We support our Publishers and Content Creators. You can view this story on their website by CLICKING HERE.

Key Points: The MBT-70 tank’s XM150 cannon, a cutting-edge 1960s innovation, laid the groundwork for many modern tank technologies, including the High Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT) and armor-piercing rounds used by today’s M1 Abrams.

-The XM150 influenced the development of the Abrams’ Advanced Multi-Purpose (AMP) round, a next-generation munition capable of adapting to various combat scenarios.

-This round integrates capabilities of HEAT, SABOT, and canister rounds, enabling greater flexibility and tactical efficiency.

-By simplifying ammunition selection and improving anti-personnel and armor-piercing capabilities, the AMP round represents a significant evolution in land warfare and combined arms tactics.

How the MBT-70’s XM150 Cannon Shaped the M1 Abrams’ Cutting-Edge Firepower

The 1960s-era American-German MBT-70 tank incorporated a significant XM150, a long-barreled tank cannon considered significantly cutting edge in its time, a series of firepower-oriented technologies that arguably inspired many of the innovations now woven into the M1 Abrams tank. 

Described as a longer-barreled variant of the XM-81 gun launcher, the XM150 pioneered or established the technical basis for a range of rounds now fired by modern tanks, including High Explosive, anti-personnel, High Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT) rounds and armor-piercing rounds. 

These kinds of explosives have been a mainstay for the Abrams tank for many years, and they arguably evolved from some of the breakthrough technologies introduced by the XM150.  Today’s Abrams is now rapidly developing what’s called an Advanced Multi-Purpose round, which, when connected with an ammunition data link and tank gunner, can adapt a single round to a range of explosives, blast effects, and “energetics.”

This next-generation round, encompassing a range of attack possibilities built into a single round, evolved from existing HEAT, SABOT, and Armor-piercing rounds. These weapons have a clear lineage to the XM150. 

MBT-70 Tank. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Future AMP Round

The arrival of this new category of rounds – and the explosives or “energetics” they employ – reshaped tactics and battlefield maneuver formations into what could be called modern land warfare and Combined Arms Maneuver concepts.  

Anti-personnel rounds, often referred to as canister rounds, are designed to discharge with added fragmentation to disperse lethal effects across a given “area,” as opposed to a single or more narrowly configured explosion.

This enabled tank rounds, historically used to penetrate enemy tanks, buildings, and reinforced structures, to attack and destroy small groups of dismounted enemy fighters across a small “area,” creating the sought-after anti-personnel impact.  

Anti-Personnel Rounds

A Canister round, referred to as the M1028, could counter what weapons developers called a “human wave assault” by essentially scattering projectiles across an area. This tactical effect is often interpreted as a precursor to “air burst” rounds and other penetrating rounds and delayed fuses. 

Armor-piercing fin-stabilized SABOT rounds appear to have also evolved from the XM150, as it could have arguably created a foundation from which modern SABOT rounds appear to have evolved from their original form.

MBT-70

MBT-70. Image Credit: YouTube Screenshot.

Delayed fuses enable a round to “penetrate” before detonating, and “point detonate” rounds can explode on impact. 

In a 2016 Army statement on AMP, a senior program manager describes the Concept of Operation behind the AMP round this way. “Right now our crews face the dilemma as they go into combat of deciding what rounds to load in the turret and carry in the gun. If they choose wrong, they could have a mismatch between target and ammunition, which will cost them valuable seconds while in enemy contact.”

About the Author: Kris Osborn 

Kris Osborn is the Military Affairs Editor of 19FortyFive and President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.