WW3 with M1 Abrams not having a HE round

[TrustMe]

Just like the title said. in 1991 in Kuwait the M1 Abrams didn't have a HE round just armour piercing and HEAT rounds. In a potential WW3 against the Warsaw Pact and USSR forces, is this a tactical error on the US part?

[Stuart Galbraith]

The M1 should have been able to use 105mm M393 HEP-T. Or HESH as everyone else called it.

[TrustMe]

57 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

The M1 should have been able to use 105mm M393 HEP-T. Or HESH as everyone else called it.

That would of worked for the early versions of the M1. But what about the 120mm that couldn't of used a rifled 105mm HESH round.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Well you asked for M1.

There is HEAT which works OK. In the 1990's there was discussion of adopting MPAT, cant remember if they did or not.

[Tim Sielbeck]

When I asked about this, as an M60A1 tanker, I was told HEAT was more versatile than HEP and that it's better fragmentation made it more effective in some situations.  The army had moved away from an anti tank + infantry support loadout to only anti tank in the late '70s to early '80s so that only APFSDS and HEAT were carried while I was serving.  They still taught us about HEP, APERS, and WP but were told we most likely would never see it issued to us.

Edited February 4 by Tim Sielbeck

[Stuart Galbraith]

How does it perform in mud? I know HESH seems to have a problem with it, or so the Ukrainians found.

[Tim Sielbeck]

Everything has a problem with mud.

[TrustMe]

45 minutes ago, Tim Sielbeck said:

When I asked about this, as an M60A1 tanker, I was told HEAT was more versatile than HEP and that it's better fragmentation made it more effective in some situations.  The army had moved away from an anti tank + infantry support loadout to only anti tank in the late '70s to early '80s so that only APFSDS and HEAT were carried while I was serving.  They still taught us about HEP, APERS, and WP but were told we most likely would never see it issued to us.

 

Was this lack of HE in the 1980's because the US army didn't intend to fight an urban war?

 

Edit.

 

I've seen videos of hellfire anti-armour heat missiles hitting technicals in Iraq were the passengers and drivers survived the missile hit. A HE warhead would of killed some of them but a HEAT didn't.

Edited February 4 by TrustMe

[Stuart Galbraith]

You have to remember, for most of the 1980s, the 105mm Abrama was in the majority in Germany. I think it was only late in the 80s the 120mm became the majority.

Also, each mech infantry company had 81mm mortars in M113s, and 4 107mm mortars at hq. They didny lack for HE.

[bojan]

2 hours ago, Tim Sielbeck said:

Everything has a problem with mud.

HEAT would be probably less affected due the very sensitive and quick acting fusing, especially compared to HEP/HESH. 

2 hours ago, TrustMe said:

...A HE warhead would of killed some of them but a HEAT didn't.

HE with X kg of explosives inside and HEAT with same amount of explosives have ~same lethal blast radius vs infantry.

Difference is that HE carries thicker casing, which is optimized for fragment formation, which is the main killer, and not the blast. That said, 120mm HEAT-MP has about same area covered by fragments as 90mm HE, so it can not be called ineffective vs infantry in open of in field fortifications. What it lacks is versatility of HE, because with HE set to delay it will explode inside field fortification/weaker houses, which is much more effective than HEAT exploding inside and only HEAT jet entering building.

[Stuart Galbraith]

I suppose there is also the factor  that HEAT, travelling faster, would come in a flatter trajectory, rather than HESH, being a very slow round, comes in like a mortar and can bury itself. The Ukrainians found in mud that it was soaking up most of the explosion. On hard ground against well dug in defences, kind of as the British found in Southeastern Iraq,  HESH might have been more useful.

Going through a 1973 report recent on what the Israelis carried, they carried an interesting mix on centurion. I think it was like 28 AP rounds, 20 HEAT rounds and 12 HESH (and WP). Postwar they also adopted HE Frag. Very much a Golfbag approach, and quite right too.

 

[Jaroslav]

1 hour ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

I suppose there is also the factor  that HEAT, travelling faster, would come in a flatter trajectory, rather than HESH, being a very slow round, comes in like a mortar and can bury itself. The Ukrainians found in mud that it was soaking up most of the explosion. On hard ground against well dug in defences, kind of as the British found in Southeastern Iraq,  HESH might have been more useful.

Going through a 1973 report recent on what the Israelis carried, they carried an interesting mix on centurion. I think it was like 28 AP rounds, 20 HEAT rounds and 12 HESH (and WP). Postwar they also adopted HE Frag. Very much a Golfbag approach, and quite right too.

 

Do you have a link 

[Tim Sielbeck]

22 hours ago, TrustMe said:

Was this lack of HE in the 1980's because the US army didn't intend to fight an urban war?

I think they realized that a more mobile armor killing force was what was needed to defeat any soviet invasion of West Germany.

[TrustMe]

2 minutes ago, Tim Sielbeck said:

I think they realized that a more mobile armor killing force was what was needed to defeat any soviet invasion of West Germany.

Thanks for you're insight.

[On the way]

I don't understand why you won't have a HE round. It's the most versatile round out there. It can be used against fortified structures, bunkers, and as Ukraine as shown, even an artillery role. Also, if you are hitting soft skin vehicles like trucks and cars, a HE round is much more effective then a HEAT or HESH round. I would say that HE is also effective against lighter armed armored vehicles like BTRs, BMPs, AFV and IFVs. 

[Stuart Galbraith]

On 2/5/2026 at 10:28 AM, Jaroslav said:

Do you have a link 

Yeah, here you go. Not just armour, it covers artillery and airpower also.

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/LOC-HAK-480-3-1-4.pdf

Correction on my part, I was misremembering. On Centurion/Shot Cal the loadout was 28-30 APDS, only 12 HEAT, and as many as 28-29 HESH. Comparable on the M48 too. I dont know that compares to the loadout on American tanks in this period.

[Stuart Galbraith]

17 hours ago, TrustMe said:

Thanks for you're insight.

There is a very good book if you have the time called 'Dragons at War' by Daniel Bolger, about a Fort Irwin deployment with M60s, M113's and M901s in 1982. There was a doctrinal issue at the time about creating blocking forces at the time, till they moved over to an active defence doctrine. But you can see the effect in some of the cricket scores they got when they dug in really well, and how they got rapidly overun when they tried to do a mobile defence agasint a mobile force that just powered through the limited blocking positions.

The point Bolger makes (and this is borne out seemingly in the Fort Irwin OPFOR manual from the period I have) Soviet doctrine didnt emphasise debussing. They would try as much as they could to remain mounted and power through the defences, and only when they started taking serious losses would debus and assault the defence line. So in those circumstances, yes, I can entirely see why HE was less useful by the late 70's and early 1980's in the defence. There might not actually be that much infantry to drop it on.

Good read If you can take my word for it.

https://archive.org/details/dragonsatwar234i0000bolg

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 hour ago, On the way said:

I don't understand why you won't have a HE round. It's the most versatile round out there. It can be used against fortified structures, bunkers, and as Ukraine as shown, even an artillery role. Also, if you are hitting soft skin vehicles like trucks and cars, a HE round is much more effective then a HEAT or HESH round. I would say that HE is also effective against lighter armed armored vehicles like BTRs, BMPs, AFV and IFVs. 

If you have a limited number of racks in your tank, why not just use HESH and have WP? HESH is perfectly good at digging out infantry, good against older type armour and BMPs, and the WP is actually quite effective against infantry (just dont let ICC representives catch you at it).  HE probably wont work against tanks, or if it does, its chancy. HESH works fine against older tanks, less so HE I think.

Im guessing even a WP round might be effective against light armour, though I shouldnt want to trust it. I do recall the Israelis were using it to light up external fuel tanks on T55s.

Edited Friday at 11:53 AM by Stuart Galbraith

[bojan]

In general HE is more effective vs light armor than HESH. Vs infantry it is vastly more effective than HESH because a - HESH tends to burry itself into soil before detonation, b - produces way more fragments (which are real killer, not the blast). HESH is typical British solution from a period when HEAT still did not work properly and institutional inertia kept it for a long past it's "best before" date.

M1/Leo 2 APFSDS + HEAT-MP was fundamentally better (if not really optimal) than C1/C2 APDSDS + HESH, period vs practically every target in the field. Only advantage of HESH would be vs concrete structures, which is something that US did not plan on (for good or the bad reason) engaging in Germany.

3 hours ago, On the way said:

I don't understand why you won't have a HE round. It's the most versatile round out there. It can be used against fortified structures, bunkers, and as Ukraine as shown, even an artillery role. Also, if you are hitting soft skin vehicles like trucks and cars, a HE round is much more effective then a HEAT or HESH round. I would say that HE is also effective against lighter armed armored vehicles like BTRs, BMPs, AFV and IFVs. 

Institutional inertia. For quite a while HEAT was seen as main armor killing round, AP(FS)DS was supplementary. So HEAT was kept, APFSDS also. And they wanted to maximize tank killing potential, so HEAT had to do vs soft targets also.

US tank development program also did not exactly swim in the money at that period, so why develop another round type when existing ones can serve in the pinch.

[Jaroslav]

3 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Yeah, here you go. Not just armour, it covers artillery and airpower also.

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/LOC-HAK-480-3-1-4.pdf

Correction on my part, I was misremembering. On Centurion/Shot Cal the loadout was 28-30 APDS, only 12 HEAT, and as many as 28-29 HESH. Comparable on the M48 too. I dont know that compares to the loadout on American tanks in this period.

Nice one, thanks

[Stuart Galbraith]

The problem with HESH is it comes in at an acute angle, which makes hitting a moving target an utter bitch. OTOH, against a static AFV, hitting it on the roof where the armour is softer is going to kill most Pre T72 tanks (In fact even the early T72's before they got the lead antiradiation coating on the roof might be in trouble). I wouldnt say that makes HESH more effective than HEAT, just that if you want a round that can have HE effects, and kill older armour, HESH was a good compromise.

Quite why the Israelis were clearly carrying around twice as many HESH rounds as HEAT, when their primary concern was enemy armour is impossible to understand, unless there was some agreement with this thought process at least at the time.

Could HE have the same effect? Perhaps. I do know Israelis tank commanders were utterly deprecatory about the risks of 122mm HE to their tanks, rightly or wrongly. 

Yes, of course there is better rounds for 120mm now. Im not convinced it was quite that straightforward in the 1970's, or the first half of the 1980's when most people were using 105mm guns. 

[Stuart Galbraith]

44 minutes ago, Jaroslav said:

Nice one, thanks

👍

[bojan]

33 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

...Quite why the Israelis were clearly carrying around twice as many HESH rounds as HEAT, when their primary concern was enemy armour is impossible to understand, unless there was some agreement with this thought process at least at the time.

They carried it in order to deal with Syrian/Arab concrete positions and building.

Quote

Could HE have the same effect? Perhaps.

Variable fused HE (superquick, standard, delay) can do all HESH does and much more.

Quote

Yes, of course there is better rounds for 120mm now. Im not convinced it was quite that straightforward in the 1970's, or the first half of the 1980's when most people were using 105mm guns. 

If the 105mm originally had HE, like it was intended to (but never developed due the British funding being what it was and US being in the rush to get better gun than 90mm into tanks ASAP) HESH would have been relegated to the historical obscurity by the 1970s.

[JWB]

Also light armor and sheet metal vehicles can be destroyed with Browning .50.

[Ssnake]

On 2/5/2026 at 9:55 AM, Stuart Galbraith said:

I suppose there is also the factor  that HEAT, travelling faster, would come in a flatter trajectory, rather than HESH, being a very slow round, comes in like a mortar and can bury itself.

The fall angle of HESH even at 3,000m range may appear very steep, but we're talking about something like -15°...-20°.

Mortars, -45°...-75°, that's a huge difference.

Just compare the impact vectors in the Steel Beasts AAR (and while you're at it, the fragmentation patterns). They may not be 100% accurate, but they very clearly show the practical differences between the two.