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8 January 2015

U.S. Weighs Armor, Anti-Sniper Upgrades for Iraq’s Army Tanks

By Tony Capaccio 
Jan 5, 2015

An Iraqi M1 Abrams tank roles along the sand at the start of the Lion's Leap Operation,... 

The U.S. Army is considering equipping the Iraqi Army’s M1A1 tanks with upgrades to provide greater protection from land mines and roadside bombs and to add rotating, remotely operated machine guns to attack snipers.

Upgrades to the tanks built by General Dynamics Corp. (GD) also could include belly armor; lightweight reactive armor tiles; improved night-vision sensors made by Waltham, Massachusetts-basedRaytheon Co. (RTN) to provide 360-degree, all-weather views; and mine-clearing blades and rollers, according to an Army survey released in November.

A “counter sniper/anti-material gun mount,” for example, also would contain wide-area spotlights to detect roadside or suicide-bomb vehicles.

Islamic State extremists have captured Iraqi army tanks and anti-armor weapons not made in the U.S., and its fighters are using roadside bombs in northern Iraq to slow Iraqi attacks. Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi last month asked outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel for additional heavy weapons and air support to defeat Islamic State.

If the improvements are approved by Congress and funded by the Iraqi government, they could be made within 18 month after the first U.S. contractors arrive to install them, Ashley Givens, a U.S. Army spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.

“There is currently no sole-source request for General Dynamics to provide these items or services, so unless Iraq submits a sole-source request, the effort will be” open for competing bids, she said.

The Iraqi army has 140 tanks, with an additional six scheduled for delivery by Dec. 31, she said.

Training Time

The initial installations could be done within the time Pentagon officials say it will take to retrain 12 Iraqi and Kurdish brigades for sustained offensives against Islamic State.

Army Lieutenant General James Terry, the commander of U.S. operations in Iraq, told reporters Dec. 18 that rebuilding the Iraqi Army’s full offensive capability is “probably about three years down the road, minimum.”

The Army “is pricing the estimated cost” of the hardware and retrofitting, Givens said. If Iraq decides to move forward, the Army “would begin the effort to fulfill this requirement by purchasing the hardware,” she said.

The Army also is seeking estimates for how much it would cost to contract with a U.S. company to train as many 40 Iraqis to maintain the potential upgrades, Givens said.

‘Urban Survivability’

U.S. tanks deployed in Iraq after the 2003 invasion were equipped with a “tank urban survivability kit,” suited for “the complex urban terrain prevalent in Iraq,” Major Robert Brown, an expert on the M1, wrote in the January-February 2014 edition of Armor magazine, a service publication.

Armed with 120-mm cannons, the almost 70-ton M1 tank, depending on the model, can fire on the move at up to 30 miles per hour (48 kilometers per hour) in any weather.

Former Iraqi Defense Minister Abdul Qader Obeidi told Foreign Policy magazine in November that improving Iraq’s armored force is necessary before the country can launch a major offensive against Islamic State in places such as Mosul, the country’s second-largest city before it was seized by the extremists.

The possible upgrades are in addition to a potential $2.4 billion sale of as many as 175 more M1A1 tanks, ammunition, machine guns and recovery vehicles to Iraq, which the administration notified Congress about on Dec. 19.

Additional Purchases

In addition, Congress has approved an Oct. 20 proposal that would let the Iraqi government buy as many as 36,000 rounds of tank ammunition from Falls Church, Virginia-based General Dynamics.

The upgrades being considered are separate from $1.6 billion for Iraqi training and equipment that Congress approved last month as part of this year’s defense budget, according to Givens. A U.S. Central Command spokesman said the military is reviewing how to spend the $1.6 billion -- a decision that will have business implications for U.S.-based makers of small arms, ammunition and transport equipment.

Potential arms purchases include 57,600 M4 carbines, 2,340 M240 machine guns, and 498 M2 .50-caliber machine guns.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tony Capaccio in Washington atacapaccio@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.netLarry Liebert

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