I thought very logically about this. There can't be tanks after this. Not after this.
MBTs maybe, but light tanks still have a bunch of uses. They can be deployed with small recon teams, used as fire support, and as target painters for air support. I was also going to say that their small frame and speed is a huge advantage, but at this point most MBTs in use can go ridiculously fast, too. The biggest problem with MBTs recently have been their size. It’s just way easier to guide and navigate a light tank through an urban environment.
I completely understand that we live in an air superiority world, but I would not ever fully discount the use of an armored vehicle that has dangerous munitions
Maybe silly, but I might compare it to the history of Cavalry. As new technology and methods of waging war made heavy cavalry obsolete as a tool for breaking lines and overpowering infantry, light cavalry persisted for a very long time as a more versatile, and less expensive, tool for reconnaissance, support, and force multiplication.
MBTs maybe, but light tanks still have a bunch of uses.
This mind of flip flop did actually happen during the Cold War when heavy tanks were phased out by both sides and especially by the French and Germans whose AMX-30 and Leopard 1 were less thickly armored than the M48 Pattons they replaced. The reason was the development of ATGMs which could punch through M48 level armor extremely easily and steel armor thick enough to counter them was impracticable heavy.
By the time AMX-30 and Leopard 1 were replaced with Leclerc and Leopard 2, both successor tanks had gone back to being heavily armored. The reasons being the development of better engines, explosive reactive armor, and composite armor capable of defeating ATGMs.
We may be on the verge of another inversion of protection vs size and speed, but one conflict is too little evidence to make that kind of assessment. The issue with phasing out the MBT is the question of what you replace it with. Removing them from an army entirely leaves a gap in a maneuver vehicle that can bring a lot of firepower to an objective quickly and have the durability to withstand fire.
I don’t know why but this just makes me think of those chicken walker metal gears from MGS4
Not the first time tanks have been declared dead. Won't be the last either.
I don't claim to be a military expert, but idk why the US isn't spending more of their R&D budget on countering hypersonic missiles
20 relatively cheaply produced hypersonic missles vs carrier group :garf-troll:
The US Navy is sweating bullets right now.
The US Navy has had the benefit of an 80 year period in which they've never actually come to blows with a comparable opponent.
But, like, historically speaking? Standing armies were obsolete as soon as we'd finished our first allotment of ICBMs. They're great for punching down on some Iraqis with a bunch of 70s-era legacy hardware or for swarming the Korengal Valley for a few months to play wack-a-mole with the Mujaheddin. But we have long since passed the point at which a straight-up military confrontation will do anything but liquefy hardware and human bodies at a rapid pace.
Even asymmetrical warfare is getting to be nothing but an implosion of human welfare and productive capital, as the Yemen/Saudi conflict demonstrates.
Its all just a giant black hole of waste.
One reason why the Chinese have been so adamant about not starting any fucking imperialist conflicts and focusing primarily on domestic quality of life improvements. The biggest fear modern Americans have in the modern era really does boil down to the folks on the other side of the Pacific completely lapping us in terms of living standards. After that, it'll just be China sitting on a pile of surplus luxuries and handing them out as treat baskets to the countries they favor.
Also because the US has spent better part of a decade failing to counter "ordinary" missiles and their missile defense systems are mostly just protection money paid to the empire.
I hate to think about it, but it's probably true that the US military doesn't worry about things like hypersonic missiles or losing an entire fleet in a day because of them because their contingencies plans are just "nuke everyone".
I really hope China and Russia are researching ways to completely stop the US from firing off nukes. Like, releasing a computer virus that paralyzes nuclear middle systems or whatever.
They certainly could and should. But it is not a trivial problem. Maybe the best answer would be energy based weapons(high powered lasers) but the inherent problem is that the MIC doesn't like investing in new technological concepts. Instead it always prefer to redesign and iterate on existing concepts.
If you look at the history of fighters, all generations are direct evolutions of the previous one with no real difference between each of them except bigger/better performance numbers.
Even modern stealth is achieved through material science and not realy inherent on the aerodynamic design, except for a few key features which makes every stealth fighter look the same.
So my point is if the requirement is to invent something completely new then you can be sure the MIC will lobby against it. Otherwise it is always too expensive or too difficult. In the rare cases where the US actualy exercises some oversight on the military budget spending, high tech prototypes with no real chance of working in the short term are not likely to survive compared to building more F-15s/18s/35s, some better Abrams version or yet another nuclear carrier etc.
The problem is probably the fact that with current technology it's much easier to make a missile go faster than to develop a computer capable of tracking those missiles, a radar capable of keeping a lock on them despite evasion and stealth, and an interceptor capable of downing them reliably.
Missiles and engines are just improving on existing tech, which is always faster and more reliable than innovating completely new tech. By the time the US develops something capable of intercepting Mach 6 missiles, Russia and China might have Mach 8 missiles in service.
Maybe the best answer would be energy based weapons(high powered lasers)
Aiming my laser through ten miles of seawater to stop the hyper-sonic torpedo from sinking my aircraft carrier, but for some reason its not working.
Tanks can be used as mobile artillery. You have them at the back and redeploy them. The amunition is cheaper than misiles and can move in places howitzers somtimes cant. In a pinch they can give close suport to other formations. This is how they were used in the iran iraq war
See I thought about that. I was sitting there at my computer, like 3am, cat food dribbling out of my mouth and falling onto the keyboard as I frantically researched this issue. I mashed it between the keys typing questions like "what is ukraine military called" and "does ukraine have gun" and "video drone ukraine". Must have watched dozens, maybe hundreds, die as I scooped my fingers into another can of wild salmon primavera with tomatoes, carrots & spinach in a silky broth. The mobile artillery argument falls apart as the range of those drones increases.
It's good for thinking and subjectively it makes me jump higher. A little bit at night is like coffee without the caffeine. Just takes the edge off.
c/the_dunk_combinedaerospacialbattlespacevehicle doesn't have the same ring to it
Not after this.
what specifically happened? searching "ukraine tanks" just gets me desperate Western propaganda like "lone Ukraine paratrooper destroys tank"
I was pretty cat food drunk at the time so it's hard to remember specifics, but I watched about 500 videos of people dying. I just don't see it being a viable way to conduct war now.
Tanks have been consistently been beaten by trucks since the 80s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_War
A tank simply cannot match the maneuverability, cheapness, and transport capacity of a truck. Stick a big gun on the truck bed and you can take out a tank. The group that used trucks most effectively in war was probably isis. Only big militaries are even using tanks still, and the war in Ukraine proved that tanks are less cost effective than a drone. Drone warfare is where the future is. Right now we have shitty consumer drones being used for recon and the occasional explosive. I bet by the end of the war we will see actual drone swarms. Just thousands of drones flying in unison flying into entrenched positions and eventually fighting each other. Drone on drone warfare, entirely autonomous. And then the counter to that is electronic interference devices.
I've been taking fish antibiotics all morning so I'm a bit high, but even without reading the article I could see this being the case. Technicals allow for rapid insertion and you can fit a bunch of drones on them. When we finally get land carriers it's going to be a horrific innovations.
