has said it is buying the Abrams from industry, meaning they won’t arrive on the battlefield for many months, or potentially years, given industrial constraints in upgrading them. Rather than sending Ukraine tanks from its own stocks, as it has done with previous weapons, the U.S. When new orders come in, General Dynamics modifies these seed vehicles with new technology depending on which variant is selected.īut these upgrades are not “easy or fast,” Bush said. General Dynamics no longer builds the M1 from scratch, but has a number of “M1 seed vehicles” that are bare-bone tanks. Taiwan ordered 108 M1A2 tanks in 2019, and the first are expected to be delivered in 2024. Warsaw asked for the tanks to quickly replace the 250 Soviet-era T-72 tanks it gave Ukraine last year, and the shuttering of the Marine Corps tank units made hundreds of well-maintained tanks available immediately. Poland has ordered 250 A2 tanks that will be delivered starting in 2025, but in the meantime is receiving an emergency infusion of 116 M1A1 tanks recently retired by the Marine Corps. The Army is providing multiple options for senior leaders to determine the way ahead, the service’s acquisition chief, Doug Bush, told reporters Wednesday.

That facility can produce 12 tanks per month, but the line is now full of new tank orders for Taiwan and Poland - orders it would be difficult and likely controversial to put on the backburner. The tanks are assembled in one place only - a government-owned, General Dynamics-operated plant in Lima, Ohio. Questions remain over the timeline of when the Abrams tanks can be delivered to Ukraine. The Pentagon is planning to provide Ukraine the A2 version in this “exportable” form, according to one defense official and two other people with knowledge of the deliberations.

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