The U.S. Army is carrying out an aggressive development program to produce a new, lightweight composite armor for its next generation tank. This vehicle, part of the FCS (Future Combat System) series of vehicles, will weigh under 30 tons. The current U.S. tank, the M-1, weighs 70 tons. Composite armor was invented in Britain during the 1980s. The British developers had found that layers of different metals and ceramics made the armor lighter, and more resistant to penetration by solid shot or HEAT shells. The U.S. added a layer of depleted uranium to its composite armor, and produced the most penetration resistant tank armor ever.

Now U.S. Army developers are betting that they can come up with breakthroughs in composite armor design that will produce protection equal to what the M-1 now has, but at less than half the weight. The army developers are doing it by trial and error, making some progress most months. It's still unknown if the new lightweight armor will be there in time for the new tank's debut date in 2015.