gas turbine for propulsion, earning it the nickname "Whispering Death".

This is the main and, at the same time, the most iconic version of the Abrams. The main difference to its predecessor was that the original 105mm M68A1 rifled gun was replaced by a 120mm smoothbore gun called M256. With it, the tank's firepower increased considerably and around two thousand MBTs of this type utterly decimated the Iraqi forces deployed during the Gulf War. The ease, with which one of the most powerful armies of the Middle East had been decimated, caused a major shock in both China and Russia, launching a new round of MBT development worldwide. Despite its qualities, the Abrams was never widely exported. More than a thousand vehicles ended in Egypt, but as the NATO service goes, the Leopard 2 MBT has been considerably more successful.