Pat. I have read other reports getting bent out of shape over the " jet fuel" (non)issue and a lot of that comes from the original excuses for not sending them as that MSN report shows....
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For weeks, Pentagon officials said publicly that the Abrams tanks weren't suited for the fight in Ukraine, including because of the fuel they need to operate.
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"jet fuel" is the preferred fuel in the US Army and that is what gives the very best performance.
BUT.....the engine was designed to be multi-fuel and those "Pentagon officials" would have or should have known the vehicles engine was multi fuel
https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/0...1-abrams-tank/
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Its 1,500hp Honeywell turbine engine can burn a variety of fuels including diesel, jet fuel, gasoline, and marine diesel. The advantage of a turbine engine versus a diesel engine is that it requires no warm-up period, has less moving parts, and needs no cooling system.
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and further about
fuel from another source....(slightly edited for clarity)
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Pretty much whatever you like - just so long as you have lots of it.
So far it’s the only MBT in mass production with a turbine engine (the Russians did have an attempt at it but gave up). Turbines are really useful as they’re compact, very powerful, and you can feed them pretty much anything so long as it’s a liquid containing hydrocarbons. Cooking fuel, aviation gas, diesel, petrol, methanol, alcohol, you name it
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and.........
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This is great for the Logistics chaps as they don’t have to worry about providing different fuels for different vehicles and, in extreme situations the tank may be able to procure something locally if fuel is limited. The downside for Logistics is that the Abrams drinks fuel like it’s in the only open bar on judgement day
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And that "jet fuel" can be plain old Kerosene so "fuel" for them is not a problem
except for how much of it you need ( or if nice short "sound bite" excuse is needed for not sending them )
That all said IMHO
and I am not alone, Germany needed to be seen as not be the only ones sending "NATO" MBTs and the US sending Abrams allowed them to say "it's not just us" and it *may* have been the UK agreeing to send Challengers that uncorked that particular bottleneck. Abrams and Challengers will be useful but neither of those will be as potentially plentiful from so many other sources as the Leo and from the info I have read, it's also the MBT with the quickest learning curve to operate and maintain.