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Freedom251 › Blog › Army sustainment

What It Costs to Operate and Maintain an M1 Abrams Tank

By Freedom251 Team · · 7 min read

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The most defensible recent public benchmark is a maintenance cost, not an all-in “cost to run” rate. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported an FY2023 Army maintenance cost of $98,870 per Abrams vehicle. That figure covers a fiscal-year maintenance measure in a military fleet; it is not a price per mile or per operating hour and does not include every operating-and-support expense.

Understanding what the number includes—and what it leaves out—is essential. Fuel, personnel, training, transportation, ammunition, modernization and other support costs can materially change the cost of a particular unit, exercise or deployment.

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What the latest public figure actually measures

GAO’s September 25, 2025 sustainment work provides the clearest recent public data. Its Army fleet dashboard reports FY2023 Abrams maintenance spending and a per-vehicle figure. These are Army fleet maintenance statistics, not a universal annual bill for every tank in every circumstance.

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Measure Reported value Qualification
Maintenance cost per Abrams vehicle $98,870 GAO, FY2023; a fiscal-year maintenance measure, not a fuel-inclusive hourly or mileage rate
Total Abrams fleet maintenance cost $384.04 million GAO, FY2023 Army fleet figure
Parts cost within that total $381.45 million GAO, FY2023; reported as parts costs
Depot cost within that total $2.58 million GAO, FY2023; reported as depot costs
Increase in Army-wide Abrams maintenance cost $181.3 million FY2015 to FY2023, expressed in constant FY2023 dollars
Increase attributed to parts and materiel $180.4 million GAO attribution for FY2015 to FY2023, constant FY2023 dollars

The dashboard’s per-vehicle value should not be interpreted as a guaranteed appropriation for each tank. A fleet average can conceal differences in age, configuration, usage, damage, overhaul status and the number of vehicles counted in a particular accounting period.

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Why there is no single “cost to operate” an Abrams

“Operate” can mean very different things. A tank sitting in a motor pool, one conducting gunnery training and one deployed overseas consume resources in different ways. Public figures also use different accounting boundaries.

Maintenance is only one cost category

The FY2023 benchmark is maintenance spending. It does not, by itself, total:

  • Fuel and lubricants consumed during driving, idling, training or generator use.
  • Crew pay, benefits, unit personnel and maintainer labor outside the reported maintenance measure.
  • Training ranges, exercises, ammunition and gunnery support.
  • Transportation by rail, ship, truck or aircraft, plus port and handling costs.
  • Depot overhaul programs, modernization work and upgrades that are accounted for separately.
  • Spare-equipment inventories, facilities, information systems, medical support and other operating-and-support categories.

GAO describes operating and support (O&S) costs more broadly than maintenance alone. A full O&S answer therefore needs an explicit list of included categories, a period and a denominator such as vehicle, mile, operating hour or mission.

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Why a per-mile or per-hour number is not available here

No current public full-cost-per-mile or full-cost-per-hour Abrams figure was identified in the cited material. The available GAO values are historical Army fleet maintenance data through FY2023. Dividing a fleet maintenance total by miles or engine hours without matching usage records would create a false precision: maintenance is not incurred in a smooth, linear amount for every mile or hour.

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How Abrams maintenance costs changed from FY2015 to FY2023

GAO found that Army-wide Abrams maintenance costs rose by $181.3 million between FY2015 and FY2023 in constant FY2023 dollars. It attributed $180.4 million of that increase to parts and materiel. In other words, parts and materiel accounted for nearly all of the measured growth.

GAO also reported that maintenance cost per Abrams vehicle in FY2023 was nearly twice the FY2015 level. “Nearly twice” is GAO’s comparison; it is not a claim that every individual tank’s bill doubled, nor does it describe fuel or total O&S costs.

Using constant dollars matters. The comparison removes the effect of general inflation so that the change more closely reflects differences in reported maintenance spending rather than simply higher prices across the economy. It does not mean the Army paid the same nominal prices in both years.

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What drives the bill

Parts and materiel

The strongest documented driver is parts and materiel. Shortages can keep a vehicle waiting for a component, while obsolete or unavailable items can require engineering work, alternate sourcing or cannibalization. GAO’s fleet review links the parts-and-materiel category to the large majority of the Abrams increase.

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Technical data and drawings

GAO identified unavailable or outdated technical data and engineering drawings as sustainment challenges across the ground-vehicle fleets it reviewed. Those findings apply to the reviewed fleets collectively; they should not be read as proof that every Abrams has the same documentation problem. When accurate drawings, configuration data or maintenance instructions are missing, repair planning and parts production can take longer and cost more.

Skilled maintainer shortages

GAO also cited shortages of skilled maintainers among the broader fleet challenges. Labor availability affects inspection, troubleshooting, component replacement and the speed at which a tank returns to service. The finding is fleet-wide context, not a measured labor-cost surcharge for each Abrams.

Service life and unplanned work

Older equipment can require more corrective work, while unplanned failures disrupt scheduled workloads and consume scarce parts and labor. GAO identified service-life issues and unplanned maintenance as challenges affecting the ground vehicles in its review. The public figures do not establish how much each factor contributed to the Abrams total.

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Why readiness belongs beside cost

Spending more does not automatically produce more available tanks. GAO reported that none of the Army vehicles in its FY2024 review met the Army’s 90% availability goal. That statement concerns the selected Army vehicles in the review, not an Abrams-only result, but it shows why a cost figure without a readiness measure is incomplete.

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GAO also reported that Army depot overhauls across its reviewed fleets fell from 1,278 in FY2015 to 12 in FY2024. Officials said the lower overhaul volume negatively affected mission-capable rates for most vehicles. These counts are fleet-wide across the reviewed vehicles, not a count of Abrams overhauls alone.

For a meaningful comparison, pair spending with an availability or mission-capable measure and state the period. A lower maintenance bill could reflect reduced work, fewer overhauls or less activity rather than an efficiency gain; a higher bill could support more available vehicles or simply reflect expensive repairs.

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What the Army changed in scheduled servicing

A 2025 Army article described a service-interval adjustment intended to simplify scheduled work and create more time for unscheduled maintenance. For the Abrams, the article states: “For the M1 Abrams these changes will shift current semi-annual service tasks to eight months, current annual tasks to 16 months, and current biennial tasks remain at 24 months.”

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The revised schedule does not mean inspections disappear. The Army article describes additional dispatch quality-assurance and quality-control checks covering the battery box, steering, brakes, fuel and oil leaks, fire suppression, the gun replenisher and the driver’s vision enhancer, among other items.

What the pilot showed

The Army reported a 7% increase in availability through March 31, 2024, compared with the preceding six months of its Abrams pilot. It reported no significant increase in unscheduled maintenance, repair-part cost or major-assembly consumption during that period.

This is an early operational result, not a proven long-term saving. The article’s authors cautioned that it was too soon to assess definitive effectiveness. The 7% figure is an availability change, not a 7% reduction in the cost of owning or operating a tank.

How to answer a real budgeting question

If you need a defensible estimate for a fleet, exercise or deployment, define the question before selecting a number.

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  1. Choose the cost boundary. Decide whether you need maintenance only, maintenance plus fuel, or full O&S. Write down whether personnel, training, ammunition, transport, modernization and depot work are included.
  2. Choose the period and dollar basis. Use a fiscal year or a named exercise. State whether amounts are nominal dollars or inflation-adjusted, such as constant FY2023 dollars.
  3. Choose the denominator. Report fleet total, cost per vehicle, cost per mile or cost per operating hour only when the underlying records support that denominator.
  4. Match cost to readiness. Add availability, mission-capable rate, operating hours, miles or completed missions so the spending has an operational result attached to it.
  5. Separate recurring and exceptional work. Identify combat damage, accident repairs, major overhauls, modernization and one-time engineering efforts rather than blending them into a routine rate.
  6. Document the source and scope. Record the service, fiscal year, vehicle configuration and accounting categories. A fleet-average number should never be presented as a guaranteed invoice for one tank.

For historical O&S data, the Office of the Secretary of War’s CAPE describes EVAMOSC as the authoritative platform for major defense weapon systems. Access to service-level data requires a common-logon portal account, so public summaries may not provide every detail needed for a local estimate.

What the 1991 Abrams comparison can—and cannot—tell you

GAO’s February 28, 1991 report, Abrams Tank: Operating Costs More Than Expected, compared M1/M1A1 operating and support costs and readiness with the M60. It is useful historical context because it shows that Abrams cost questions have long involved both spending and readiness.

That report belongs to its original period, configurations and accounting methods. The accessible summary does not establish a current numeric comparison, so its historical results should not be substituted for FY2023 maintenance data or used to estimate what an Abrams costs today.

How to interpret the numbers without overstating them

  • Use the FY2023 per-vehicle figure as a maintenance benchmark for an Army fleet, not as a complete annual ownership cost.
  • Use the FY2023 fleet total to understand scale, while remembering that fleet size and composition determine the average.
  • Treat the FY2015–FY2023 increase as an inflation-adjusted trend and note that GAO assigned nearly all of it to parts and materiel.
  • Pair any dollar figure with availability or mission-capable data; cost alone cannot show whether the fleet delivered usable combat power.
  • Do not convert maintenance spending into a cost per mile or hour unless matching usage and accounting data are available.
  • Label Army-wide or selected-fleet findings accurately instead of implying that every result is Abrams-specific.

Bottom line

The latest public benchmark answers only part of the question. An Abrams tank’s FY2023 Army maintenance measure was reported at $98,870 per vehicle, while fleet maintenance totaled $384.04 million. Most of the long-term increase came from parts and materiel, and readiness results show why spending must be evaluated alongside availability. A true “cost to operate” figure requires additional fuel, personnel, training, transportation, ammunition, overhaul, modernization and other O&S data that are not contained in the maintenance benchmark.

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