I think you need to look at the cost trajectory. ATGMs get cheaper over time as cost of electronics comes down. Tanks get more expensive as they update to more exotic composite armor, active protection systems, fancy sensors etc. Estimates vary, but a new NATO ATGM is probably around ~5% the cost of a new Russian Tank.
A missle can sit on a shelf for years, pop in fresh batteries and it is good to go.
A tank requires frequent maintenance and lots of expensive crew training to be effective.
Training a modern tank crew is not easy either. Think of the logistics too. There is a entire staff of people maintaining these things in battle zones. Gasoline resupply, tracks, electronics, shipment, crossing rivers, it's endless - in hot zone! THEN some 19 year old on a moped wastes it with a javelin.
Maybe not a good idea if they have to fight tanks with the new active protection systems. The latest tests with the Trophy system made by the US Army, seem to show Tanks are back.
“Trophy exceeded our expectations,” said Col. Dean. “Unlike prior APS tests…we were shooting actual threats at actual vehicles. I’m happy to say I kept trying to kill an Abrams tank about 48 times and failed every time.”
Russians don't seem to be using them very effectively either. A lot of the destroyed ones I've seen have been bogged in fields or static in convoys. Looks like poorly trained crews and tank commanders not using the mobility of a tank properly. Plus a lot of the tanks look super poorly maintained. I used to be a Challenger 2 crewman and if I'd kept my wagon in that state, I would have got some percussive encouragement to get my s*t sorted out.
The Russian problems appear to be at a higher level than just poorly trained tank crews and commanders (although that is a factor). Vehicles are essentially confined to roads because there's deep mud everywhere else until the weather warms up. In order to move on roads with any degree of safety they would need constant extensive air support, but that hasn't been available.
The one thing I don't understand about this debate is that if tanks are incurably vulnerable to drones and ATGMs and therefore obsolete, then why aren't IFVs/APCs, artillery, and transport vehicles obsolete for the same reason? Logically, they would be equally vulnerable since both weapons systems work just as well on them.
Some of the elements that you've mentioned are subject to divestment as well. The Marine Corps is abandoning their long-trusted M777 howitzer in favor of HIMARs, which are self-propelled and purported to be more mobile than a M777. There is a fair amount of disagreement in the artillery community over this choice among the guys on the ground from what I understand. Many platforms used in the military and Marine Corps are inherently vulnerable to attack. The question you have to ask is whether you can take the budget that would be allocated to one platform and use it better elsewhere. As with many other things in life, this comes down to a constrained optimization problem with many different factors to consider.
Overall, an aggressor has to "find, fix, and finish" the enemy to complete the kill chain. My understanding is that the general idea is to invest in platforms can move quickly, continue to decentralize command, and adopt a new warfare doctrine for the "pacing threat" in the Pacific. If you're interested in learning about contemporary doctrine--particularly in the Marine Corps--I'd suggest you look into EABO, which is the war-fighting doctrine that's being proposed for conflicts in the Pacific.
What is obsolete is the doctrine of “armored warfare”, the idea that armor is the primary weapon on the battlefield that allows you to break through enemy defenses. In the days of trench warfare, tanks were a “disruptive technology” - an almost invulnerable mobile fortress that allowed armies to completely change the script on the battlefield by blitzing up the middle and breaking stalemates.
Now that ATGMs are everywhere, armor is no longer invulnerable enough for this to be the main strategy - you need “combined arms operations” - infantry and air support to protect the armor. The Russians are not acting like this is the case, which is why their tanks are getting destroyed left and right.
Armored vehicles will never be obsolete - if you’re sending in infantry or artillery or whatever, it’s still better to have armor for eg. small arms fire and shrapnel - you just can’t rely on its strength as the core of your strategy.
tl;dr: the russians are demonstrating the failure of a particular strategy/theory on how to deploy and use armor, not a failure of the concept of armor itself.
Everything is vulnerable. The US has just been lucky its been fighting yokels who didn't get frequent shipments of modern weaponry.
If the USMC ever finds themselves in the situation of having to storm the beaches of Hainan may God help them. But then the US nor China are dumb enough to get dragged into a fight like that.
I just don't see heavy armor such as tanks is going away any time soon, because of engagement range and maneuver capabilities, Russia failed to utilize ISR to counter anti tank threats (eg. recon drones and probably some infantry elements) and in general seems like failed miserably in combined arms maneuvers (where tanks provide only support to infantry in near real time coordination).
As the author points out, the US Marines don't have to prepare for every kind of land war because the US Army can do what the Marines can't (and visa versa).
In addition, Marines believe that "Hunting tanks is fun and easy."
Whether it's smart or not, with the current budget situation the Marines simply don't have the funding to prepare for both an island-hopping campaign in the Pacific theater and desert warfare in the Middle East. So they had to pick one. There's no practical way to put modern tanks ashore on those islands in quantity.
I was recently reading about North Africa campaigns in ww2. One thing to note was that decisive aggressive actions that tanks allowed cause a lot more POWs because their positions could be overrun so quickly and effectively that desperate last stands weren’t feasible. Mud and hedgerows in France were a problem back then too. I also remember in desert storm 2 hearing that although many Abrams tanks were taken out of action, none of them were penetrated, it was all maintenance issues.
Rommel and Patton seemed to both think of tank warfare as it’s own thing that was hard. In the Patton movie they talk of troops thinking tanks were death traps back then too.
It’s touched on in the article, Ukrainian tank kill videos I’ve seen seem to be close range ambushes in urban areas. It’s my opinion that the US would have already bombed those areas to pieces and were much less willing to take risks with potential civilian combatants. But as the article says there is a lot of fog about what’s really happening and my view of the US is flavoured by the ‘atrocity’ videos that were popular ala Manning etc.
Super heavy tanks like Abrams and tigers seem really cool
Edit because didn’t finish: but that’s not the only way to go with tank design
I do wonder about active defenses, like the Trophy system mentioned in the article. If these defenses can bring down missiles reliably, we could easily see a shift back to tank > missiles.
One thing these active defense systems will never solve for is kinetic weapons. Large enough shells can't be intercepted, only avoided.
[+] [-] opwieurposiu|4 years ago|reply
A missle can sit on a shelf for years, pop in fresh batteries and it is good to go.
A tank requires frequent maintenance and lots of expensive crew training to be effective.
[+] [-] ransom1538|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jerlam|4 years ago|reply
Javelin: $250K missile + $250K launcher
T-72: $1000K-1200K (1-1.2 million)
Of course, non-US options are much cheaper:
NLAW: $40K
Stuhna-P: $20K
[+] [-] belter|4 years ago|reply
“Trophy exceeded our expectations,” said Col. Dean. “Unlike prior APS tests…we were shooting actual threats at actual vehicles. I’m happy to say I kept trying to kill an Abrams tank about 48 times and failed every time.”
https://breakingdefense.com/2017/10/army-accelerates-armor-s...
Also recent and less recent discussions:
"On Killing Tanks (2020)" - 13 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30699355
"On Killing Tanks": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22661946
Edit: "Trophy (countermeasure)": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_(countermeasure)
[+] [-] alaurie|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nradov|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ThrowawayR2|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clioharper|4 years ago|reply
Overall, an aggressor has to "find, fix, and finish" the enemy to complete the kill chain. My understanding is that the general idea is to invest in platforms can move quickly, continue to decentralize command, and adopt a new warfare doctrine for the "pacing threat" in the Pacific. If you're interested in learning about contemporary doctrine--particularly in the Marine Corps--I'd suggest you look into EABO, which is the war-fighting doctrine that's being proposed for conflicts in the Pacific.
[+] [-] dandelany|4 years ago|reply
Now that ATGMs are everywhere, armor is no longer invulnerable enough for this to be the main strategy - you need “combined arms operations” - infantry and air support to protect the armor. The Russians are not acting like this is the case, which is why their tanks are getting destroyed left and right.
Armored vehicles will never be obsolete - if you’re sending in infantry or artillery or whatever, it’s still better to have armor for eg. small arms fire and shrapnel - you just can’t rely on its strength as the core of your strategy.
[+] [-] jeromescuggs|4 years ago|reply
tl;dr: the russians are demonstrating the failure of a particular strategy/theory on how to deploy and use armor, not a failure of the concept of armor itself.
[+] [-] AniseAbyss|4 years ago|reply
If the USMC ever finds themselves in the situation of having to storm the beaches of Hainan may God help them. But then the US nor China are dumb enough to get dragged into a fight like that.
[+] [-] neatze|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anamax|4 years ago|reply
In addition, Marines believe that "Hunting tanks is fun and easy."
[+] [-] nradov|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] regpertom|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swagasaurus-rex|4 years ago|reply
I do wonder about active defenses, like the Trophy system mentioned in the article. If these defenses can bring down missiles reliably, we could easily see a shift back to tank > missiles.
One thing these active defense systems will never solve for is kinetic weapons. Large enough shells can't be intercepted, only avoided.
[+] [-] oldgradstudent|4 years ago|reply
Even large armor-piercing shells require sophisticated electronics to correctly time the explosion.
These may be defeated by EW. Proximity fuses, for example, are just simple radars.
Supposedly, the Russians were are able to defend against artillery by jamming or spoofing proximity fuses with EW in Ukraine.
[+] [-] jerlam|4 years ago|reply
https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/iav-2020-elbi...
[+] [-] aaron695|4 years ago|reply
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