"Clash Of Panzer" is a modern armored vehicle-themed war competition game that introduces various types of equipment such as main battle tanks and attack helicopters. Today, let's introduce one of the main battle tanks, the Abrams.

The M1 Abrams was developed and designed by the Chrysler Defense Division in the United States, and the U.S. Army began to introduce it in the early 1980s.

In January 1973, the Army Staff officially approved the XM1 development outline proposed by the Special Mission Group. In June 1973, the Army signed development prototype contracts with General Motors Corporation (GMC) and Chrysler. By the end of January 1976, two prototypes were completed and underwent comparative evaluation tests at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. On November 12, 1976, the Army announced that the Chrysler prototype had won and signed a contract with it to manufacture 11 prototypes, thus beginning the comprehensive engineering development of the tank, which was completed in November 1979, taking 36 months. During this period, Chrysler manufactured 11 prototypes for the Army, and the second phase of performance and operational testing (DT/OT II) began in February 1978. This included tests under various climatic and simulated battlefield conditions, with the main content being mechanical disassembly and maintenance; various mobility tests; weapon tests, and environmental tests. The total driving distance for this phase of testing was approximately 89,635 kilometers, and 19,100 rounds of ammunition were fired.

During the comprehensive engineering development phase, the Lima Army Tank Plant was transformed into the first manufacturing plant for the M1 tank. It then became the most modern and most productive tank manufacturing plant in the Western world.

In February 1981, the Army had already approved the production of 7,058 M1 tanks, and at the same time, the XM1 tank was officially named the M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank. In September 1981, the Lima Tank Plant and the Detroit Tank Plant began low-rate initial production of the M1 tank, and by the end of March 1982, the Detroit Tank Plant started manufacturing production vehicles.

In 1984, the Army increased the planned total production of M1/M1A1 tanks to 7,467 units (of which 4,199 were M1A1). To improve production efficiency and product quality, both tank factories made significant improvements to their production equipment and manufacturing processes, and by early 1984, the monthly production reached 70 tanks.

The production of the M1 tank was fully completed in February 1985, with a total of 2,374 units manufactured. After that, the production shifted to the improved M1 tanks and the M1A1 tanks equipped with a 120mm smoothbore gun.