The Assault Breacher Vehicle or ‘ABV’ is (as of 2018) the United States’ latest Combat Engineering Vehicle or ‘CEV’. It is built on the hull of the US Military’s currently serving Main Battle Tank (MBT), the
M1 Abrams. CEVs were a concept made famous by the British in the Second World War with the
AVRE (Armored Vehicle Royal Engineers), and since then, similar vehicles have been a part of every major army. The ABV is the first of such vehicles to see service with the US military since the
M60 based M728 CEV was retired from service in the mid-to-late 1990s, and this vehicle’s direct predecessor, the remotely operated
M1 Abrams-based M1 Panther II, was retired from service in the late 2000s.