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Does the Tank Have a Future?

economist.com

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Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#341

Post by _carbyau_ »

kashkhan wrote: post #216
marcosdumay wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the warlike will win and then naturally turn their guns towards the locals Whether they do that as a democratic government, a dictatorship, a paragovernamental entity, or a set of mobs makes all the difference in the world.

Anyone pointing a gun at me is not my friend. Anyone that chooses a gun to get their way is not my friend. I don't trust people with guns. They are the same because they all choose violence to get their way. "Democratic" gun holders point more guns at me today than mobs.

The main problem with a pacifist approach is Darwinism. When the violent can herd/control/kill the non-violent. Then the next generation of people are likely to be of the dominant.

Words and persuasion are all very good, until you meet people who simply don't care.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#342

Post by tlear »

remarkEon wrote: post #313
yks wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

I see the Budapest memo referenced a lot but, obviously, it's a memo ... about ways to get rid of nukes. It's not a treaty that obligates anything at all from the United States or anyone else in terms of security support or guaranteeing Ukrainian sovereignty. I will grant, however, that the Ukrainians (and the Russians, we made promises to them in it too) probably feel pretty slighted with how history turned out in t…

Problem for US and rest of NATO is that Baltic countries ARE in NATO. Once Ukraine goes Vilnus is next. Is USA ready to fight a conventional war in the Baltics? With what manpower? Germany is utterly useless right now and will be for the foreseeable future, French army is way too small same with UK. Very soon you might have to go to the Nukes..

It is much cheaper and safer to fight this war in Ukraine rather then trying to liberate Lithuania

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#343

Post by _carbyau_ »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #319
wyldfire wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the drone were so inexpensive and portable that you could consider it like you do ammunition? Then the flight time and payload is much less critical - it's just a pilot-able bomb.

What if we just donated that money to all these hostile countries' citizens, and told them we'd stop the donations if they piss us off? Instead of dreaming of turning the future warzone from Terminator 2 into a reality?

Well, that (economic intervention) has effectively happened to Russia. And yet they are still going it seems. So to answer your question: Nothing would happen, at least for a few months it seems.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#344

Post by 29athrowaway »

ufmace wrote: post #257
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.

Yup. The key point is, a weapon system becomes obsolete when something else does its job better, not when it becomes more vulnerable. When something valuable becomes more vulnerable, you protect it better. When it becomes less valuable because something else does the job better, then you get rid of it. As of right now, nothing does a ground offensive like a few dozen tanks advancing at top speed with appropriate supp…

Occasionally, weapons make a comeback. Like the turtle ships of Admiral Yi Sun-sin.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#345

Post by thrwy_meta »

yks wrote: post #272
paganel wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>, but against a modern armed force they wouldn't stand a chance. They seem to be doing quite well against the modern army of Ukraine, NATO-trained for 7-8 years now.

The line of engagement barely moved in 3 months all the while Ukraine is hopelessly outgunned, Russians are doing quite well indeed /s. In reality UAF wasn't even a really modern army, just more modern than Russia, and all their "NATO" training in effect started in 2014. Where do people get the impression that Russian army is strong and capable is beyond me, they just throw people into the meat grinder and sit on top…

A properly-sized invasion force given the physical size of Ukraine, and the size of its army, should have been 400,000-600,000 strong. Russia went in with "Quantity has a quality all its own". They aren't considered "strong" because individual Russian battalions are expert warfighters per se. They're considered "strong" because the Russian military-industrial complex in its totality is not something that can be idly ignored by anyone except maybe the US or China.

Basically Russia scores high on 3 particular Principles of War: Mass, Offensive, and Simplicity. Not so well on the other 6 though.

https://www.trngcmd.marines.mil/Portals/207/Docs/TBS/B2B2269...

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#346

Post by _carbyau_ »

dsr_ wrote: post #69
lapsed_pacifist wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Indeed, if you value a soldier's life the same as a human's life, you really don't want them on the battlefield any more than absolutely necessary to defend against the invaders. Spears and catapults and bows make your soldiers effective dozens of yards away from the enemy. Rifles get your soldiers to a hundred, sometimes two hundred yards away. Artillery and drones make your soldiers effective up to a few miles away…

And yet, using artillery to wipe towns and cities from the map is a no no.

There is a balance here. Sometimes you have to risk the human.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#347

Post by thrwy_meta »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #287
paganel wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>, but against a modern armed force they wouldn't stand a chance. They seem to be doing quite well against the modern army of Ukraine, NATO-trained for 7-8 years now.

The impression I'm under is that the Ukraine forces have the will and the training to succeed, and maybe the manpower and intel, but not the weapons. And for some reason, we (meaning the rest of the civilized world) are dragging our feet on giving/lending them better hardware. Frustrating to watch.

We airlifted M777 howitzers to them in the blink of an eye, by the standards of government/military bureaucracy. Meanwhile out here in the First Island Chain we've been begging for reinforcements/gear/funding for the inevitable fight with China and THAT shit is definitely being slow-walked in comparison.

There are also larger issues to consider beyond just "we want the help the Ukrainians". The best stuff we can send has a bunch of sensitive NATO/US technical information (radio comms, etc.). Do we want to risk that gear falling into Russian hands (and by extension probably getting shared with China)? If the answer is "no", we either have to send alternatives or send the equipment to depot maintenance areas to have the sensitive tech removed. That takes time.

Do we want to risk escalating the war outside of Ukraine, if the Russians respond kinetically to armaments shipments? The answer is again an emphatic "no" from almost every nation except maybe Poland.

Hence the popular snarky refrain: "NATO will fight Russia to the last drop of Ukrainian blood". Western governments and people will "stand with Ukraine" as long as it doesn't involve them really risking anything (such as themselves being on the receiving end of Russian missiles or artillery).

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#348

Post by zoomablemind »

thriftwy wrote: post #308
zoomablemind wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...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…

>...What happens if Putin is not insane? What happens if there were better diplomatic outcome to this situation that the war?

There're no more what ifs. The madman was amassing the troops on the border for months, dismissing any possibilities of preparing an invasion. Then invaded, and openly blackmailed the rest of the world with a nuclear strike, all spreaded by his chief "diplomat".

Present day russia as state proved to be pathologically incapable of maintaining signed treaties.

If anything, the diplomacy needed to rely on the effective sanctions. However, that's were the failure was. Since the 2014 the sanction pressure proved to be insignificant to alter russia's course. Did we get a second chance at it now?

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#349

Post by thrwy_meta »

yks wrote: post #279
remarkEon wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a fan of our (US + NATO) current Ukraine policy, but that isn't because I'm an isolationist. I think it's just dumb policy, on several different dimensions. The version of the criticism you're leveling right now can be inverted very easily. That the people arguing for escalation in Ukraine, that it's "the exact same thing [that] happened in 1938" (it isn't), and that unless we do things like a NFZ it leads to…

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…

>>>You either accept a moral responsibility to protect sovereign nations from elimination

And yet we've been arming the Saudis while they starve and bomb the Yemenis into oblivion for the past 10 years.

>>>This is not only about Ukraine, this is about the whole Eastern Europe

https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Wars-are-only-evil-when-West...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/02/civili...

I find the degree to which HN has taken umbrage with this particular war.....unsurprising, yet extremely telling.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#350

Post by bpodgursky »

mtnGoat wrote: post #170
bpodgursky wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

ten? i think its closer to 30 miles. If memory serves me correctly, my brother said the cannon he captained was capable of incredible accuracy at 30 miles.

Yeah, agreed, NATO gear is. Russia and Ukraine mostly aren't using guided shells right now.
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