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Does the Tank Have a Future?

economist.com

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Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#91

Post by bpodgursky »

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…

I simplified the argument for brevity, but drones are critical to the artillery war right now because of spotting and fire-correction.

Artillery is far more lethal in 2022 than it was in 1945 because you can spot and kill individual infantry units from ten miles away.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#93

Post by dragontamer »

bpodgursky wrote: post #91
dragontamer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I simplified the argument for brevity, but drones are critical to the artillery war right now because of spotting and fire-correction. Artillery is far more lethal in 2022 than it was in 1945 because you can spot and kill individual infantry units from ten miles away.

That's just drones serving the role of forward-observer though.

The underlying tactic of someone, or something, out in the field, issuing radio messages back to home-base to coordinate artillery has been around since WW2, maybe earlier. Drones represent an evolution to the forward-observer paradigm, not a revolution.

In WW2, those were paratroopers, commandos, or other scouts who were performing those forward-observer duties while hiding inside of a treeline.

Sure, they were Morse code messages over a radio powered by a 20lb lead-acid battery pack with terrible encryption, but the fundamental tactic hasn't changed (especially because said forward-observer team would rarely be spotted... since they aren't firing their guns they're really hard to find)

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#94

Post by dsr_ »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #88
moffkalast wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the guy has a point in tanks being useful, but nobody's saying it can't be satelite controlled drone tanks.

I think that's a potentially useful idea. At this point, putting people in tanks is irresponsible. But that doesn't mean they couldn't be used as remotely-operated vehicles.

If it doesn't have to carry people, it can carry much less armor, which makes it more maneuverable; it might carry so much less mass that it doesn't need tracks to handle rough terrain. If it's light and nimble enough it doesn't need a turret to point the main weapon.

Is a remote-controlled dune buggy with a low-recoil rifle a tank?

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#95

Post by edmcnulty101 »

mrguyorama wrote: post #89
edmcnulty101 wrote: post #15

I never understood why the tank tracks weren't targeted. They look easy to immobilize.

Why do you think tank tracks aren't targeted? Unless you can directly pen/destroy a tank in one shot, in which case why would you not do that, "tracking" a tank is a common tactic to make it combat ineffective.

That entire article was about attacking the tank everywhere but the tracks.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#96

Post by int_19h »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #67
usrn wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure willingness matters as much in the military as you seem to think.

We'll see. We have an all-volunteer military here in the US, and that won't change, at this point. The idea, as always, is to get more done with fewer people.

It'll change very fast once US gets into a major war. Say, with China.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#97

Post by ckozlowski »

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.

Came here to post this, so glad to see you did!

I'll add a complimentary link for others' benefit from Military History Visualized: "Tanks are obsolete, apparently since 1919" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPth_xqBXGY

In short, people forget about Combined Arms warfare. One cannot look at the tank, or other arms of a military without understanding how it supports and is supported by the others. When that is overlooked, misunderstandings and exaggerated conclusions are the result.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#98

Post by int_19h »

phillc73 wrote: post #81
kashkhan wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A government needs to wage war at some level to exist. To eliminate war the motives for war created by governments need to be addressed. There is only one logical outcome, once you decide you don't want war.

Dispense with the government?

Governments are fine. It's states that are the problem. Nation-states (whether ethnic or civic) especially, because they have motivations to wage war that are connected to the fiction that forms their core: "this territory is historically ours", and "you're treating our people poorly". Both are in full display in Ukraine today, but just look at any "Greater ..." article in Wikipedia to see numerous other examples.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#99

Post by int_19h »

whimsicalism wrote: post #52
the_af wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

If war was the predictable outcome, Ukraine should probably have been more dovish towards Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the East, ie. not banning Russian language, not shelling cities. Obviously what Russia has done is reprehensible, but if Ukraine saw war as incoming I don't see why they took these aggravating steps.

Russian language isn't banned anywhere in Ukraine. Indeed, 5 minutes of combat footage from the Ukrainian side will quickly show that the majority of their armed forces speak Russian.

Even Russians themselves reflected on this, noting that most volunteer forces they have faced so far come not from the Western (majority-Ukrainian-speaking) regions of Ukraine, but rather from Kharkiv, Dnipro etc. Their explanation is that all those people are "brainwashed by Ukrainian Nazis".

There is some real contention with the status of Russian as 1) the official government language, and 2) the official education language in schools. But I don't think it's fair to phrase that as "banning Russian".

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#100

Post by trhway »

Russian tanks aren't a representative of a modern tank as among other things they have crappy active defense - it is all about electronics. Israel's is a good one, and their tanks survive multiple shots by actively killing incoming RPG warheads and the likes.

Also Russian tanks are on the light side as they can't manage a powerful enough engine required, ie gas turbine of 1500hp+. The best they have so far managed is 1000hp diesel on may be 200 tanks by now, the rest is old one 800hp. Thus their tanks have armor lighter and of older type than say Abrams.

And there is huge area of discussion about integration of all weapons on the battlefield - without such integration any weapon loses its efficiency tremendously - and Russian military is very bad at integration, and tanks in isolation are much weaker target as opponent much easily finds the window opportunity.

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