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Does the Tank Have a Future?

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Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#191

Post by thraway11 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #146
int_19h wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

It is illegal to have government communication in Russian or to have a Russian language radio station in Ukraine. I would call that banning Russian language from some aspects of public life.

Do you have a link for this? I hadn't heard about the Russian language being banned. I did know about this from 2019:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-parliament-langua...

"The new legislation requires TV and film distribution firms to ensure 90 percent of their content is in Ukrainian and for the proportion of Ukrainian-language printed media and books to be at least 50 percent."

It also says civil servants must speak Ukrainian. It does not say they can't also speak Russian.

In any case, that's not a ban.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#192

Post by firebaze »

734129837261 wrote: post #160

It's easier to make a weapon that takes out a tank, than it is to make a tank that can defend itself to it. Javelin missiles are just one thing, but cheap drones with simple rockets on them should be able to take out a moving force of numerous tanks. Imagine having an arsenal of 20 tanks storming your city. Now imagine having about 100 drones ordered from Amazon, outfitted with RKG-3 anti-tank grenades. One each. You…

Either you're kidding, or you're really ignoring the fact that "the enemy" will pursue the same? I'm slowly losing trust in humanity (ok, I'ma slow learner).

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#193

Post by jeffdn »

throwaway1492 wrote: post #126
aerostable_slug wrote: post #108

Tanks used correctly and in sufficient mass produces something called the Shock Effect of Armor . Smart munitions are getting more and more effective, but it's really hard to calmly lob missiles at a charging unit of tanks supported by artillery, infantry, CAS, etc. " Principle: armor in strength produces decisive shock effect The psychological shock effect that comes to troops on the receiving end of a massed armore…

Former US Army 19k here. Tanks are expensive to build, expensive to maintain, expensive to operate, hard to transport and require certain levels of infrastructure to operate in theater (bridges to support their weight). With current threats they are bound to become even heavier (and require more fuel). While I am all for seeing the rise of Bolo's, and I love shock effect as much as the next enthusiast, the ability of…

Dropping an RKG-3 grenade on a tank from a cheap drone also requires that the tank be stopped -- something that happens far less often in a war of movement than in trench warfare. The war in Ukraine has been extraordinarily static (like the Nagorno-Karabakh War), and this has provided the opportunities for COTS drones to be useful in this way. A combined-arms offensive on a divisional or corps front might take a handful of losses this way, but it most certainly will not be stopped.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#194

Post by motbob »

aerostable_slug wrote: post #108

Tanks used correctly and in sufficient mass produces something called the Shock Effect of Armor . Smart munitions are getting more and more effective, but it's really hard to calmly lob missiles at a charging unit of tanks supported by artillery, infantry, CAS, etc. " Principle: armor in strength produces decisive shock effect The psychological shock effect that comes to troops on the receiving end of a massed armore…

Battleships are pretty intimidating too. Still obsolete.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#195

Post by ansible »

MezzoDelCammin wrote: post #76
echelon wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a good rundown of every piece of weaponry and its corresponding utility and strategy somewhere? I'd love to update or correct my understanding of tanks, artillery, HIMARS, aircraft carriers, cruisers, littoral combat, submarine classes, F-22, F-35, AWACS, etc.

Single place? Probably no. But You can go branch by branch. For armor, Chieftain is probably as good as it gets in English when it comes to universality (he's both a historian and an active service Lt.Col. in the US NG). For further armor sources, I'd highly recommend the YT channel of Tank Museum Bovington: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheTankMuseum The chap whose video Chieftain replies to ("Perun") is worth follow…

Upvote for Perun. He very recently did a video on the apparent infantry shortage that the Russian forces seem to be facing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKewF8_SiIs

The short, short, short version is that the Russian BTGs (battalion tactical groups) and undermanned in general, and the conscripts are supposed to be filling most of the infantry slots. Theoretically, because this isn't a declared war, the conscripts aren't supposed to be fighting, and weren't sent to the "special military operation".

I enjoyed watching all the Ukraine war videos on that channel.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#196

Post by int_19h »

int_19h wrote: post #115
the_af wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Said massive artillery fire is directed from the drones. You hear a lot about Ukrainian Bayraktars, but the most mass-deployed combat drone in Ukraine right now is actually Mavic 2 & 3 - on both sides! In fact, it got to the point where there's a shortage of them in Russia because DJI stopped importing them, but units fighting in Ukraine constantly demand and get more via crowdfunding. (For the curious, here's a blog…

BTW, the same blogger also wrote a post recently that specifically discusses the differences in how Russian and Ukrainian forces employ their artillery. Also worth a read:

https://kenigtiger.livejournal.com/2148946.html

(I would generally recommend this entire blog for those curious about the tactics and the logistics of the conflict, because it's one of those rare cases when a guy who is directly involved in the war, and has a long-standing reputation as one of the prominent hawks, is consistently writing posts that are critical of his own side - which criticism is far more likely to be accurate than propaganda from the other side.)

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#197

Post by dsr_ »

jacquesm wrote: post #119
dsr_ wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You still need to protect the ammunition, otherwise a nearby explosion will set it off (this also happens at the moment but less so than I would expect it to happen with less armor, which also would make penetrating the wall much easier and which would make the tank a softer target altogether).

Sure, but you might not care as much because:

- you can airlift 25 2-ton dune-buggies instead of 1 50-ton tank

- you can buy 25 $2 million dune-buggies for the cost of 2 $25 million tanks

- if you sent 2 tanks, losing one is half of your force projection. If you sent 25 dune-buggies, losing one is 4% of your force.

- maintenance on an unmanned 2-ton dune-buggy has to be easier, faster and cheaper than maintenance on a tank. Tanks need dedicated recovery vehicles (or Ukrainian tractors) that cost nearly as much as another tank. Maintenance is going to be much, much easier without armor and the concomitant suspension for the armor getting in the way.

A hybrid powerplant is probably best -- a diesel motor-generator to charge batteries and run for distance, with an electric motor system and nice quiet relatively cool batteries for an hour or two of sneaking around at a time. Tanks don't sneak up on you, but a hybrid dune-buggy in battery mode can.

This also has knock-on effects for the civilian economy, because if the cool support weapon for the infantry is a quiet hybrid dune-buggy, the same thing with a crew cabin instead of a gun and ammo will be a smash hit.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#198

Post by thraway11 »

dragontamer wrote: post #77
the_af wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Whenever people talked about "suicide drones", I felt like they haven't studied the history of warfare. A surprising number of conflicts: WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, degenerated into artillery slugfests. You can't get much cheaper, faster, or more effective than guns shooting dumb explosives 20km away. Only when the opponents were stupidly overmatched by US Air Superiority (Afghanistan / Iraq) did things change. But ev…

> But even with Air Superiority over say, Vietnam, USA still degenerated into an artillery slugfest.

I just finished James Holland's Normandy '44 and I'd say, according to his book, that sentence pretty accurately describes pretty much all of the WW2 Normandy campaign as well.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#199

Post by themadturk »

int_19h wrote: post #144
jacquesm wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never say never, but you really don't want that to happen.

I didn't say anything about wanting it to happen. But if it happens, does anyone seriously believe that US could avoid re-instituting the draft?

A draft takes a long time to ramp up, and soldiers take a lot of time to train, so we're unlikely to start up a draft unless we expect a conflict to be protracted. The United States is unlikely to invade China and vice versa. A war pitting the US against China is likely to be largely naval- and air-oriented, with ground action (if any) concentrated on Taiwan, and will probably take at most a few weeks or months.

We mustn't forget Vizzini's Aphorism: Never get involved in a land war in Asia.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#200

Post by zoomablemind »

michaelt wrote: post #166
FredPret wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Clausewitz is to be believed, killing the enemy army is priority 1, and territory only matters in pursuit of that goal. Makes sense - if all combatants in the Russian army are dead, there’s no further need to defend territory for Ukraine. A boom with a border guard stamping passports would suffice.

Right, but what if you want to chase the Russians out of Ukraine without killing the Russian army to the last man?

When it gets to that point, the russian army without supply lines will have no other means to stay engaged.

Thus the priority from the very beginning was to disrupt the supply lines and ability to generate resources, meanwhile securing own supply and resources.

Ukraine needs more supply of long range artillery and lot more ammo for it ... yesterday and right now!

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