ROLLING THUNDER AT FORT HOOD: Abrams tanks from 1st Cavalry Division’s 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team undergo tank gunnery qualification. Tank gunnery is fun. Here’s a 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team M1A2 conducting a live fire exercise at Fort Irwin, CA. This fact-filled post has background on the latest U.S. Army System Enhancement Package (SEP) for the Abrams, the SEP3.

These upgrades keep the M1, or at least some of them, competitive with more recently designed and built tanks. The U.S. (mainly the army) has about a thousand of the SEP2 upgrade M1A2s and wants up to half of those upgraded to SEP3 by 2020, the earliest date for the M2A3 upgrade will show up. That one will have major upgrades to the tank software and whatever upgrades are available for the engine, armor and electronics.

By the end of 2020 the Army wants to have at least 2,000 Abrams upgraded to M1A2SEP or M1A3SEP standards.