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

I did not work for the USMC and the strategic goals of the IDF (land defense, small area) are very different so I can't answer for sure. In many modern battle scenarios (specifically urban warfare scenarios) tanks aren't of much use so I totally see binning them in favor of better combined arms.

Also again: you are taking Russian armor survivability as proof for US armor survivability against the same threat. I totally get if you take my comments here with a (big) grain of salt because I can't provide citations and I'm not making any direct claims about US armor survivability against Javelins (and you'll note you won't find any videos/info online about that because of classification).

While the names of the Russian tanks deployed in Ukraine sound like the gear we grew up fearing during the Cold War (T-72/T-80 etc), they really aren't the same anymore than the M1 is still the same as first deployed in 1980.

For example, the T-72B3M Obr. 2016 is a thoroughly modern tank, though obviously based on the T-72. Modern fire-control, modern vision equipment, solid ERA, good cannon.

Where it is failing is in how it's being used, even ignoring the lack of appropriate infantry/artillery support. This is a tank that has thermal day/night sights (not IR spotlights). It should be able to see someone lurking with an NLAW or RPG, but they are continually being sniped.

So why? Well, perhaps the thermal sights suck, or were stripped out at depot by some corrupt quartermaster. Or perhaps the crews are so poorly trained they can't take advantage of them. Or perhaps a lot of the ATGM kills we see are abandoned vehicles that are just getting destroyed.

Also, during the 2014 Donbass war, the UA lost roughly 400 MBTs, the majority of which were lost to mortars and artillery, not ATGMs. We see the videos of the Javelin/NlAW strikes, but we don't see hardly as much artillery. Artillery is the king of war...

Most of this we won't know until the conflict has quieted down, and after action reports are gathered.

Tanks aren't obsolete by any means, but the reasons for the high losses are multivariate, a nd not due to old armor being destroyed by "modern" (30 year old Javelin) anti-tank weapons.

Yeah, an anti-tank missile would be a pretty bad example of its category if it couldn't destroy a tank.

The point is that a properly equipped, prepared and trained military would have taken steps to use assets like tanks well and not marched them into oblivion, and perhaps researched and developed countermeasures to what is clearly a popular anti-tank missile system.

Such a military would also have conducted reconnaissance by drone, scouts, satellite etc. and concluded from the data gathered that driving a tank into [area with lots of unpacked Javelin crates] would perhaps be impractical, and focused on eliminating the munitions before playing the tank card.

The tank can wipe out infantry and survive anything with less-than-anti-tank weapons, the Javelin user can kill the tank, the sniper can kill the Javelin, the counter-sniper can kill the sniper, the artillery strike or sustained covering fire by infantry can cancel out the counter-sniper, etc.

The point is that simply driving tanks into a city full of people with anti-tank missile launchers and a strong inclination to attack invading tanks is not a good idea without mitigating the risk.

The existence of an anti-tank missile launcher does not make the tank irrelevant. Fighter jets still fly despite the existence of anti-aircraft missile systems.

What makes war technology irrelevant is whether it is prohibitively expensive to replace, assuming non-zero odds that the unit will be incapacitated/destroyed.

This is especially true against an opposing military force that has large amounts of existing man-made or natural shelter and cover, high motivation, *and* supplies/support from multiple wealthy countries, etc. that basically doesn't have to spend because it's defending with whatever it has, tooth and nail.

The way _Russia_ uses tanks has been dead... basically since 1972 and the advent of the A10. Here a $23 munition, fired quickly, could chew up an armor column. Don't forget the Javelin is still $250k, it's not exactly cheap.

Tanks must be supported by infantry teams. Without capable mortar teams, rifle teams, automatic weapons teams, they are sitting ducks, as Russia has proven.

What we're seeing is that low cost precision guided munitions can engage tanks from beyond their direct fire range. Within direct fire range they can be engaged by even lower cost munitions fielded by light infantry and light vehicles. The tank also suffers from requiring large amounts of fuel, making supply line strikes more dangerous to armored advances.

The first point is the big one, the future of ground forces may not be built around gunned vehicles. Drone swarms can threaten entrenched infantry, ATGMs can destroy tanks from a distance. A "dumb" artillery round costs $1,000 and is accurate to 20 meters, recent "smart" artillery rounds cost $140,000, a switchblade costs $6000.