Anniston Army Depot partners to rebuild Saudi tanks

ANNISTON ARMY DEPOT, Ala. — Annis­ton Army Depot recent­ly con­tract­ed to over­haul 143 M1 Abrams tanks for Sau­di Arabia’s Roy­al Sau­di Land Forces through a part­ner­ship with Gen­er­al Dynam­ics Land Sys­tems, at Lima Army Tank Plant in Ohio. An addi­tion­al 129 tanks are await­ing fund­ing.

Annis­ton Army Depot part­ners to rebuild Sau­di tanks Click to enlarge

Approx­i­mate­ly 326,000 direct labor hours are expect­ed for the instal­la­tion through this pro­gram, accord­ing to Michael Epps, a depot pro­gram man­ag­er. Annis­ton Army Depot employ­ees will dis­as­sem­ble and sand­blast the vehi­cles, then per­form need­ed repairs to the hulls and turrets. 

“The vehi­cles com­ing in for this pro­gram are all M1A2 tanks and will be recon­fig­ured through this pro­gram to M1A2S, which is the Sau­di ver­sion of the M1 Abrams tank,” said Epps. 

Epps said the instal­la­tion will play a key role in refur­bish­ing com­po­nents for the vehi­cles by rebuild­ing the Gunner’s Pri­ma­ry Sight assem­bly, com­put­er con­trol pan­el, ele­vat­ing mech­a­nism assem­bly, gunner’s con­trol assem­bly and oth­er parts for each tank. 

Once struc­tur­al repairs are com­plete, the hulls, tur­rets and com­po­nents will be shipped to Lima, where the tank will be assem­bled by Gen­er­al Dynam­ics Land Systems. 

This pro­gram extends a part­ner­ship between Gen­er­al Dynam­ics Land Sys­tems and Annis­ton Army Depot that began in ear­ly 2011 when the depot assist­ed in upgrad­ing 57 M1A1 and M1A2 tanks to the M1A2S variant. 

Source:
U.S. Army