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Does the Tank Have a Future?

economist.com

441–450 of 490 posts

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Several of these countries were created by the actions of Russian government. Which ones?

I think that's Bulgaria, Romania and Moldavia, but maybe more. And, of course, Ukraine and Belarus. Maybe some of Balkan states as well if you count them as eastern european.

OK, and Russia caused the pogroms and a genocidal famine in Ukraine. It's not a good idea to learn your country's history in an overly rosy way. In fact, being kind to nationalists may have caused the present war. Russians should know that their country has had a sordid history.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#443
post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 try…

I think what you mean to say is that "NATO is the United States, the rest of the countries are just members". That's not to knock, necessarily, the rest of the members - they've all made choices and assumptions about their own security. I agree, this is a problem, for many more reasons than the fact that only a small percentage of Americans know which country Vilnius is in, let alone where it is on a map. >It is much…

Do they know that? Will Germany magically stop using Russian gas, reinstitute draft and manage to produce more than a dozen tanks a year? All the signals pre-invasion of Ukraine pointed to no. Unlike Ukraine right now Baltics CAN be taken by a surprise air mobile assault, some of those countries have 20%+ of population who subsist on healthy dose of RT and worship Putin the Tsar, they will serve as pawns we see now in Donbass.

Practically how does NATO actually liberate them. Does it have the stomach for the full scale high intensity war as we see in now in the East Ukraine? Not just Putin, I am also not sure of that. Who is going to lead the American armoured division drive to capture Kaliningrad..

Yes detoothing Russia in Ukraine is MUCH safer.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#444
post #377
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There must have been _some_ intersections of time/technology and/or cost/efficiency where this didn't hold? Where a weapon system became _so_ vulnerable that, despite being the best at its job, it still wasn't good enough. As an example, is there a point where hypersonic weapons become so effective that aircraft carriers are [temporarily?] retired? Surely the cost (time, money, human lives) that goes into the weapon…

Hypersonic weapons have a lot of FUD around them. First off, they aren't some new technology. Most ballistic missiles achieve hypersonic speeds, including the V2 rocket from WW2. What's new are hypersonic glide vehicles that follow a ballistic trajectory up and then are capable of moving and maneuvering down to a target. Notably, this method means that the hypersonic glide vehicle is traveling SLOWER than a ballistic missile traveling to the same target, but the trajectory is depressed and the ability to make some maneuvers complicates targeting and tracking. And that isn't even overly new technology, there have been tests of the hypersonic glide vehicle concept dating back to the 1950s and 1960s. An example of a hypersonic glide vehicle that was actually used was the space shuttle. There's also hypersonic cruise missiles, which are able to achieve hypersonic speeds in level flight.

So what does Russia have? Currently, all they have fielded is the Kinzhal missile. But is it neither a hypersonic glide body nor a hypersonic cruise missile. It is simply an air-launched ballistic missile. It would not be suitable for an anti-ship mission, unless striking a ship docked in port. The impressive and novel thing about it is that they managed to get a ballistic missile to be launched from an aircraft, which is rather tricky to do from an engineering standpoint, and IIRC is the first ALBM to actually be deployed. They also have Avangard in development, which is a hypersonic glide body deployed from ICBMs for the nuclear strike mission. Finally, they have the Zircon missile in development, which is a hypersonic cruise missile meant for the anti-ship mission. Russia claims to have completed testing of the missile, but it doesn't appear to have been deployed yet. It's unclear how effective it would be against a carrier strike group, with air defenses, electronic countermeasures and decoys. Notably, it cruises at a high altitude, unlike most anti-ship missiles which try to skim the surface to make it harder to detect and track on radar.

Ultimately, I don't think that hypersonic weapons fundamentally change the security of the carrier. It may necessitate the development of some anti-missile missiles better tuned for the counter-hypersonic mission. It may necessitate altering doctrine towards the anti-ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) mission to complicate targeting such missiles. I could be wrong of course!

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#445
post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the claim is that SPG can also fire in direct mode and they have MUCH bigger guns. Imagine an SPG with trophy system bolted on it. Question is, is passive armour beyond stopping bullets and shrapnel worth it? I wonder if the new "tank" will be a wheeled SPG that can fire hull down and has an APS system. Or it could be something like BTR 4 with its auto cannon, being able to carry some infantry, add APS to tha…

APS protects against ATGM, not cannon fire.

Well that is the big question, is it worth trying to protect from kinetic penetrator or not.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The thread started by whimsicalism stating that Russian was banned in Ukraine, and I replied that it had a status similar to French or German in the US. Nobody has ever banned a language by allowing printing in it, allowing grades up to 4 to be taught in it, allowing secondary schools to teach it as a subject, and allowing private groups to continue teaching it as a primary language.

The correct comparison is Spanish - I wonder what's the status of education in Spanish in thr US.

But more correct case in point is Belgium. If Belgium tried to force education to be in Dutch exclusively, there would very soon be no Belgium.

> allowing grades up to 4 to be taught in it,

"Banning grades after 4 from being taught in Russian" - I did it for you

All 30 years of Ukraine's independence they were seeing new limitations to the use of Russian, every year. Some of these are listed in comments.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. What does a vulnerable tank do that self-propelled artillery doesn't do better? Not being vulnerable to small arms…

T-72's are 50 year old tanks. It's like fielding WW1 tanks in the Vietnam war. A T-72 is both easy to detect and easy to kill for someone with a Javelin, while the Javelin-man is hard to detect and non-trival to kill (at range) with the T-72. The arms race between protective equiment (armor, shields, etc) and anti-armor weapons has been going on for over a thousand years, arguably longer (like when Roman pila would g…

Maybe HQ could triangulate the javelin man when he is googling "Javelin makes strange noises" or "Javelin not functioning" on his smartphone. And then give the coordinates to the tank crew to even the odds a little.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#448
post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't remember any "intense diplomacy" other than more threats of sanctions, more public humiliation of Russia, no compromise on any question being discussed. In 8 years I remember Ukraine botching its obligations on Minsk agreements and Steinmeier formula. With such strength of diplomacy, no wonder it didn't work.

What sort of compromise would you suggest? How much territory should Ukraine cede to Russia this year? And how much more next year when Russia manufacturers some new fake complaint?

Maybe none. Is "NATO" a territory of Ukraine? Is "no limiting of Russian language usage" a territory of Ukraine? How about "not overthrowing legitimately elected president, twice"?

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's Bulgaria, Romania and Moldavia, but maybe more. And, of course, Ukraine and Belarus. Maybe some of Balkan states as well if you count them as eastern european.

OK, and Russia caused the pogroms and a genocidal famine in Ukraine. It's not a good idea to learn your country's history in an overly rosy way. In fact, being kind to nationalists may have caused the present war. Russians should know that their country has had a sordid history.

Soviet regime has caused famine in present day Ukraine, southern Russia, Volga region and Kazakhstan. Most of those who starved (arithmetically) were in what is present day Russian Federation.

Are you sure you can tell propaganda from history?

"Russia caused the pogroms" (sic) is another gem of same quality.

I wonder if you could point to a country which does not have "sordid history". But if you ever want to have a dialogue with Russian as opposed to war, you can start by not pretending that you don't have your own "sordid history" and is allowed to judge others.

Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?

#450
post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sort of compromise would you suggest? How much territory should Ukraine cede to Russia this year? And how much more next year when Russia manufacturers some new fake complaint?

Maybe none. Is "NATO" a territory of Ukraine? Is "no limiting of Russian language usage" a territory of Ukraine? How about "not overthrowing legitimately elected president, twice"?

So are you claiming that Russia should be allowed to veto internal Ukrainian political decisions, or prevent them from voluntarily joining other alliances? Wouldn't it be better to just keep killing Russian soldiers until they run out and retreat?
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