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Does the Tank Have a Future?

economist.com

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Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#41

Post by CamperBob2 »

breadloaf wrote: post #16

Yes it does. See "The Chieftain: No, The Tank Is Not Dead" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI7T650RTT8 TLDW: Tank has a task on a battlefield and fact that you can easily kill it won't take that task away. Same goes for infantry and they are not going away either. On the other hand we don't see battleships anymore, because big guns were replaced by precise missiles with much more range.

The only reason you'd use tanks or infantry in a modern war is that you don't have enough drones and missiles.

Maybe you're willing to climb into a tank after what we've seen in Ukraine recently, but that's all you, pal.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#42

Post by vorpalhex »

the_af wrote: post #28
mike-the-mikado wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably the war is happening because we had prepared for it insufficiently.

It's hard to understand how "we" could not have prepared sufficiently. This conflict in Europe isn't a spur of the moment thing. Arguably it could have been in the making since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but even if you don't go that far back, then at least from 2014. It certainly didn't come out of the blue! I'll make my comment more assertive: I think "we" (for almost any value of "we") prepared for this.…

I think EU specifically dropped it's defense and R&D budgets and became too weak, making land grabs by Russia possible.

There's a reason Russia feels good blustering about attacking Finland.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#43

Post by kashkhan »

aetherson wrote: post #30
kashkhan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe war shouldn't have a future and not a role. We've had enough of the european way of war.

What would your current advice be for the Ukraine?

Getting more tanks ain't it. More war also not it.

Russian empire needs to be dismantled. But unlikely UKR waging war on russia will do it.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#44

Post by mattnewton »

prometheus76 wrote: post #14
metabagel wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could say it the other way around - once the tank stocks are depleted, anti-tank weapons can still play a devastating role (against other armored or unarmored vehicles).

You could say it the other way around, but the complexity of the electronics in the anti-tank weapons have proven to be difficult to produce in large quantities because of the chip shortage, but also because of the high level of experience and knowledge required to continue to make them. Tanks are much less reliant on complex electronics and manufacturing capability in order to be effective on the battlefield. The US…

How many years will it take to replace the 700 or so tanks lost in Ukraine? Russia is estimated to have 3,000 or so tanks currently operating, they are closing in on losing 1/4th their number. It’s unclear how many of their roughly 10k in storage are still working and whether making new tanks or repairing those will have the same chip shortage problems.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#45

Post by skylanh »

kashkhan wrote: post #19
breadloaf wrote: post #16

Yes it does. See "The Chieftain: No, The Tank Is Not Dead" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI7T650RTT8 TLDW: Tank has a task on a battlefield and fact that you can easily kill it won't take that task away. Same goes for infantry and they are not going away either. On the other hand we don't see battleships anymore, because big guns were replaced by precise missiles with much more range.

Maybe war shouldn't have a future and not a role. We've had enough of the european way of war.

This is sort of my reference point from a salient and personal perspective on why government's have departments of defense.

TEDxAmsterdam: Peter van Uhm: Why I chose a gun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjAsM1vAhW0

Link to TED profile: https://www.ted.com/speakers/peter_van_uhm

"Peter van Uhm [was from 17 April 2008 until 28 June 2012] the Netherlands' chief of defense" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_van_Uhm

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#46

Post by lapsed_pacifist »

dsr_ wrote: post #23
prometheus76 wrote: post #7

Judging by the current situation, it seems that there are more resources for building tanks than there are for building anti-tank weapons. Once the anti-tank weapon stocks have been depleted, tanks still play a devastating role in warfare. EDIT: I'm just relaying what I read in several articles about the difficulties in making anti-tank weapons because they rely on rare-earth minerals and because they rely on silicon…

A tank is 15-75 tons of armor, engine, chassis and gun. It costs millions of dollars per tank. An antitank weapon is 6-120 lbs of propulsion, controller and warhead. It costs between a thousand and tens of thousands of dollars per weapon. Economics refutes you.

A soldier is tens of thousands of dollars of training and gear. A bullet costs pennies. Thus soldiers have no place on the battlefield?

I think you should watch Chieftains video and read some military theory. Simply being vulnerable to less expensive weapon systems does not make a unit/vehicle/soldier useless or obsolete.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#47

Post by the_af »

dragontamer wrote: post #17
bpodgursky wrote: post #6

A lot of people are asking whether tanks are survivable anymore, but nobody is asking whether unarmored infantry are any more survivable in the era of small-drone warfare. It's all relative.

Small drone warfare? The Ukraine / Russian conflict has degenerated into trench warfare with thousands of 155mm / 152mm artillery being shot into each other's positions per day. These are the kinds of conditions where tanks excel. Humans who try to walk at 3km/hr get blown up by shrapnel, even 100m away is "close enough" to cause a significant injury and take a human out of a fight. Tanks? They pretty much ignore eve…

In support of your statement, I'm impressed that Russian doctrine seems to rely so much on good ol' trusty massive artillery, of the dumb kind.

I guess, if it works...

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#48

Post by sokoloff »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #41
breadloaf wrote: post #16

Yes it does. See "The Chieftain: No, The Tank Is Not Dead" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI7T650RTT8 TLDW: Tank has a task on a battlefield and fact that you can easily kill it won't take that task away. Same goes for infantry and they are not going away either. On the other hand we don't see battleships anymore, because big guns were replaced by precise missiles with much more range.

The only reason you'd use tanks or infantry in a modern war is that you don't have enough drones and missiles. Maybe you're willing to climb into a tank after what we've seen in Ukraine recently, but that's all you, pal.

If you want to occupy territory, you've got to do that on the ground.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#49

Post by bombcar »

londons_explore wrote: post #33
prometheus76 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could say it the other way around, but the complexity of the electronics in the anti-tank weapons have proven to be difficult to produce in large quantities because of the chip shortage, but also because of the high level of experience and knowledge required to continue to make them. Tanks are much less reliant on complex electronics and manufacturing capability in order to be effective on the battlefield. The US…

I think the shortage is mostly due to a lack of a desire to make big changes to resolve the issue. If a meeting was called of 10 big tech/manufacturing companies and they were each told they'd be hansomely rewarded if they managed to make large volumes of a missile design, and that all IP/Patent laws would be suspended for the purpose, I guarantee you that there would be massive stockpiles within the month.

We have no idea what a major economy like the current US would look like if it went on a real war footing. According to this [34] we spent 40% of GDP on WWII (equivalent of $5 trillion today) - that would be almost $10 trillion a year now if we did the equivalent. That's absolutely insane numbers, and many, many things would change, and quite quickly.

[34] https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2020/february/war-...

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#50

Post by horsawlarway »

prometheus76 wrote: post #7

Judging by the current situation, it seems that there are more resources for building tanks than there are for building anti-tank weapons. Once the anti-tank weapon stocks have been depleted, tanks still play a devastating role in warfare. EDIT: I'm just relaying what I read in several articles about the difficulties in making anti-tank weapons because they rely on rare-earth minerals and because they rely on silicon…

I don't understand this comment.

The anti-tank weaponry is an order of magnitude less expensive than the tank (some is several orders).

The M1A2 Abrams has a unit cost of around 10 million USD (numbers from 2016, so likely higher now).

The drones currently destroying tanks in Ukraine (Bayraktar TB2) had a unit price of around 5 million, although some estimates are as low as 1-2 million per unit delivered to Ukraine at this point (production has ramped up).

notably - the whole drone isn't consumed when a tank is destroyed, so I really suspect we're going to see a drastic ramp up in drone warfare.

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