The M109A6 Paladin isn’t, strictly speaking, a tank. Instead, it’s a self-propelled howitzer, a weapons system twinned with a Field Artillery Ammunition Supply Vehicle. Running on treads, sporting modest aluminum armor and operated by a six-person crew, it has much in common with classic tanks like the M1 Abrams, but is a rather different beast.
The first M109 arrived in 1963, and was intended to rectify the M108’s issue with the lighter weight of its primary weapon. The creators of this 155mm weapon, then known as United Defense LP, gave it a range of about nine miles in its first iteration, but the M109 family would expand as surely as the maximum range at which it could fire.
By the time of the Paladin (which was produced until 1999), the M109A4 had added sophisticated equipment like Mission Oriented Protective Posture Equipment, the M109A5 had upgraded to a 440hp engine, and that formidable gun could potentially strike further and more accurately than the initial M109 could have dreamed of doing.
