What do you mean by "nuclear"? a nuclear power plant instead of the turbine? that's not likely to happen anytime soon. shells with nuclear warheads? what for?

Lol, nuclear propulsion for a tank...what's gonna happen when an M1 gets hit and there's radioactive contamination?!

He might be refering to the impact of one of the Depleted Uranium shells. I believe when one hits a brief burst of radiation is caused or something to that effect.

How bizzare, The only instance I could imagine an M1A1 becoming radioactive, is if it where exposed to high energy neutrons. The DU in the armor would, in essense, become fissile material exposing the crew to a flash of X-Ray type radiation.

He is probably referring to nuke shells. But if you take out one of these "special delivery" tanks the nuke shells would be worth the tank's weight in gold. I don't know if it's worth the technological risk to loose one of these warheads in a place like Iran so the nuke shell can end up in China.

I've never heard of anyone ever making nuclear shells for tank guns. My opinion is it is undoubtedly a variation on the pacifist/ecofanatic/rabidantiadministration/tinfoilhat crap concerning our use of DU in the APFSDS projectiles and in the armor. Displacedjim

At first I thought he meant, going nuclear powered, but now I've re read it he's seems to be asking whether it can go nuclear, as in explode like a nuclear bomb. The answer would be no. Depleted uranium has less than 0.7% U-235, which is the fissile isotope of uranium. That is less U-235 than natural uranium. If the M1 could go nuclear the Northern Territory in Australia, where they mine bucket loads of uranium, would be having regular nuclear explosions occuring when they blast the ore.

I thought the question was about arming the M1 with a-bomb shells.

It's a badly posed question thats for sure.

The DU armor would not be fissionable material, If the tank got expose to a neutron level high enough to start fissionable reactions, it has been turned into plasma. All of it, crew included. DU armor, is not normally fissionable. The smallest, recorded, US nuclear weapon was just over 50 lbs. That was developed over 50 years ago. Nuclear rnds can be made small enough to to fire from the 120mm cannon. But, why Bob