Military vehicles are the backbone of any armed force – and their reliability is paramount to mission success. Yet without proper maintenance, even the most advanced combat vehicles can soon become liabilities. This is particularly true in the US Army, where many maintenance models have remained largely unchanged for decades. Consider, for instance, how the Pentagon maintains its M1 Abrams tanks. Following a rigid, time-based schedule, army engineers still look to a system dating back to 1938, one mandating semi-annual, annual and biennial services for these vehicles.
Operational tempos or specific usage patterns, for their part, are irrelevant. And while this approach ensures that all vehicles receive regular attention, it doesn’t account for the varying levels of wear and tear that different machines experience. As these vehicles have grown more complex with successive upgrades, moreover, the traditional maintenance model has increasingly struggled to keep pace.
That’s important for several reasons. Reliable equipment, it goes without saying, is essential for effective training, as it allows soldiers to build familiarity and confidence with the machinery they’ll ultimately use in real-world operations. At the same time, proper maintenance prevents breakdowns, minimises downtime, and ultimately ensures that military units are always ready for deployment.
In practice, however, existing maintenance models place a significant burden on units, requiring considerable time and resources – which could be better spent on training and other operational tasks. Money is doubtless a factor here too. Considering $99.6bn (27.2%) of the US Army’s budget was allocated to operation and maintenance in 2023, freeing up any funds would obviously cover more urgent operation and repair costs – as well as bolster training and upskilling.
Training day
In response to these challenges, the US Army Armor School and the Maneuver Center of Excellence (MCoE) has launched the M1/M2 Service Optimization Pilot. Responsible for supporting the US Army and Training and Doctrine Command’s (TRADOC) missions and initiatives, this particular initiative is not revolutionary in concept – but nonetheless represents a significant shift towards more adaptable and efficient maintenance practices. Among other things, after all, the pilot extends the intervals between scheduled maintenance tasks, and simplifies the overall maintenance process. That, in turn, offers greater flexibility to the commanders that know their vehicles best.
31,796
The number of hours available due to the MCoE’s pilot to simplify vehicle maintenance services.
MCoE
The point of this gradual approach, at any rate, is to not abandon traditional maintenance practices. Rather, explains Corey Woods, deputy chief of staff at the US Maneuver Center of Excellence, the idea is to adjust them – and better fit modern operational realities. “The flexibility of the pilot programme has enabled the capture of more unscheduled maintenance needs on the M1/ M2 fleet,” Woods says, “which might have otherwise been overlooked during routine service.”
For the M1 Abrams, the pilot extends the semi-annual service tasks to eight months and the annual tasks to 16 months, while keeping biennial tasks at 24 months. For the M2 Bradley, meanwhile, the pilot combines the semi-annual and annual service tasks into a single 12-month requirement. As Woods puts it: “To ensure the safety of soldiers during the extended service windows, the MCoE directed our maintenance activity to implement additional quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) checks during vehicle dispatching.” For their part, these checks focus on critical systems like brakes, fuel leaks and fire suppression, even as passive thermal imaging systems are tested too.
Promising results
The early results of the M1/M2 Service Optimization Pilot have been promising. According to Woods, the pilot has led to a 5% increase in the availability of Abrams tanks and a 9% increase in Bradley Fighting Vehicles as of May 2024. Just as importantly, these improvements have been achieved without any significant increase in unscheduled maintenance, repair costs or safety incidents, suggesting that the extended maintenance intervals have not compromised vehicle reliability.
All told, the pilot has resulted in a reduction of 70 Abrams services and 122 Bradley services, freeing up over 31,000 labour hours that can now be redirected towards other tasks. It goes without saying, meanwhile, increased efficiency not only benefits the MCoE – but also has the potential to improve operational flexibility for commanders across the US Army. “Vehicle maintenance enables a unit’s training strategy,” says Woods. “For operational commanders, this significantly improves their flexibility to manage their annual training strategy – by cutting the number of vehicles in half and better aligning the mechanic to task ration.”
This is obvious in practice: by reducing the number of vehicles that need to be serviced at any given time, units can better align their maintenance schedules with their training and operational needs. As Woods says: “What we’ve seen with the availability rate is, because our mechanics can now keep up with the services, our availability rate is staying much closer to the operational readiness rate.”
No less impressive, the pilot has also helped capture unscheduled maintenance needs that might have been overlooked during routine services, further contributing to the overall readiness of the fleet. Woods, for his part, highlights so-called ‘predictive maintenance’ as a promising technology here, arguing sensors and other devices could help spot problems before they become visible to crews or engineers. “It would give you real time data on the engine performance and then help identify where you may have problems,” he says. “Instead of waiting till an engine blows – an M1 engine costs $1.1m to change – if you could have got performance indicators that told you that you needed to change your fuel injectors, that could save you a lot of time and money.”
Shared success
The success of the M1/M2 Service Optimization Pilot has sparked interest far beyond the US Army. While the pilot is still in its early stages, there is already enthusiasm for its principles to be adopted by allied and partner nations that use US military equipment. “I would encourage all countries to be looking at how you’re servicing your equipment,” emphasises Woods. “We can’t afford to overburden our soldiers in today’s environment and we can’t afford to be burdening our mechanics.” Certainly, the move towards more flexible and adaptive maintenance models is a logical step as the technology continues to evolve. That’s especially as predictive maintenance technologies become more advanced, allowing armies across the globe to streamline their maintenance processes – and ultimately reduce costs.
All the same, the implementation of new maintenance systems isn’t without its challenges. Changing long-established standards is difficult, especially in an organisation as large and tradition bound as the US Army. Yet the initial success of the M1/M2 Service Optimization Pilot suggests there’s a growing openness within military circles to embrace change. “There’s been this growing acceptance that something needs to change,” says Woods, “So we were surprised when we started implementing things like this that there was an overwhelming openness.” As a matter of fact, the pilot’s positive results have already led to requests for its expansion to the entire operational force.
23.2%
The percentage of the US Army’s budget allocated to operation and maintenance in 2023.
DoD
It seems clear, in short, that the M1/M2 Service Optimization Pilot represents a crucial step towards modernising military vehicle maintenance. By offering greater flexibility and reducing unnecessary maintenance burdens, the pilot promises to enhance the readiness and effectiveness of the US Army’s armoured forces. As the pilot progresses, meanwhile, the implications for equipment-to-maintainer ratios, repair costs, and overall mission readiness will become increasingly obvious – potentially setting a new standard for military maintenance in the 21st century, both in the US and among its partners.
