AbramsX vs Armata: How Does US' Next-Gen Main Battle Tank Stack Up Against Its Russian Analogue

Social media has been abuzz with discussions about the AbramsX main battle tank demonstrator after its unveiling to the general public at the General Dynamics Land Systems Maneuver Collaboration Center in Sterling Heights, Michigan this week.

Photos from the event show civilians posing with the armored behemoth, painted Wehrmacht gray and slapped with at least five stylized AbramsX logos on the turret and the front its side skirts.

Social media has had a field day poking light fun at the prototype, asking whether its components, like angled side skirts, have any “real purpose other than fashion points,” and cracking jokes about its cheap-looking general purpose tail lamps, the wooden plank used in place of a parking brake, and what appears to be a backwards installed optical gunsight module. Some asked whether the tank was a Tesla product, a Gundam, or the result of would happen if an old Abrams and a Lamborghini mated.

General Dynamics has offered quite a few details about the prototype tank’s features since it was first unveiled at an expo in Washington, DC in October 2022.

While it may look similar to a standard Abrams MBT, the AbramsX has a reported weight of as little as 49 metric tons, 17 tons less than a fully-loaded M1 Abrams, and features a 7.9-meter-long, 3.6-meter-wide, 2.3-meter-tall "body."

The prototype features an unmanned turret design with an XM360 120 mm smoothbore gun, and a three-person crew-in-cockpit arrangement, one fewer than the M1 (dropping the loader), including a separate hatch for each crewmember. Press images show that the tank’s turret includes a 30 mm XM914 chain gun, plus a 7.62 mm coaxial machine gun.

As might be expected in a next-gen main battle tank, the AbramsX is reportedly set to be fitted with AI capabilities to lessen the crew’s workload, including for the identification and prioritization of targets, and communications with friendly drones acting as scouts or strike UAVs.

The tank is expected to include dual-360 degree day/night panoramic thermal sights – one each for the commander and gunner.

General Dynamics also plans to pack the AbramsX with Katalyst Next Generation Electronic Architecture (NGEA) of the same kind that the defense giant has included in its prospective unmanned combat robots, enabling them with the ability to navigate terrain and avoid obstacles. Details are scarce, but these capabilities on the AbramsX may enable the tank to operate fully autonomously.

Designers are also working on a “hemispheric” active protection system to detect and intercept enemy anti-tank missiles and rocket-propelled grenades.

Arguably one of the tank’s most significant features is its hybrid electric-diesel engine, which, it’s hoped, will improve fuel efficiency by up to 50 percent compared to the M1 (whose Honeywell multi-fuel turbine engine has turned the existing Abrams tank into one of the heaviest gas guzzlers around). The AbramsX is expected to be capable of running in silent mode for short periods of time using electric power, thus enabling the tank to sneak up on foes (if the behemoth isn’t spotted from several kilometers away, that is).

It’s not clear whether General Dynamics will get the necessary backing from the Pentagon to engage in further research and prepare the AbramsX platform for production.

“It’s too early to say what the future of the Army’s battle tank is going to be. What I can tell you is that, you know, we are looking down the road, you know, what, what are the investments that we need to make, you know, what is currently the art of the possible, and I think as [Army Futures Command] continues to do experimentation through the Next Generation Combat Vehicle Cross-Functional Team, and we will begin to extract some lessons learned,” Under Secretary of the Army Gabe Camarillo told US media earlier this year, when asked about the AbramsX’s prospects.

Military experts and social media users alike could not help but find many major similarities between the AbramsX and the T-14 Armata, the limited-run Russian next-generation main battle tank built on the Armata Universal Combat Platform that was first unveiled in 2015. Standout similarities include an unmanned turret design, three-man abreast crew, autoloader, and plans for AI integration.

“Both the AbramsX and the Armata are prospective tanks,” Dmitry Kornev, founder of the MilitaryRussia.ru portal, told Sputnik.

Kornev pointed to several standout features distinguishing the two tanks, including the AbramsX’s 120 mm main gun, compared with the Armata’s 125 mm main gun. “Ours turns out to be a little bigger; in addition, a prospective 152 mm gun is being developed for the Armata. When it appears, it’s clear that the Armata’s firepower will be far greater” than that of its American counterpart.

“Next, regarding the layout design of the tank. We don’t know all the details, but the AbramsX’s layout doesn’t look like it’s going to change much compared to the current Abrams as that of the Armata – which changed in quite a revolutionary way compared to previous generations of [Russian] tanks. The Armata is genuinely a tank of another generation – and has a modular design, i.e. separate modules; a separate crew module, a separate engine-transmission compartment module, a separate combat module. With the AbramsX, in all likelihood, everything is simpler. That is, a standard Abrams was taken and slightly improved, so to speak. And the standard Abrams does not have this type of modular design,” Kornev said.

The military observer sees apparent “parity” in the general characteristics of the two tanks’ unmanned turrets, “although judging by appearance, the AbramsX prototype seems to have a more voluminous turret, perhaps for storing ammunition. The Armata turret’s dimensions are minimized relative to the general silhouette of the tank,” he pointed out.

Regarding protection, Kornev is confident that the Russian tank is superior. “The Armata is one of the best-protected tanks in the world. It features dynamic protection, spaced armor, smart smoke grenades, and an installable active protection complex. The AbramsX is simpler. That is, while it’s possible to deploy dynamic protection on the tank, the simplest models may have only spaced armor, sometimes uranium inserts. The exact makeup of the tank’s armor is still unknown, but most likely it will feature less protection than the Armata, and perhaps even the T-90M Proryv,” a Russian third-generation MBT.

When all is said and done, Kornev expects the Armata to be less expensive than the AbramsX, even though both will be expensive (one Armata, for example, costs several times the price of a new T-90M to produce).

“It’s probably not entirely correct to compare the cost of Russian and American tanks, because the cost of wages is different, conditions are different. American equipment is traditionally more expensive, costing one-and-a-half times more than similar equipment produced by Russia. This also applies to planes, missiles, submarines, ships. Their military-industrial complex is pricey, but they have the money for it,” the observer summed up.

The NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine has demonstrated that the principles of tank warfare have not lost their meaning, 80+ years after the first mass-scale deployment of armor during the Second World War.

After announcing the delivery of NATO main battle tanks to Ukraine, Western officials and media confidently predicted that German Leopard 1 and 2s and British Challenger IIs would melt through Russian tanks and defenses like a hot knife going through butter. However, the stalled Ukrainian counteroffensive and the mauling of Ukrainian armored columns by Russian minefields, airpower, and artillery have demonstrated what Sputnik has been saying all along: that effective combined arms coordination, battlefield intelligence, commander competence, and tank crew skill is often far more significant than the on-paper characteristics of any tank.

Social media users commenting on the AbramsX’s roll-out seems to have caught on to this simple fact, pointing out that “without air support,” and the proliferation of cheap asymmetrical warfare tools such as drones, the next-gen MBT could easily “just end up more blown-up junk.”

Others mentioned that with only one tank factory left in the United States, producing 10–15 tanks per month using refurbished hulls, the AbramsX is unlikely to “be available any time soon,” or perhaps ever, if the US’s massive $32.7 trillion national debt finally catches up with it and sinks the American economy. After that, some predicted, even if any of the tanks are built, they could just as well be used for urban pacification operations inside the US, rather than wars abroad.