Room to Breathe: Inside an Abrams Tank

FORT HOOD, Texas - Eyes darting left to right, near and far, Staff Sgt. Logan Davis scans the lush forests of Hohenfels, Germany, looking for an enemy he is prepared to meet head-on from the gunner’s seat of an M1 Abrams main battle tank. Davis reminisces about his past training operations from the turret of a different tank at Fort Hood, Texas.

Inside a controlled training environment, Davis, having spent nearly two weeks inside a tank, was pushed close to the limits of his control. Sitting in the commander’s vehicle, he had his leadership to his back while his battle buddy was on his commander’s side.

Personal space was solely a memory for Davis in a location that made submarines seem akin to the vast oceans they navigate rather than the tight enclosures for which they are known.

“My tank commander at the time was about as tall as I am. I’m 6 feet tall, so he’s about 6-foot-1, 6-foot-2, give or take. His knees were basically jammed into my back because he can’t fit in a tank commanding spot regardless of how he sits,” Davis says.

While Davis and his commander met their military occupational specialty requirements, being 73 inches, or 6 feet, 1 inch, or shorter, that did not mean they did so comfortably. After all, the Army’s focus is to accept and push through immediate operational challenges.

Davis says, “My face is in my sights, and I have my guns to my left and my weapons in there as well. You have the main breech of the main gun, then you have the coaxial machine gun that’s right next to it. To my right was the display panel. It’s hot. All the systems are hot to the touch. That’s one of the reasons why we’re required to wear gloves is because everything can get hot, and they don’t want you burning your fingers.”

The rain added another challenge. Davis and his comrades, not wanting to get wet on top of all the other discomforts, closed their hatches. As time passed, the tank’s engine generated more heat. The warmth felt almost tangible, closing in on Davis inside a vehicle with minimal space.

The combination eventually became too much.

With the rain continuing outside and the hatches closed, Davis felt the confined space around him begin to shrink. His face remained pressed close to his sights. Heat radiating from the tank’s systems surrounded him, while his commander’s knees remained pressed into his back out of necessity.

“I just felt trapped,” Davis says. “Everything was getting tighter and closer. My face was right there in my sights, I couldn’t really move, and I just felt claustrophobic.”

For a moment, the mission inside the tank became secondary to something more immediate: getting out.

Davis pushed his commander’s knee aside and climbed over him, forcing his way out of the cramped turret and into the open air.

“He was not the happiest of persons,” Davis says.

But Davis needed the space. He needed to breathe.

“I took a couple of minutes, drank some water, took some big breaths, and then sat back down,” Davis says. “I was good.”

The moment passed almost as quickly as it arrived. Davis returned to the gunner’s seat and continued the exercise.

For someone who had never experienced claustrophobia before, the episode was less a warning of what would come than a reminder of how quickly the conditions of combat can overwhelm even familiar surroundings. The tank had not changed. The mission had not changed. Davis simply needed a few minutes outside of it.

Despite the experience, he says it never became a lasting fear.

“Before that moment, I’ve never really had any claustrophobic moments in my life,” Davis says. “Even after that, I don’t really have claustrophobic moments.”

In some ways, the experience mirrors what brought Davis into the Army in the first place. Growing up in West Virginia, he says he was looking for something beyond the opportunities he saw at home. An Army recruiter offered him action, adventure and the chance to meet people around the world.

Davis arrived knowing exactly what he wanted: to become an M1 armor crewman.

That decision was not entirely unfamiliar. His father served as an Army tanker from 1994 to 2008, giving Davis an early understanding of the world he was choosing to enter.

Now, from inside an Abrams turret, Davis has experienced both the appeal and discomfort of that choice. The adventure comes with long missions, cramped quarters, heat, rain and moments when even breathing room becomes a luxury.

Still, when asked whether the recruiter delivered on the promise that brought him to the Army, Davis has a simple answer.

“So far, he’s been telling the truth,” Davis says. “I wanted to leave West Virginia, I wanted to be a tanker, and I wanted to get out and see the world.”

For Davis, sometimes seeing the world means seeing it through a gunsight from a space barely large enough to move. And sometimes, after nearly two weeks inside a tank, it means climbing over his commander just to find enough room to breathe.

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