U.S. Lawmakers Work to Keep Tank Line Open

10 Jun 2011 By MICHAEL HOFFMAN DefenseNews

U.S. House Appropriations defense subcommittee members don't want to see the Army shut down its tank production lines for the first time since 1941, so they added $272 million to the U.S. Army's budget request and ordered the service to keep buying M1A2 Abrams tanks.

U.S. Army leaders want to shut down the production line from 2013 to 2016, then reopen it to upgrade the Abrams fleet saying it could use the "scarce resources" toward other priorities.

General Dynamics needs an additional order of 70 tanks to keep the production line open in Lima, Ohio, said Mike Cannon, General Dynamics' senior vice president for ground combat systems.

The committee ordered Army Secretary John McHugh to issue a report on how his service will spend the additional funding with a strong push to upgrade the National Guard's tank fleet. At the end of production in 2013 the Army's tank fleet will include 1,547 M1A2 System Enhance Package (SEP) tanks mostly fielded to active units and 791 M1A1 tanks all fielded to National Guard units.

"In addition to the analysis of production costs, the Army must consider the benefit of equipping the tank units of both the active duty Army units and Army National Guard units with the same, most capable tank," the subcommittee wrote in their review.

Only one National Guard brigade is outfitted with M1A2SEP tanks. The rest drive the M1A1 tank, which will stop production in July.

In May, 120 Congressmen signed a bipartisan letter arguing the Army would save more money keeping the production line open rather than closing it and paying the associated costs. It will cost General Dynamics $380 million to shut down the plant and mothball the equipment, and then an additional $1.3 billion to restart production, Cannon said.

"The cost of shutdown and restart of Abrams tank production appears to be more than the cost of continued limited production," the letter said. "Instead of reconstituting this vital manufacturing capability at a higher cost, it would seem prudent to invest those select resources in continued Abrams production."