---
title: "Army chief of staff tweets M1 Abrams video that shows the wrong frickin’ tank"
description: "Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville recently tweeted a video love letter to the M1 Abrams tank"
date: "2020-05-29"
modified: "2020-05-29"
authors:
  - name: "Jeff Schogol"
    job_title: "Senior Pentagon Reporter"
    link: "https://taskandpurpose.com/authors/jeff-schogol/"
url: "https://taskandpurpose.com/news/army-tank-video-mcconville/"
categories:
  - "Culture"
  - "Mandatory Fun"
  - "Tanks"
  - "Tech & Tactics"
  - "Vehicles"
tags:
  - "video"
---

# Army chief of staff tweets M1 Abrams video that shows the wrong frickin’ tank

![](<https://taskandpurpose.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/leopard-3.jpg>)

For all of its #KnowYourMil outreach to the public, the U.S. military desperately needs to take a refresher course on tanks and artillery.

In November, the Defense Department’s official Twitter account shared a picture of [what they said was an M109 Paladin](<https://twitter.com/DeptofDefense/status/1197197915149815808>). Nope. It was a M1128 Stryker Mobile Gun System

Then, in March, the DoD tweeted a picture of “tanks” being offloaded a ship – [except they really were Paladins this time](<https://taskandpurpose.com/culture/paladin-tank-dod-fail/>).

And now, Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville recently tweeted a video love letter to the M1 Abrams tank along with the caption, “What type of Soldier operates an M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank?"

One problem: The tank at the very beginning of the video is not an M1 Abrams. It looks more like a Leopard variant used by the German army and other foreign militaries. (A 1986 German military video [showed off the Leopard 2’s gun stabilization](<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2mcO6l-0cY&app=desktop>) system by attaching a glass mug full of beer to the cannon and then driving the tank – none of the beer spilled.)

https://twitter.com/forbesmm/status/1266168415997362176

Experts on Twitter quickly noticed the error. Thus it came to Task & Purpose’s attention.

Because people enjoy being told when they make mistakes, Task & Purpose dutifully passed along the pertinent information to McConville’s spokesman.

The crisis was soon resolved.

“Thanks to feedback received from online followers, we removed a video highlighting the duties of an Armor Crewmember that mistakenly included a short clip of a Leopard Tank along with footage of M1 Abrams Tanks,” said Lt. Col. Curtis Kellogg. “Feedback like this improves the quality of our social media content.”

Rest assured, we at Task & Purpose are always ready to provide constructive feedback to our friends handling the Defense Department’s social media accounts.

## Author
Jeff Schogol is the senior Pentagon reporter for Task & Purpose. He reports on both the Defense Department as a whole as well as individual services, covering a variety of topics that include personnel, policy, military justice, deployments, and technology.

### Author social links  
[Instagram](<https://www.instagram.com/jdschogol/>)  
[LinkedIn](<https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-schogol-188a9317/>)  
[Twitter](<https://twitter.com/JeffSchogol>)