Food for thought

[Bond_Villian]

Just sharing this interesting analysis of tank survivability 'these days'

 

 

 

[Ssnake]

It's a pretty reasonable piece.

[Apocalypse 31]

This video would be more interesting if it was called "If you don't use combined arms tactics then your tanks will die"

 

No single vehicle is invulnerable but tanks will never go away and the need for armored vehicles that can deliver speed, protection, and firepower will always be in high demand. 

 

Also - Recon is a thing. 

Edited March 27, 2022 by Apocalypse 31

[DK-DDAM]

that bmp3 looks rather scrappy..

[Captain_Colossus]

there is some kind of need for mobile firepower. a country could probably not expect to attack deep into enemy territory, or 'liberate' oppressed people with man portable anti tank weapons.

 

if the tank were to disappear today, then absent aircraft of some sort, imagine leg infantry on the march bringing back 19th and early 20th century warfare again- including horses and pack animals and in response: trench warfare again. the slow grinding pace of operations would set in, and planners would probably imagine a need for something which is mobile and lethal all over again.

 

i do not think it is so much the end of the tank but probably the end of third rate military organizations attempting to do more than their capabilities would suggest and of course the end of obsolete equipment-  a successful tank isn't simply a thing in itself, but also happens in cooperation with good command and control, logistics, air and infantry and artillery support, competent leadership, planning and what have you

Edited March 27, 2022 by Captain_Colossus

[P Lakowski]

Perun Vids are particularly good .any one know his history ...he appears to be kiwi?...ok aussie

Edited March 27, 2022 by P Lakowski

[Lt DeFault]

28 minutes ago, P Lakowski said:

Perun Vids are particularly good .any one know his history ...he appears to be kiwi?...ok aussie

 

From his YouTube channel, on the "About" tab:

 

Quote

An Australian covering gaming in the good times, and the military industrial complex and national military investment strategy during the worse ones... Regular content on Dominions 5 and Phoenix point, but irregular coverage on other titles that catch my interest. Since the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine, I've also been covering lessons from the conflict and how they may inform the future investment decisions that other nations may or should make. It should go without saying that all views expressed by me in any of this content are simply personal opinion.

 

PS

His "Community" tab is also active, which is rare.

Edited March 27, 2022 by Lt DeFault

[DarkAngel]

I think this is a well balanced and accurate assessment (from a purely civilian enthusiast perspective). 

 

IMHO what we are mainly seeing here is the "aimed for the lowest common denominator" factor. That is that modern ATGMs have become so easy to use that anyone with a room temperature IQ can be trained to use them. This is not meant as any sort of insult to anyone. It is a factor which has also been seen in tanks too. In WW2 to end up serving on a Tiger tank you had to be experienced, have a skill in something automotive related. A modern MBT is designed that you can take some uneducated person and make them proficient in a tank quickly. Again no insults intended. The same is true for early ATGMs. If you read about the Egyptian effectiveness with Malyutka in the 1973 war you will also read the number of test fires that were required to become proficient with them. 

 

The other thing here is that this is not a new phenomenon in warfare. A similar analogy can be made about the move from Bows to crossbows in the medieval period. Mythbusters once did a segment which really annoyed me. They took an expert archer and an expert crossbowman and through a series of tests declared that the crossbow had no advantage over the longbow. In my opinion to really understand the benefit of the crossbow you should start with 2 people who have never fired either and run your tests. The big deal is that on the medieval battlefield it took years to become a fully trained longbowman. Where the real advantage of the crossbow is that it can be put in the hands of a novice and become dangerous very quickly (Ask Richard the Lionheart ). This factor greatly increased the chances of Joe Average inflicting casualties upon armoured Cavalry who were the tanks of the day. 

[DarkAngel]

I also wonder how this would look if the Ukrainians were facing a technologically modern force. How much less effective would the ATGMs be if facing an army with widespread use of Thermal imager equipped drones able to spot, identify and engage ATGM positions before your tanks ever got in range. 

[Apocalypse 31]

16 minutes ago, DarkAngel said:

I also wonder how this would look if the Ukrainians were facing a technologically modern force. How much less effective would the ATGMs be if facing an army with widespread use of Thermal imager equipped drones able to spot, identify and engage ATGM positions before your tanks ever got in range. 

Or if they weren't getting externally supported with ATGMs

[P Lakowski]

2 hours ago, Lt DeFault said:

 

From his YouTube channel, on the "About" tab:

 

 

PS

His "Community" tab is also active, which is rare.

Does that constitute an "influencer" ?

[Gibsonm]

1 hour ago, DarkAngel said:

I also wonder how this would look if the Ukrainians were facing a technologically modern force. How much less effective would the ATGMs be if facing an army with widespread use of Thermal imager equipped drones able to spot, identify and engage ATGM positions before your tanks ever got in range. 

 

Also not much evidence of APS in use on Russian vehicles, limited combined arms (so not much suppression of ATGM / SRAAW firing positions, etc.).

 

But again as I think Ssnake mentioned elsewhere the video feeds are clipped to maximise the drama / message. Not much context (before / after, what other vehicles are doing, etc.).

 

In short the propaganda on both sides is doing what its designed to do (maximise the enemy's weaknesses / minimise friendly weaknesses).

 

Edited March 28, 2022 by Gibsonm

[Bond_Villian]

Here are a few other videos from his channel that are relevant to this subject

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[12Alfa]

This has been reported to be a 3 echelon operation. Those who study these sort of operational movements now are looking towards the 2nd in the staging areas.

 

Given that we see now, how the 1st ech had done in terms of Obj's that have been secure , the 2nd will be a interesting event, and I think under a much shorter timeline than the 1st. This is due to most resistance to forward movement destroyed/removed.

 

We I think are all waiting for the 3rd as it will be the beginning of the end, and that will be a good day in this terrible show for both sides.

Aid is flowing in , and it people have been set free, this a indication of pre-planning for a end state.

 

One side has been going through material at a rate that can't be refilled in time, the other has been using 1/3 of its supplies, with much untouched, and still held in their vast supply chain..

 

Tanks still rule, the debate is old, memories are short.

APS will lead the change as the MBT will remain (maybe not as we see them now) top dog on the block. 

 

As for "not sending their best". You fight ,as we saw in Georgia, with the units one has within the geographical area first, and move outwards from there. Sending your best from the other side of the continent, is not practical, or needed. There is more to this "event", some have no idea what's really going on, and has gone on, playing out right now....

 

Hint...Sir (insert EU country) , how would like to pay for that energy  Rubles, Bitcoin, or...................Gold?

 

 

I am neither pro U or R, but Awake!......and with bino's intact. 

 

[Captain_Colossus]

we moved into some phase as near as i can tell where 'news' and social media are co-mingled and one in the same- you have just watched a social media war, where world leaders and government taunt one another on twitter like you see at the oscar awards show, where information comes attached with it baggage like selfies and ego trips and so on because the information is either spread on someone's youtube or pateron channel or is replicated and passed on that way with commentary or whatever filters you can name, where consensus on the subject is manufactured by how many followers influencers have; i remember thinking this was a bit of an odd situation years ago when i would see local law enforcement and police departments taunting the fugitives they were hunting on social media- and sometimes there would be a bit of a back and forth exchange between the wanted subjects and law enforcement on twitter

Edited March 28, 2022 by Captain_Colossus

[Skybird03]

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fideas%2Farchive%2F2022%2F03%2Famerican-volunteer-foreign-fighters-ukraine-russia-war%2F627604%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR2g9hMR22Cczce-EwXCVwFf7yNUTuMbojH8xKgZA664zFiqzwPsZm5so8o

 

[quote]First, Jed wanted to discuss anti-armor weapons, particularly the American-made Javelin and the British-made NLAW. The past month of fighting had demonstrated that the balance of lethality had shifted away from armor, and toward anti-armor weapons. Even the most advanced armor systems, such as the Russian T-90 series main battle tank, had proved vulnerable, their charred husks littering Ukrainian roadways.

When I mentioned to Jed that I’d fought in Fallujah in 2004, he said that the tactics the Marine Corps used to take that city would never work today in Ukraine. In Fallujah, our infantry worked in close coordination with our premier tank, the M1A2 Abrams. On several occasions, I watched our tanks take direct hits from rocket-propelled grenades (typically older-generation RPG-7s) without so much as a stutter in their forward progress. Today, a Ukrainian defending Kyiv or any other city, armed with a Javelin or an NLAW, would destroy a similarly capable tank.

(...)

Since February 24, the Ukrainian military has convincingly displayed the superiority of an anti-platform-centric method of warfare. Or, as Jed put it, “In Afghanistan, I used to feel jealous of those tankers, buttoned up in all that armor. Not anymore.”

[/quote]

Edited March 28, 2022 by Skybird03

[Captain_Colossus]

at the same time however, let us suppose the scenario that it is the united states instead of russia which invades ukraine. under that conceit, you probably would not have american advisors or cadre units training ukrainians on how to repel us forces, nor providing american weapons or technology on doing that- so it still does not compare like that to past campaigns.

 

the tank is not an island onto itself. a successful tank in general is part of a moving system operating under in the circumstances that is handed to it; at the risk of sounding jingoistic, i would argue that the united states would have probably blown through ukraine's main force units easily, and there would not be an effective civilian defense force equipped with javelins to pick off convoys like that.

 

so instead of saying it's the end of the tank, i would suggest that the lesson really is the russian way of doing things is being exposed as a serious weakness- and not just the equipment. if it were american tanks instead of russian tanks, by definition, there would be no american javelins except under some scenario where an american propped regime fell to a russian supported government, and then america intervening in that case.

 

however, there is now video of western supplied anti-tank weapons including javelins captured by russian soldiers, so that might mean something for the future when the russians reverse engineer the technology if they have not already done so. but america still shows that it can remain a leading indicator against anticipated threats in order to future proof designs probably much better than the russians can

[Mirzayev]

 

I pulled this from an old 1972 issue of Armor Magazine. Argument is that the tank is rapidly becoming obsolete in an age of high-tech, man-portable ATGMs... like the Dragon and the TOW...

 

Also, apparently the author stated that this thing was the future of warfare:

 

 

I'll approach anyone presenting the argument that "the tank is obsolete" due to ATGMs with a very healthy dose of skepticism. 
 

[Skybird03]

Cpt Colossus,

 

Just that the US army would not face Ukraine in the most likely future big war, but China. A high tech country. China watches what is going  on in the Ukraine, and will draw its conclusions. And missiles they have had already before, and plenty of them, all kinds of, modern ones. In that war, navies would play a role, and the concept of US carrier group imo only still works against inferior enemies, not against enemies on same technological level, with ICBMs as ship killers, satellite intel,  and good submarines, and enough missiles to drown any missile defence system. The text I linked to also mentions that carriers may be a dinosaur by now, more of political than military value I think.

 

Last but not least, in a scenario US versus Ukraine you still would deal with the extreme motivation and the top morale of the Ukrainians. And the competence of their current military top leader, I red a bit about him in recent weeks, repeatedly. What he has implemented in modernization of tactics and not chnagign but just scrapping the old Sovjet doctrine, is remarkable, and borders a  miracle when  considering the short time he is in office. 

 

In brief, i think any Westernr tank force , if it invaded the Ukraine, would have bled, too. Probably not as intense as the Russians, but the vulnerability of armour to modern ATMs and ATGMs remains, and the Western civil societies digest high losses much worse than the misinformed censored Russian civil society in the Rodina.  Time has moved beyond the RPG-7. And then there are drones. And drones will escalate further, will become autonomous. And then will operate in swarms. Autonomous swarm AI. Why that is a  concern can be learned in an entertaining fashion  when  reading this thriller: "Kill Decision", by Daniel Suarez. Still a fiction, but good book fooder for holidays. The inhibition levels will be reduced to conduct military strikes against unsuspicous nations or industrial targets, once these drones can be made by anybody with anonymous compenents bought off the shelve while three dozen national economies have the knoweldge to produce these components and offer them on market. And thats how market economy and capitalism work..The first pocket calculator my grandfather (a teacher) bought, did just +, -, : and x, and it costed several hundred D-Marks, late 70s I think.  The computer capacity on board the space shuttles were comparable to home computers in the early and mid 80s.  And today...? Regarding computer power, you could fly the space shuttle comfortably with a smart phone. A playstation. Drones will become privately affordable. Promised. And they will be used, and the attacker unlikely to be held accountable in many cases. States. Individuals. Corporations. Organised crime. Gangs. Small drones. Big drones. It will happen.

 

For germany now "rearming" in a hurry, I think it is not really realistic to imagine that Germany needs to rebuild a bigger fleet of MBTs than the pathetic number of Leopards that are still in service (if operational,  that is). We should get a better and sustainable personnel basis, a better reserve sytem (militias system maybe like in Finland or Switzerland), and high stockpiles of "intelligent" weapons and missiles  of any kind, scattered all across the place. I am not thta big a fan of the vision of a loepard-3, or somethign like that, but of high mobilty, fast, agile small units with smartest weapons available.  Intel and sensor ability, cyberwarfare and secure electronic environments, redundancy, training, morale and motivation  also rate high. Heck we see it in the Ukraine! And first we would need to educate the Germans in general to understand again why one even should  want to be able to defend oneself. The sad truth is that many Germans have been intentionally untrained to no longer understand even this simple, natural reason. After WW2, that was understandable, but now it is a problem - like in Japan.

Edited March 28, 2022 by Skybird03

[Apocalypse 31]

6 minutes ago, Mirzayev said:

Also, apparently the author stated that this thing was the future of warfare:

 

They have one of these at the Ft Benning armor museum. 

[Mirzayev]

6 minutes ago, Apocalypse 31 said:

They have one of these at the Ft Benning armor museum. 

 

I know. I've seen it in person. 

 

Glad we kept the tank. 

[12Alfa]

has convincingly displayed the superiority of an anti-platform-centric method of warfare

 

 

Pure speculation at this point.

We don't know the numbers, some would take social media, state news, and fairy dust as pure data after a month fighting, this is the world we live in.

Take the news (as we know it) and extrapolate one sides superiority and call it a day.

It is possible that the Z forces could be destroying un-Z forces at a greater rate, how would we know, fact is we don't, this needs to play out and then sober thought to know who did what. And now we see unused ATGMs being left behind, if so (the above)  why leave behind to the enemy, just doesn't add up.

 If the wrecks compound in Kandahar was a indication of how the war was going, one could say, we are loosing a lot of vehicles, and therefore loosing to the superiority of an anti-platform-centric method of warfare, and we all know how that turned out.

 

Simply put one side has the bulk of vids, the other not so much. Thinking at this point that its due to "convincingly displayed the superiority" is bit to soon I would think.

[Captain_Colossus]

1 hour ago, Skybird03 said:

Cpt Colossus,

 

Just that the US army would not face Ukraine in the most likely future big war, but China. A high tech country. China watches what is going  on in the Ukraine, and will draw its conclusions. And missiles they have had already before, and plenty of them, all kinds of, modern ones. In that war, navies would play a role, and the concept of US carrier group imo only still works against inferior enemies, not against enemies on same technological level, with ICBMs as ship killers, satellite intel,  and good submarines, and enough missiles to drown any missile defence system. The text I linked to also mentions that carriers may be a dinosaur by now, more of political than military value I think.

 

Last but not least, in a scenario US versus Ukraine you still would deal with the extreme motivation and the top morale of the Ukrainians. And the competence of their current military top leader, I red a bit about him in recent weeks, repeatedly. What he has implemented in modernization of tactics and not chnagign but just scrapping the old Sovjet doctrine, is remarkable, and borders a  miracle when  considering the short time he is in office. 

 

In brief, i think any Westernr tank force , if it invaded the Ukraine, would have bled, too. Probably not as intense as the Russians, but the vulnerability of armour to modern ATMs and ATGMs remains, and the Western civil societies digest high losses much worse than the misinformed censored Russian civil society in the Rodina.  Time has moved beyond the RPG-7. And then there are drones. And drones will escalate further, will become autonomous. And then will operate in swarms. Autonomous swarm AI. Why that is a  concern can be learned in an entertaining fashion  when  reading this thriller: "Kill Decision", by Daniel Suarez. Still a fiction, but good book fooder for holidays. The inhibition levels will be reduced to conduct military strikes against unsuspicous nations or industrial targets, once these drones can be made by anybody with anonymous compenents bought off the shelve while three dozen national economies have the knoweldge to produce these components and offer them on market. And thats how market economy and capitalism work..The first pocket calculator my grandfather (a teacher) bought, did just +, -, : and x, and it costed several hundred D-Marks, late 70s I think.  The computer capacity on board the space shuttles were comparable to home computers in the early and mid 80s.  And today...? Regarding computer power, you could fly the space shuttle comfortably with a smart phone. A playstation. Drones will become privately affordable. Promised. And they will be used, and the attacker unlikely to be held accountable in many cases. States. Individuals. Corporations. Organised crime. Gangs. Small drones. Big drones. It will happen.

 

For germany now "rearming" in a hurry, I think it is not really realistic to imagine that Germany needs to rebuild a bigger fleet of MBTs than the pathetic number of Leopards that are still in service (if operational,  that is). We should get a better and sustainable personnel basis, a better reserve sytem (militias system maybe like in Finland or Switzerland), and high stockpiles of "intelligent" weapons and missiles  of any kind, scattered all across the place. I am not thta big a fan of the vision of a loepard-3, or somethign like that, but of high mobilty, fast, agile small units with smartest weapons available.  Intel and sensor ability, cyberwarfare and secure electronic environments, redundancy, training, morale and motivation  also rate high. Heck we see it in the Ukraine! And first we would need to educate the Germans in general to understand again why one even should  want to be able to defend oneself. The sad truth is that many Germans have been intentionally untrained to no longer understand even this simple, natural reason. After WW2, that was understandable, but now it is a problem - like in Japan.

 

you allude to it a bit yourself; i do not believe it works in the following way: a universe in which you have all buyers but no sellers, nor a universe where you have the reverse case- all sellers but no buyers. you have to have one in order to have the other. so even in bear or bull markets where it looks as though it is a buyer's market or a seller's market, each one must imply the other situation. in a similar way, there is no situation where defense wins out over offense, or the opposite situation- where offense wins over defense. they each imply the other. as soon as the tank appeared on the battlefield (or armored knights on horseback for that matter), in that very moment it was implied there would come the anti-tank weapons. at the same time, that would imply the tank would be improved by that very exchange, which improves the effectiveness of anti-tank weapons and so on, so that one really doesn't win over the other but each implies the other- they co-evolve at the same time. take for example two animal populations, a predator species, R, and a prey species L; the R species selects for stronger or more capable prey species, which is adapting to R, so R must then adapt to L, which is adapting to R and so on it goes- just like an alternating current you do not have a situation where you have one phase without the other.

 

so out of this i believe that 'the tank' (which i do not mean a specific tank, but 'the tank') is the leading indicator, the anti-tank weapon (which also does not mean per se a specific type) is the lagging indicator. the 'best' tanks fielded by the 'best' armies will have the edge. obsolete tanks or tanks fielded by more or less incompetent armies will have a tougher time with anti-tank defenses, but it is those very anti-tank defenses which inform designers to improve their tank designs, with the anti-tank weapons bringing up the rear. the older tank designs will get finished off eventually by the current generation of anti-tank weapons, while newer and better tank designs will force the weapons designers to further improve- and so on and so forth

Edited March 28, 2022 by Captain_Colossus

[Maj.Hans]

I'm looking into my crystal ball and I see:

 

Rooftop mounted ERA coming to an Abrams or Leopard 2 near you!
Active Protection Systems for targeting top attack munitions.

[Nike-Ajax]

So many people have tried for so long to make the absolute claim that tanks are absolutely outdated, that I will not even begin to repeat their obvious false claims. 

 

The Main battle tank - properly supported and part of a larger force and as one tool in the toolbox, so call it combined arms or whatever the doctrine and approach, will not be obsolete in the foreseeable future.

I would submit so much in line with what others have stated, that there will be more support in various forms. Including protection.

But likely also more intel gathering assets to deal with ATGMs and infantry with other weapons than the tank.

This like many other things is where its easy to mix cause and effect.

 

And having a past as a historian, then isolated in that field, I have seen many academics trying to earn a name by making a thesis which with absolute certainty, makes some claim or another. And those historians are usually VERY reluctant to admit their mistakes because it takes away their academic credentials and chips away at the foundation of their names as historians.

So the truth if one can even make that claim, of a matter is usually found it the nuances and middle ground between claims on both ends of the spectrum.

And you should always take any information - including from peer reviewed sources which youtube/twitter are NOT, with a respectful but robust level of scepticism.

Edited March 29, 2022 by Nike-Ajax