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The tank is dead: Long live the javelin, the switchblade, the ... ?

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Re: The tank is dead: Long live the javelin, the switchblade, the ... ?

#121

Post by swader999 »

pjc50 wrote: post #95
bobowzki wrote: post #4

Something I've been thinking about is that with the emergence of weapons like the NLAW and Javelin, the Secret Service probably will have to rethink the security of the US president.

I'm not sure the country of three hundred million guns needs advanced weapons. The President might be heavily secured, but as we saw on Jan 6 it's possible to overrun the security of Congress. Then there are all the various state buildings. There are a lot of Americans who talk up the "right" to armed resistance against their government. There are also an alarmingly large number of mass shootings in America. It's alm…

The legality isn't the issue, it's the expected unlawful proliferation of these systems from this conflict that will happen.

Re: The tank is dead: Long live the javelin, the switchblade, the ... ?

#122

Post by _kbh_ »

formerly_proven wrote: post #7

People conclude that tanks (sometimes, armour in general) are obsolete because the most modern anti-tank weapons defeat exactly the 70s tanks they were designed to defeat in the 90s. If anything, when someone makes this point, it tells you they are clueless.

The Russian tank with the most losses in Ukraine is the T-72B3 obr.2016. This is the most recent variant of the T-72 that the Russians use (and started production in 2016) and has the same armour as the T-90MS which started production in 2017.

The only more advanced tank Russia has is the T-14, but it likely has less then 20 of those and due to the sanctions wont be able to make anymore, so its unlikely to be fielded in Ukraine.

Re: The tank is dead: Long live the javelin, the switchblade, the ... ?

#123

Post by Pelic4n »

fork1 wrote: post #107
Pelic4n wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$4M tanks are defeated by a $40K NLAW. Much like cuirassiers cavalry who were rendered obsolete by muskets becoming rifles with increased penetration, it's not because tanks don't works, it's because it's so cheap to kill one and so expensive to make one. Until very recently, 2 guys hiding in a bush couldn't kill a tank, you needed a predator drone, an helicopter or some other advanced system requiring heavy logistic…

A guy hiding in a bush was able to defeat tanks since the invention of HEAT in WW2. Before that, they were other ways as well.

Correction: A guy hiding in a bush wasn't able to reliably defeat tanks before.

Handheld old anti-tank weapons like RPGs with HEAT warheads were extremely unreliable, defeated by reactive explosive armors, successful only at very close range and so on. Modern ATGMs able to be fired from kilometers away and with >90% kill rates completely changes the dynamic. Those systems are only going to get smarter and cheaper when there is a physical limit on the armor+weight+cost+logistical support equation for tanks.

Re: The tank is dead: Long live the javelin, the switchblade, the ... ?

#124

Post by bee_rider »

Pelic4n wrote: post #102
simonh wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So has reactive armour and systems like Trophy. This argument has been made for many decades at this stage. This isn't just about vulnerability. Infantry are vulnerable to practically everything, sometimes they just drop dead all by themselves. It's also about capabilities. What are you going to use instead, and how is it better?

Reported kill rate of javelins fired against tanks in Ukraine is 93%. Just saying.

That isn't really fair, it is comparing 90's American tech which has presumably been updated over time to, essentially, minimally maintained Soviet tech. Maybe that last 7% is the tanks they've made since ~1990.

Re: The tank is dead: Long live the javelin, the switchblade, the ... ?

#125

Post by simonh »

Pelic4n wrote: post #102
simonh wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So has reactive armour and systems like Trophy. This argument has been made for many decades at this stage. This isn't just about vulnerability. Infantry are vulnerable to practically everything, sometimes they just drop dead all by themselves. It's also about capabilities. What are you going to use instead, and how is it better?

Reported kill rate of javelins fired against tanks in Ukraine is 93%. Just saying.

The numbers don't add up. The US has sent 7,000 javelins to Ukraine and overall they're been sent 30,000 anti-tank weapons and Ukraine is asking for hundreds more per day. It seems unlikely those javelins have killed 6,510 (.93 * 7000) Russian tanks, or that they will be destroying hundreds more per day. Many of the drone videos released by the Ukrainians show tanks hit by ATGMs but not actually being destroyed.

For sure the Russians have lots a lot of vehicles to ATGMs, they have proved to be extremely effective weapons, especially against tanks moving forward in tight formations without infantry support. However nobody is looking at the terrible infantry casualties Russia has suffered, due to poor tactics, training and resupply, and concluding that infantry are obsolete.

Here's a video of a Ukrainian tank ambushing a Russian convoy. Seems like a pretty effective weapon system to me.

https://youtu.be/S27kw7XVvSA

Re: The tank is dead: Long live the javelin, the switchblade, the ... ?

#126

Post by raducu »

irrational wrote: post #75
simonh wrote: post #63

The tank isn't dead because armies still need the capabilities the tank gives them. You need a long range direct fire weapon, capable of engaging armoured targets and infantry (canister or airburst rounds), with rapid engagement of multiple targets, low time to target, rapid reloads and follow up shots, and high survivability. Lighter wheeled gun armed vehicles can be cheaper, but they don't have the survivability. T…

But, this doesn’t address his points from the end of the article about cheap drone swarm attacks on the top side of tanks.

Also remote controlled ATGMs and I'm sure remote controlled machine guns and other stuff (the israelis already have a lot of remote controlled machine guns afik).

The tank may not be completely obsolete and indeed properly used like the US did and like Russia sadly probably re-learned it is a very useful tool.

More defensive automation will put even that "properly used" to the test. I think we've just scratched the surface of what AI can do for defense; for offense also, but not as much. It's now in the realm of reality (think the mossad machine gun attack in Iran) to have systems that will autonomously attack any tank/vehicle/human, just waiting in ambush. It's orders of magnitued to have offensive AI driven tanks.

Imagine 1000 Mariupols, all automated with automated machine guns, AT missiles, drones and so on. Those do not require food, no water, no sleep, are not afraid to die.

Regardless, tanks are not what they used to be in WW2 -- modern tanks are extremely expensive and there are a lot of ways to kill tanks nowdays.

The battle will go back and forth, the tanks will get active protection, the ATGMs will get a lot faster, will used efps like the NLAW, but I think the writing is on the wall. Yeah, it was said before, just like it was said about the missile making dogfights obsolete -- a little early, but true eventually.

Re: The tank is dead: Long live the javelin, the switchblade, the ... ?

#127

Post by ethbr0 »

lumost wrote: post #119
nimbius wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

s/drones/air support/ imho the failures observed caused by manpad in the ukrane theatre were directly attributable to an almost comically poor systems integration on the part of the aggressor and an unwillingness to commit longer range artillery and missile strikes to soften what were hardened infantry targets equipped with sixth generation anti-air and anti-tank weaponry.

> an unwillingness to commit longer range artillery and missile strikes to soften what were hardened infantry targets Given the current state of cities such as Mariupol I don't believe you can attribute an unwillingness to use artillery to the Russian side.

Buildings don't move or require much intelligence to find.

Re: The tank is dead: Long live the javelin, the switchblade, the ... ?

#128

Post by Markoff »

pjc50 wrote: post #106
Ambolia wrote: post #8

It will be interesting times if all those weapons spill into the European Union.

And how and why would that happen?

one of the most corrupt goverments in Europe with their leader known corrupt politician Zelensky, see Pandora papers

https://www.rferl.org/a/pandora-papers-tax-havens/31490744.h...

there is no reason to assume weaponry will be somehow excluded from their corrupted business operations

Re: The tank is dead: Long live the javelin, the switchblade, the ... ?

#129

Post by michaelt »

csours wrote: post #6

Perun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUyAPQEb01Q Chieftain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI7T650RTT8 Bernard https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPth_xqBXGY Extreme summary, blame me if I missed something obviously important - unsupported tanks will die to infantry or artillery and have done so since shortly after the inception of the tank. Tanks are actually pretty cheap compared to replacing a human, it costs quite…

Not sure I agree the $8.9M cost of an M1 Abrams is 'cheap'

And you don't just have the cost of the tank - there's also the cost of all the logistics needed to get the tank to the battlefield, no matter where it is in the world - and then to feed it a constant supply of fuel, ammo, spare parts and repair.

Re: The tank is dead: Long live the javelin, the switchblade, the ... ?

#130

Post by smcl »

kitrose wrote: post #108
inglor_cz wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Javelin can kill tanks from what distance, up to four kilometers? (Officially, less so, but the Ukrainians seem to be pulling off more distant hits than what the vendor documentation says.) No realistic amount of infantry support can shield you against weapons with such a huge range. An entire army could, but that is obviously too much.

A tank can engage at similar distances.

The tank would need to actually find the ATGM team though. It's relatively easy to detect a tank in the vicinity - they're loud and big. It's a bit tougher to spot a couple of guys in a bush (or in a ditch, or behind a wall, or in a thicket, or any number of hiding places)
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