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Does the Tank Have a Future?

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Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#301

Post by jrochkind1 »

bombcar wrote: post #36
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.

> I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it. As long as there are conflicting desires, there will be conflict, and it can break out into war. However, it's possible that war can be reduced, but it may require things we're not quite ready for, such as the end of Westphalian states.

I'm ready

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#302

Post by trhway »

int_19h wrote: post #103
trhway wrote: post #100

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…

Have Israeli tanks ever faced Javelins tho?

Javelin is on a higher end. A most advanced Russian tank - T-90M - available in the army (while T-14 "Armata" is supposed to be more advanced it isn't available in the army really) was taken out by a side hit from a much lighter/simpler/cheaper "Carl-Gustaf" which a good modern active protection system should be able to shoot down relatively easy.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#303

Post by jrochkind1 »

cestith wrote: post #281
whimsicalism wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comparison with the US is disingenuous - it is not illegal to open a French language school in the United States, it is in Ukraine. Previously, Russian was allowed to be taught in schools in Ukraine. It was then banned from being taught in schools even in regions where the majority of people speak Russian. Furthermore, it is illegal in Ukraine to have a Russian language radio station. I encourage you to read up o…

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-parliament-langua... does not mention banning Russian-language schools nor, in fact, mentions banning teaching it in addition to Ukrainian in the same school. There's an education law that says that starting in 2023, all state schools must be taught primarily in Ukranian at and above the fifth grade . While imperfect, it does allow teaching in several minority languages, esp…

The result of the invasion does seem to be a huge increase in anti-Russian language and anti-Russian "ethnicity" feeling among Ukrainian-speakers though. Which was pretty minimal before. Which is pretty terrible. I'm not saying it was a cause or justification of the invasion. I'm saying things are getting worse. As they usually do as a result of war. It's horrible.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#304

Post by yks »

remarkEon wrote: post #299
yks wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You either accept a moral responsibility to protect sovereign nations from elimination, and elimination at this point was stated by Russian officials and media as a goal numerous times, or you accept the Russian position of "lands and peoples belong to the strong men" and we're back to the age of conquest, but now with nukes. Not only the former position is morally right, but it also prevents or at least postpones th…

I don't recall the United States and Ukraine signing a mutual defense pact, or a treaty that designates the United States as the guarantor of Ukrainian independence. The former position you are advocating for literally amounts to "the United States is the Global Empire, and all changes in state arrangements must be approved by Her". That's fine, but just make that your argument. Trying to morally guilt trip people is…

> a treaty that designates the United States as the guarantor of Ukrainian independence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

> there's at least a dozen other conflicts around the world right now where you can make the same argument

Which other conflict is waged with the goal of eliminating the country completely and destroy its culture?

There were no major conflicts of this kind since WW2. Changing the government, plenty of times, but not erasing borders with the cultural genocide and some forced children "relocation" on top of that.

I didn't say anything about the US as a global empire or whatever, it's the collective World's responsibility to maintain peace and it's failing. But I say that there are clear "good guys" and "bad guys" here, regardless of the history of the US.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#305

Post by thriftwy »

jeffdn wrote: post #205
Jistern wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is extremely misleading. Modern militaries are rapidly transforming into what was science fiction, say, 50 years ago: almost exclusively remote-controlled robots and primarily (or even exclusively) autonomous robots. If you call small, unmanned, armored vehicles "tanks" you are misleading people. In modern militaries, whether it be surface ships, submarines, airplanes, tanks, etc.... within another few d…

This is a complete misunderstanding of warfare. Drones cannot take and hold ground. Without infantry, an external power cannot exert influence over an area. Sure, they can wantonly kill civilians, but that doesn't mean they are in charge. Until and unless autonomous drones with general artificial intelligence can be mass-produced and deployed on the scale of infantry brigades, massed infantry will be required. Even t…

> The Eastern European countries, who all have a long history of being oppressed and occupied by Russian (and Soviet) governments.

Several of these countries were created by the actions of Russian government.

That narrative will really have to go in favor of much more granular approach to post-WW2 history.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#306

Post by dgb23 »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #189
paxys wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of what you have mentioned are inherent shortcomings of tanks in a modern battlefield. They are fuel intensive. They need massive logistical support. They are vulnerable to targeted attacks, like from drones. None of this is unique to the Ukraine situation. It is very hard for tanks to be effective in the age of cheap UAVs.

Infantry are vulnerable to literally everything, and yet no one besides some dingbats that watched terminator too many times are suggesting the age of infantry is over. Aircraft are vulnerable to missiles. Is anyone suggesting the age of aircraft are over? Drones, particularly consumer quadcopter adopted out of convenience are vulnerable to missiles, autocannons, and electronic warfare. Does not the very same logic b…

> But the basic concept of combing firepower, mobility, and protection is not going away any time soon.

This reads like the gist of it. I imagine them getting lighter, heavier, more sophisticated/expensive, cheaper, slower or faster. But the basic archetype seems to be almost timeless as long as there is some utility for armor, mobility and projectile weapons.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#307

Post by dragonwriter »

remarkEon wrote: post #283
dragonwriter wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The argument was that the AVF wouldn't negatively impact force readiness, not that the draft was "bad" from a military manpower perspective The argument for the AVF has evolved over time; the issue wasn't once and done, and the importance of longer service terms in a wide range of specialties has been increasingly cited in arguments for maintaining the AVF. But even in the original Gates Commission report, the AVF…

That's a really charitable description. There was enormous political pressure in 1968 to find a way to end the draft since Nixon promised in the campaign that he would do it. When you tell people to go find ways to do it, especially when you're the President, they're going to find ways. The entire premise of the AVF at the time was that it would work fine, if you could still do a draft if you needed to . The Commissi…

> That's a really charitable description.

No, it's just accurate to what's in the report.

> The entire premise of the AVF at the time was that it would work fine, if you could still do a draft if you needed to.

No, it wasn't. While the standby draft was in the report as a safeguard to slightly reduce the the from-0 spinup time of a draft, the argument presented is not “an AVF is non-harmful as long as backstopped by a standby draft”, but “the AVF is superior on both practical economic efficiency grounds and ethical respect for personal liberty grounds in essentially every conceivable situation (with extensive analysis of the former and philosophical argument for the latter), and, just in case, we can also set up a standby draft system so things aren't quite needing to be built from scratch if Congress and the President ever decide a draft is needed for some reason again.”

In fact, the section of the Gates Commission report on the Standby Draft makes, obliquely, very good argument against the standby draft ever being the right choice, pointing out that it cannot immediately produce forces in an emergency because of time to train and organize, so it is only useful for gradual expansion, but then arguing for voluntary recruitment measures like compensation boosts for gradual expansion to be used in preference to activating the standby draft.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#308

Post by thriftwy »

zoomablemind wrote: post #155
whimsicalism wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>...Ukraine should probably have been more dovish towards Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the East, ie. not banning Russian language, not shelling cities. This is an understandably myopic view. Especially now, as the whole charade of justification and "objectives" of russia's invasion in Ukraine is in full swing. Perhaps, remembering that in putin's view, Ukraine is not an independent state, its existence is a mistake…

> it has long been clear that no amount of pacifying or "non-irritating" is to alter such policy.

This represents the total failure of diplomacy present in today's discourse.

We no longer think diplomacy affects the outcome and we think that any compromises from our side is just "free stuff" for the other one.

What happens if Putin is not insane? What happens if there were better diplomatic outcome to this situation that the war? The ones that were missed by the lack of effort?

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#309

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

SubjectToChange wrote: post #285
spacemanmatt wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> an active protection system specifically for top attack munitions like Javelin Worth noting: The western-made MANPADs are designed to exploit a serious design flaw in Soviet-era tanks. The ammunition is stored in the turret where it is easy to ignite externally. That's why we have so much youtube of Russian tanks blowing their turret sky-high. Long story short, design failure can't be remedied by anything they can…

MANPADS are anti-air weapons. Also, what western tank doesn't store most of its ammunition in the turret?

On an Abrams the ready to use rounds are stored in a partitioned sort of "duck tail" hanging off the back of the turret, with an armored door separating it from the crew compartment, and blast off panels on top.

The specific issue the other comment is referring to is unique to Soviet designed tanks that combined an autoloader with an ammo rack carrousel that's below the crew in the turret. This proved to be a big design flaw, but is not one universal across non Soviet tanks.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#310

Post by thriftwy »

cestith wrote: post #281
whimsicalism wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comparison with the US is disingenuous - it is not illegal to open a French language school in the United States, it is in Ukraine. Previously, Russian was allowed to be taught in schools in Ukraine. It was then banned from being taught in schools even in regions where the majority of people speak Russian. Furthermore, it is illegal in Ukraine to have a Russian language radio station. I encourage you to read up o…

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-parliament-langua... does not mention banning Russian-language schools nor, in fact, mentions banning teaching it in addition to Ukrainian in the same school. There's an education law that says that starting in 2023, all state schools must be taught primarily in Ukranian at and above the fifth grade . While imperfect, it does allow teaching in several minority languages, esp…

Russian-speaking citizens don't really want to study Russian as an "elective subject". They want to study in Russian. You have confirmed that it was getting no longer possible.

That's like forcing all Canadians to be only taught in French and subsequently losing Vancouver to the US.

So you have just confirmed everything that propaganda was talking about and were quite efficient at that.

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