The US military started deconserving several dozen M1A1 Abrams tanks, which were located at the Sierra storage base, and in 2021 they were finally removed from the service of the US Marine Corps.
Echelons with these tanks are heading to the Anniston repair base from the US Army for further restoration and modernization, as the Army Recognition reports with a link to Ronkainen twitter profile.
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The article reminds that the US Marine Corps had up to 400 units of M1A1 Abrams at its disposal. The last tanks of this type were withdrawn from the service of the United States Marine Corps in 2021, as part of a structural reform. It remains unknown how many decommissioned Abrams of the Marine Corps should be returned to service and how long this should take place. It is only revealed that the Americans want to upgrade these tanks to the M1A2 SEP V3 standard.
Since there are no even semi-official hints, so it makes no sense to hope that at least some of these deconserved M1A1 Abrams of the US Marine Corps will eventually come to the disposal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Although Defense Express would love this to happen, and Ukraine’s soldiers would already liberating Crimea by means of Abrams tanks.
In July 2022, Poland also took the turn for the M1A1 Abrams from the US Marine Corps. At that time, the Pentagon promised to transfer 116 used M1A1 Abrams as compensation for the transfer to Ukraine of almost 250 Soviet T-72 tanks, in addition to the previously ordered 250 units of M1A2 SEP V3.
The US did not officially announce the deadline for the transfer of such tanks to the Polish Army. Therefore, two options are possible at the same time: 1) the Americans began to deconserve decommissioned M1A1 Abrams from the United States Marine Corps warehouse precisely in order to fulfill their obligations to Poland, and 2) Poland will actually also have to wait for the promised tanks.
According to The Military Balance 2021, at the end of last year, the US Armed Forces had about 2,500 M1A1 Abrams tanks of various modifications in service, and more than 3,700 vehicles of this type were in storage. However, there is no data regarding their technical condition.
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