M1 Abrams: The US’s Main Battle Tank in American and Foreign Service, 1981-2018

Since its introduction in 1981, at the height of the Cold War, the Abrams main battle tank has been one of the most visible and iconic symbols of American military power, and it is the fascinating subject of this heavily illustrated historical and modelling guide in the TankCraft series by David Grummitt. Designed to meet head-on the massed tank forces of the Warsaw Pact, its combat debut in fact came in a different scenario in 1991 during the First Gulf War. Since then it has served in the peace-keeping role in the former Yugoslavia and seen combat in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen. It has gone through a series of modifications and modernizations that see it set to remain the backbone of the US Army until at least 2050. As well as charting the development and combat history of the vehicle, the book is illustrated throughout with colour photos and specially commissioned colour profiles. Five different models, covering the service history of the Abrams, are featured, as is modeller’s guide to the existing kits and accessories in the all the popular scales. AUTHOR: David Grummitt is editor of Military Modelcraft International with more than a decade of building models and writing articles for publication. As well as being editor of MMI since 2009, he is a professional historian who has written several books on fifteenth- and sixteenth-century military and political history. 200 colour illustrations