U.S. Army Expands M1 Abrams Tanks Breach Capability with 20 M1074 Joint Assault Bridges.

The U.S. Army awarded Leonardo DRS a $44.9 million contract to deliver 20 Joint Assault Bridge systems in Missouri.

The contract modification covers production and spares through March 2027, aligned with the Army’s FY2026 procurement plan and additional support to Operation Atlantic Resolve. Built on an Abrams chassis, the M1074 Joint Assault Bridge enables protected gap crossing under fire, a capability central to maneuver warfare in Europe and other high-threat theaters.

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U.S. Army Joint Assault Bridge vehicles under a new $44.98 million DRS Sustainment Systems contract will expand protected gap-crossing capability, allowing Abrams-led armored formations to breach obstacles and maintain momentum in high-intensity combat (Picture source: U.S. DoW).

The award was announced in the March 31, 2026, contract digest, and it aligns with the Army’s FY2026 procurement plan, which funds 20 base Joint Assault Bridges and one additional vehicle for Operation Atlantic Resolve. That linkage matters because it shows the Army still treats heavy assault bridging as a readiness and deterrence requirement, especially for armored maneuver forces expected to fight in Europe.

The Joint Assault Bridge is an armored combat-engineering system rather than a weapon platform. Current Army budget documents identify it as the M1074 JAB and describe it as an M1A1 Abrams chassis fitted with M1A2 heavy suspension, a hydraulic Bridge Launch Mechanism, and the Heavy Assault Scissor Bridge rated to Military Load Class 115; Leonardo DRS lists the bridge span at 18.3 meters, vehicle length at about 12.8 meters, width at 4.15 meters, and C-5/C-17 air transportability. Engineer branch material also notes the use of the TIGER-revitalized Abrams powerpack, reinforcing commonality with the Army’s heavy armor fleet.

That technical package translates into a very specific tactical effect. The JAB’s decisive payload is not a cannon but a bridge that can be launched under armor, recovered rapidly, and used by the same heavy formations it supports. Army and DOT&E reporting shows the vehicle kept pace with maneuver forces on roads and cross-country routes, met bridge launch and retrieval time requirements, and gave engineer units a wet- or dry-gap crossing capability needed to execute doctrinal combat missions. An official Army modernization paper adds that it can span an 11-meter gap in about three minutes, cutting crew exposure while accelerating the breach.

Operationally, the JAB is valuable because modern armored combat is often lost not at the line of contact, but at the obstacle. Tanks, Bradleys, Paladins, and breaching assets are only as useful as their ability to pass anti-tank ditches, canalized terrain, destroyed bridges, or deliberate defensive belts without bunching into easy kill zones. The Army has already demonstrated this logic in unit training: in 2021, the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, used the JAB in a combined-arms breach that carried both the M1A2 SEPv3 Abrams and M109A7 Paladin across the bridge, with Army officers describing the capability as transformative for near-peer combat.

The program also addresses a survivability problem that legacy bridging systems could no longer solve. Army budget documents say the JAB replaces the M104 Wolverine and older M48A5/M60-based AVLB fleets in Brigade Engineer Battalions, Mobility Augmentation Companies, and Combat Engineer Companies-Armored. DOT&E judged the JAB operationally effective and suitable, while noting areas where survivability upgrades were being pursued; the broader point is that the Army now has a bridge layer built on Abrams mobility, armor, and support architecture instead of a slower, older chassis that risks falling behind the assault force it is supposed to enable.

In service, the numbers show why this contract matters. The Regular Army’s FY2025 operations and maintenance books list 36 Joint Assault Bridges in its combat-support pacing inventory, while Leonardo DRS announced in February 2024 that it had delivered the 100th JAB to the U.S. Army. At the program level, the FY2026 Army budget sets an acquisition objective of 297 vehicles, with 116 procured in prior years, 26 funded in FY2024, 28 in FY2025, and 21 requested in FY2026. In other words, the Army is well into fielding, but still far from its end-state fleet.

There is also a useful cost insight behind this award. The $44.98 million contract notice should not be mistaken for the Army’s full all-up cost for 20 complete JABs. The FY2026 budget justification prices the 20-vehicle base buy at $124.95 million in gross weapon-system cost, while the hardware production table lists a unit contractor cost of roughly $2.2 million, indicating this modification likely covers the Leonardo DRS production slice within a wider government-managed procurement structure that also includes depot work, integration, and other program costs.

Large-scale ground combat against a peer adversary demands not only lethality but the ability to preserve tempo after contact and after breaching. The JAB gives armored commanders that tempo by restoring mobility at the exact point where an enemy wants to stop it. It complements wider Abrams modernization, the continued relevance of the M109A7 Paladin, and the Army’s broader investment in breaching and engineer systems. In that sense, this contract is about much more than 20 bridge layers: it is about ensuring U.S. armored brigades can keep attacking once the battlefield stops being a road march and becomes an obstacle fight.