Tanks for the Memories

The start and the end of two decades of Australia’s Abrams M1A1 tanks came together in a moment of policy symmetry. As Australia shipped 49 retired Abrams to Ukraine at the end of 2024, the National Archives released the 2004 cabinet decision to buy the tanks.

Choices of military kit shape the force for decades, as they also decide debates. The Abrams choices give the Australian Army the decisive high ground in a strategic argument that has fizzed and fussed for decades: does the island continent even need tanks?

For tank sceptics, the retired Australian Abrams are going to Ukraine to do what they’re designed to do: fight on the plains of Europe. The new front in the sceptics’ attack is the 2020 decision by the U.S. Marines to scrap all tanks.

The critique is that tanks will be swarmed by drones and mugged by missiles; that the big beasts won’t figure on the future battlefields that Australia cares about; and that the focus should be strategy and force structure, not tactics and tanks. Doubts remain whether mechanisation will ‘cripple the army as a useful, deployable tool of government’.

Clifford was closely involved with the Abrams decision in 2004. He summarised Army’s thinking in one sentence: ‘This wasn’t about heavy or light; it was about threat, survivability and risk.’

The 39 pages of army submission for the 9 March 2004 cabinet decision wasn’t about whether Australia needed tanks; the army had won that battle, which is only hinted at in one sentence: ‘All Western countries that operate tanks have been faced with the dual challenges of an increased threat in a more robust operating environment, and the need to upgrade their fleets to accommodate the demands of a more costly and digital battlefield.’

Rather, the recommendation before cabinet was about the best tank—the German Leopard, Swiss Panzer 87 WE, British Challenger 2 or U.S. Abrams. The national security committee accepted the submission conclusion, deciding to pay $571.6 million for 59 Abrams M1A1s to replace Leopards.

The Abrams was judged as having ‘the best overall survivability, through-life support and Network Centric Warfare capability. The tank is in production and in use with the U.S. Army and would be bought predominantly off-the-shelf.’ Army lore is that the figure of 59 Abrams was what was available on the shelf.

The cabinet was told the army ‘identified survivability as the highest priority for the tank replacement’ and this was about more than just the thickness of armour plate. To survive on the modern battlefield, the tank must have greater ability to:

—Avoid detection through signature management;

—Avoid being accurately targeted;

—Avoid being hit;

—Reduce the probability of penetration; and finally

—Mitigate the effects of penetration.

The submission stated Australia would not buy the U.S. Army’s version, fitted with armour made of depleted uranium (DU). Cabinet was told that procuring the Abrams without DU would alter the protection level of the tank, but ‘U.S. advice is that there is little difference in the level of protection between DU and non-DU armour. This is protected information.’

Having won the decisions of whether and what to buy, the submission stuck to the details of performance for price in measured bureaucratese.

The prose poetry about the Abrams tank in 2004 came from another place—writer Lee Child. He nominated the clatter of tank tracks as the signature sound of the 20th century, beating other sounds born in that century such as that of a jet, or helicopter or bombs falling on a city.

The squeal or clatter of tank tracks, Child wrote, is ‘a brutal sound. It’s the sound of fear. It speaks of a massive overwhelming advantage in power.’

Then Child turned to the ‘magnificent sight’ of the Abrams as the ‘ultimate unfair advantage’, writing: ‘The M1A1 Abrams is like a shark, evolved to a point of absolute perfection. It is the undisputed king of the jungle. No other tank on earth can even begin to damage it … Its main trick is to stand off so far that no battlefield shell or rocket or kinetic device can even reach it. It sits there and watches enemy rounds fall short in the dirt. Then it traverses its mighty gun and fires and a second later and a mile-and-a-half in the distance its assailant blows up and burns.’

In such prose, reaching towards the military version of poetry, we see army armour amore.

Graeme Dobell is an ASPI senior fellow.

This article appeared originally at The Strategist (ASPI).