M1 Abrams



The M1 Abrams is a third-generation main battle tank produced and used by the United States. It is named after the commander in the Vietnam War and former Army Chief of Staff member General Creighton Abrams, and was designed for modern armored ground warfare. It comes in three main variants: The M1, the M1A1, and the M1A2 (a fourth, M1A3, variant is currently under development.

Usage
Zanzibar Land utilized M1 tanks as part of its Tactical Army's Heavy Tank division, prior to its fall in 1999.

In 2005, an M1 tank was utilized by the rogue FOXHOUND during the Shadow Moses Incident. Vulcan Raven and two Genome Soldiers used one of the two M1's stationed on Shadow Moses Island to battle against Solid Snake in a canyon. The M1 was equipped with advanced vetronics, which allowed it and the gunner to track a target once it was locked on to the target. Its main gun also had an effective firing range of up to 3000 meters, and had a maximum speed of 45 mph. Snake was able to evade the tank's main gun using chaff grenades, and disabled the tank itself by throwing frag grenades towards the top hatch while the gunner was exposed to fire, after first slowing it down by damaging its treads.

The second M1 tank was still housed in the abandoned hangar on Shadow Moses Island when Solid Snake returned there in 2014.

Behind the scenes


During the revisit to Shadow Moses in Twin Suns of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, the tank in the Shadow Moses hangar building was redesigned to resemble an M1A2 tank, although the specific model for the M1 is never specified in Metal Gear Solid. The M1A2 is identifiable by the commander's independent thermal viewer (or CITV), a cylindrical object located on the forward left corner of the turret.