one hundred k.

At some point today, my little page counter thingie crested 100,000.

In honor of the occasion, I'll start a little contest.

When I was in the military, we used to have weekly armor recognition training. We'd sit in a room and look at pictures of tanks projected onto the wall in front of us. The pictures were often from a hundred or more yards away, or the vehicle was partially obscured by smoke or plantlife, and we'd only get five seconds per slide to recognize the vehicle and write down the type and variant before the next slide. We were also expected to write down the nationality of the vehicle for those variants which were unique to a specific country's armed forces--for example, a T-64 could only ever be Soviet because it was the one model they never exported to their Warsaw Pact satellite states.

This one won't be quite as difficult. Here's a picture of a Main Battle Tank from close range:



Your task is simple: name the model of the tank and its exact variant (i.e. Model M1 Abrams, variant M1A2). For this first edition of Armor Recognition Class, I kept it fairly easy--the AA armament should be a dead giveaway.

For additional bonus (bragging rights), identify the nationality of the MBT.

There's a prize, too!

The winner will receive my pristine extra copy of Robert A. Waters' "The Best Defense". You may claim it for yourself or designate a fence-sitting or otherwise needy friend to receive it in your stead.

First correct response comment takes the brass ring.