[HN Gopher] Does the Tank Have a Future? ___________________________________________________________________ Does the Tank Have a Future? Author : martincmartin Score : 115 points Date : 2022-06-15 15:44 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.economist.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com) | Melatonic wrote: | I am still waiting for when we get individual tank like things or | tank suits. Lots of SciFi and Anime has talked about it for years | but I feel like there has to be some efficient middleground | between a bunch of dudes in a modern tank vs just running around | as infantry with body armor. I am not necessarily talking about | an Iron Man like thing - just something much more nimble. | topspin wrote: | Tanks were created to cope with two dominant threats: small arms | and artillery shrapnel; the WW1 battlefield of machine guns and | massed artillery. They've been improved to cope with some new | threats since, but the number of threats are multiplying rapidly. | The cost and complexity of tanks is exploding trying to deal with | all of militarized model airplanes (Bayraktar et al.), guided | artillery rounds (BONUS), long range armor seeking missiles | (Brimstone), guided mortar rounds (XM395), intelligent anti-armor | mines (PTKM-1R), man portable antitank weapons | (Javelin/NLAW/Stugna-P/...), improved RPGs, etc. | | In a world where there is a Stugna-P "behind every blade of | grass" tanks become a liability. I think they'll be scaled back | to niches; there will probably always be a need for a big chunk | of metal to push through and blow holes in things. Going forward | though, the German Blitzkrieg model or Russia's Horde Of Armor | doctrine is dead when the combatants are not greatly asymmetric. | ckozlowski wrote: | I think that's a slightly skewed way of looking at it. While | there's some nuggets of truth there, the better way to look at | a tank is that it provides highly mobile firepower, combined | with enough protection to get in there and do it's job. And | that job is to support the infantry by, as you stated so well, | "blow holes in things" (Quickly, might add!) | | But it never was meant to operate on it's own. And when it did, | it was either lost in large numbers (Russian tank charges in | WWII) or was in all actuality a fluke (Your Blitzkrieg example. | See The Chieftan's video on the Battle of France in WWII on why | this was such a reckless thing to do, followed by reading on | the Battle of The Bulge on why it didn't work a second time.) | | Tanks _unsupported by infantry_ are a liability. However, | infantry, unsupported by tanks, can be a liability as well when | attacking an opponent who 's well fortified and/or has heavy | weapons. When tanks, infantry, and artillery work together | (combined arms theory), then the danger posed by ATGMs and the | like is greatly reduced. Armies have been reminded of this | numerous times last century, and each time a renewed emphasis | on combined arms fixes the balance. | | Lastly, and I feel this point is missing in a lot of arguments: | ATGMs like Javelin, mines, guided mortars, etc and all but the | heaviest drones are defensive and supporting weapons. For ATGMs | and RPGs, these weapons exist to prevent infantry from being | overrun. (And as the Russians are being reminded, they can be | quite good at this.) They are _not_ offensive weapons. That is | the reason the tank remains. It 's offensive. | metabagel wrote: | New German tank aims to be harder to kill. | | https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a40277518/... | [deleted] | metabagel wrote: | Here's an article with no paywall. | | https://breakingdefense.com/2022/06/rheinmetall-unveils-new-... | nerpderp82 wrote: | For profit, "for export" weapons systems are morally | reprehensible. | edmcnulty101 wrote: | I never understood why the tank tracks weren't targeted. | | They look easy to immobilize. | chrisseaton wrote: | They're relatively easily replaced and repaired. | mike-the-mikado wrote: | I believe that tank tracks break frequently and the tank will | carry the spare parts required to make a repair. | bombcar wrote: | Also if you look at a tank it's basically a shell around the | treads - you have to hit it directly on the side or a small | opening on the front, both of which may not disable the | tread. | mtnGoat wrote: | this just makes the machine immobile it doesn't lessen its | lethality. Also those tracks are pretty dang well designed as | they have used across both military and industrial applications | for a long time now. | mrguyorama wrote: | Why do you think tank tracks aren't targeted? Unless you can | directly pen/destroy a tank in one shot, in which case why | would you not do that, "tracking" a tank is a common tactic to | make it combat ineffective. | edmcnulty101 wrote: | That entire article was about attacking the tank everywhere | but the tracks. | metabagel wrote: | Fantastic visuals accompanying the article! | causi wrote: | They're slick but not terribly accurate. For example, the top- | attack angle for the Javelin is depicted as far more vertical | than it actually is. It's actually only about 50 degrees, which | means it doesn't perform as much better than the NLAW as the | specs would suggest thanks to the NLAW's 90 degree top attack. | calcifer wrote: | It's an article meant for the general public. I think the | visuals demonstrate the "it comes from above" nature of it | quite well enough. | [deleted] | breadloaf wrote: | Yes it does. See "The Chieftain: No, The Tank Is Not Dead" | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI7T650RTT8 | | TLDW: Tank has a task on a battlefield and fact that you can | easily kill it won't take that task away. Same goes for infantry | and they are not going away either. On the other hand we don't | see battleships anymore, because big guns were replaced by | precise missiles with much more range. | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: | I always thought that battleships were ursurped by carriers. | Aircraft killed the battleships. | russellbeattie wrote: | And now advanced self-targeting hypersonic intercontinental | ballistic missiles are going to soon usurp carriers. Just a | few dozen launched from land will easily overwhelm any | defense a carrier has. | | You know how everything in our lives is slowly becoming | smart? This goes for all the weapons too. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-ship_ballistic_missile | jasonwatkinspdx wrote: | Surprisingly enough, the AEGIS Anti Ballistic Missile | variant is in fact designed to intercept the name on the | tin. That a handful of lazy journalists write "carriers are | dead" articles with some regularity doesn't mean the actual | Pentagon is clueless and asleep at the wheel vs it being a | superficial take of a much more complex topic. | | A couple years back the Navy asked congress for funding to | demonstrate taking down an inbound saturation attack of | 500+ missiles, probably as a deterrent to China. Congress | declined. | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: | This made me chuckle. Not that it's impossible but that is | quite hand wavey for a very tough technical challenge | nobody is close to accomplishing yet. | | Sure. And carriers can simply launch their reusable | hypersonic smart drone swarm shields and submerge | underwater. | 323 wrote: | A carrier costs $10 billion. Without considering the crew | and stuff in it. You can fire 50 $100 mil missiles | simultaneously at it would still make a lot of sense, | especially considering the morale aspect. | Sakos wrote: | Aircraft aren't anything without their missiles. | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: | This sea change happened in WWII though. | themadturk wrote: | It's the same thing, if you think of aircraft as missiles. | The point is the extension of range. Aircraft can reach out | much, much further than a naval gun, and can be used to scout | more effectively (many 20th century battleships had aircraft | of their own for scouting/fire spotting). Even modern | missile-equipped warships are less flexible in some ways than | a carrier air wing, though we have yet to see warfare pitting | a modern carrier battle group against anti-ship missiles. | ckozlowski wrote: | Came here to post this, so glad to see you did! | | I'll add a complimentary link for others' benefit from Military | History Visualized: "Tanks are obsolete, apparently since 1919" | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPth_xqBXGY | | In short, people forget about Combined Arms warfare. One cannot | look at the tank, or other arms of a military without | understanding how it supports and is supported by the others. | When that is overlooked, misunderstandings and exaggerated | conclusions are the result. | CamperBob2 wrote: | The only reason you'd use tanks _or_ infantry in a modern war | is that you don 't have enough drones and missiles. | | Maybe _you 're_ willing to climb into a tank after what we've | seen in Ukraine recently, but that's all you, pal. | sokoloff wrote: | If you want to occupy territory, you've got to do that on the | ground. | CamperBob2 wrote: | Tanks and soldiers are used to occupy territory, but in the | face of a well-equipped enemy and/or a motivated populace, | they can't hold it. | | Not everybody _likes_ wars of attrition. Russia is an | outlier in that regard. Copying their doctrine and tactics | is a bad idea, as is citing them as a successful example of | how to accomplish anything. They are great at beating up on | unarmed civilians, but against a modern armed force they | wouldn 't stand a chance... and no amount of tanks and | soldiers will change that. | zoomablemind wrote: | >... They are great at beating up on unarmed civilians, | but against a modern armed force they wouldn't stand a | chance... | | ...modern armed force and which is willing and allowed to | fight. It's an increasingly important factor of modern | day engagements. | | Let's not forget the political aspects of the | battlefield, as we are continuing to witness. | paganel wrote: | >, but against a modern armed force they wouldn't stand a | chance. | | They seem to be doing quite well against the modern army | of Ukraine, NATO-trained for 7-8 years now. | yks wrote: | The line of engagement barely moved in 3 months all the | while Ukraine is hopelessly outgunned, Russians are doing | quite well indeed /s. In reality UAF wasn't even a really | modern army, just more modern than Russia, and all their | "NATO" training in effect started in 2014. | | Where do people get the impression that Russian army is | strong and capable is beyond me, they just throw people | into the meat grinder and sit on top of the infinite | Soviet arsenal of old equipment. | FredPret wrote: | If Clausewitz is to be believed, killing the enemy army is | priority 1, and territory only matters in pursuit of that | goal. | | Makes sense - if all combatants in the Russian army are | dead, there's no further need to defend territory for | Ukraine. A boom with a border guard stamping passports | would suffice. | michaelt wrote: | Right, but what if you want to chase the Russians out of | Ukraine _without_ killing the Russian army to the last | man? | FredPret wrote: | A temporary solution at best. You chase them out and | they'll eventually come at you again, until they are dead | or disbanded. | zoomablemind wrote: | When it gets to that point, the russian army without | supply lines will have no other means to stay engaged. | | Thus the priority from the very beginning was to disrupt | the supply lines and ability to generate resources, | meanwhile securing own supply and resources. | | Ukraine needs more supply of long range artillery and lot | more ammo for it ... yesterday and right now! | jltsiren wrote: | "War is a continuation of policy by other means." | | Political goals are always the first priority. Fighting | may be exciting, but it may also be irrelevant in the | grand scheme of things. Defeating the enemy is neither | necessary nor sufficient for winning the war. | vorpalhex wrote: | You can't occupy an objective with a drone or a missile. You | can't control a city with a drone. | | Infantry and AFVs that support them will never go away. They | may change but war isn't just about destruction. | moffkalast wrote: | Oh yes you can. Just not a flying drone and not just one. | ninkendo wrote: | I'm going to avoid the quippy sarcastic response and try | my best to be curious: | | How would you occupy a city with only drones? What would | it look like? Would they issue orders to civilians to | stay in their homes? What sort of objectives that humans | do now in war [0] do you think drones can fully replace? | | [0] establishing forward bases for further logistical | support, "securing" areas, including searching through | rubble for humans and making sure they're not a threat, | etc. I've never been in the military so I don't know from | experience but I'm pretty sure there's tons of other | examples here. | imtringued wrote: | But your not flying drone is going to look like a | tankette, aka the autonomous combat warrior weasel from | Rheinmetall. | vorpalhex wrote: | Maybe. | | There are some experiments using turret style drones to | maintain like DMZs. They still need a human operator. | That is a case where you are mostly just waiting though. | | Seizing a town means dealing with a ton of civilians - | negotiating, handling mixed reports, etc. Drones may | become part of that but cameras are imperfect and you | will need people unless Drone tech has a giant leap in | human interfacing. | usrn wrote: | I'm not sure willingness matters as much in the military as | you seem to think. | CamperBob2 wrote: | We'll see. We have an all-volunteer military here in the | US, and that won't change, at this point. The idea, as | always, is to get more done with fewer people. | int_19h wrote: | It'll change very fast once US gets into a major war. | Say, with China. | jacquesm wrote: | Never say never, but you really don't want that to | happen. | int_19h wrote: | I didn't say anything about wanting it to happen. But if | it happens, does anyone seriously believe that US could | avoid re-instituting the draft? | dragonwriter wrote: | > But if it happens, does anyone seriously believe that | US could avoid re-instituting the draft? | | The US no longer has a draft law because the US | determined that the draft was bad both from a military | manpower perspective and from a domestic politics | perspective as to maintaining national will to continue a | conflict. | | The US will not reauthorize a draft for an overseas war | while the US remains a major power. If the US collapses | from major power status and the entire political and | military calculus is scrambled, it might. | remarkEon wrote: | >The US no longer has a draft law because the US | determined that the draft was bad both from a military | manpower perspective and from a domestic politics | perspective as to maintaining national will to continue a | conflict. | | Nixon got rid of the draft for reasons that had to do | with the unpopularity of the Vietnam War and his | presidential election. The argument was that the AVF | _wouldn 't negatively impact force readiness_, not that | the draft was "bad" from a military manpower perspective | (I'm not sure what that means). There's some other | reasons peppered in correspondence from that time, but | I'm super skeptical of this argument for enough reasons | to finish a PhD thesis. It's been a long time coming, but | the conversation needs to be had about how even if the | United States _needed_ to institute a draft we may not | actually be able to do so anymore because of the general | decline in health and fitness of men in this country. | More over, there are civ-mil relations considerations | that aren 't properly accounted for when you claim the | AVF is superior - we have essentially a warrior caste | now, that's in many ways sectioned off from the reset of | the civilian population. Good? Bad? Exercise for the | reader but you can probably guess my stance. | | >The US will not reauthorize a draft for an overseas war | while the US remains a major power. | | I don't see how these are related. Plenty of non "major" | powers have conscription (in some form or another), as do | plenty of "major" powers. The US wasn't a "major" power | before WWI, though it was certainly "a power", and yet my | great grandfather was drafted. Maybe you mean the US | won't get into an unwinnable and unpopular ground war in | South East Asia and then re-institute the draft, but you | may be underestimating the depth of ineptitude of the | people who've been running the show the last 30ish years. | Everyone I served with was a volunteer, obviously, but | war necessitates a lot of things that people would | otherwise consider impossible right up until they happen. | dragonwriter wrote: | > The argument was that the AVF wouldn't negatively | impact force readiness, not that the draft was "bad" from | a military manpower perspective | | The argument for the AVF has evolved over time; the issue | wasn't once and done, and the importance of longer | service terms in a wide range of specialties has been | increasingly cited in arguments for maintaining the AVF. | But even in the original Gates Commission report, the AVF | was not, contrary to your description, painted as merely | non-harmful, but as a more efficient means of meeting | military requirements, with extensive supporting | analysis. | [deleted] | jacquesm wrote: | There are a lot of voices that seem to believe that | isolationism is the way to go and that this will protect | their 'lifestyle' from being impacted by the war in | Ukraine. It's interesting how apparently some of | history's lessons are impossible to learn, the exact same | thing happened in 1938 and the end result was a _much_ | bigger war. | | Also, the degree to which the world economies are now | interconnected make it next to impossible to believe that | a major war in Europe would not impact other parts of the | world, which is super naive. Time will tell but I fear | that we're in for a very rough ride if this current war | doesn't get stopped in its tracks before it can engulf | more territories, which ultimately will happen. | | The only good thing is that now that the Russians have | shown their true goals that the bulk of the 'NATA did | this' or 'The Ukrainians only have themselves to blame' | people have something to chew on. | remarkEon wrote: | I'm not a fan of our (US + NATO) current Ukraine policy, | but that isn't because I'm an isolationist. I think it's | just dumb policy, on several different dimensions. The | version of the criticism you're leveling right now can be | inverted very easily. That the people arguing for | escalation in Ukraine, that it's "the exact same thing | [that] happened in 1938" (it isn't), and that unless we | do things like a NFZ it leads to a larger war, have a | cartoon version in their heads of war and geopolitical | strategy. Where there's clear boundaries between the | "good guys" and "bad guys", like this is some Marvel film | where you don't really even need to watch it to know what | happens (spoiler alert: the good guys win!). Perhaps they | are the ones who have something, and some history, to | chew on. | yks wrote: | You either accept a moral responsibility to protect | sovereign nations from elimination, and elimination at | this point was stated by Russian officials and media as a | goal numerous times, or you accept the Russian position | of "lands and peoples belong to the strong men" and we're | back to the age of conquest, but now with nukes. Not only | the former position is morally right, but it also | prevents or at least postpones the nuclear proliferation. | | This is not only about Ukraine, this is about the whole | Eastern Europe, and literally about post WW2 order that | you seem to be enjoying the fruits of, if only by hanging | out on Hacker News. | usrn wrote: | I completely disagree. You can't go preemptively | flattening every country you don't like (I mean, we did | for a little while and all it seems to have done is made | a bigger mess.) | jacquesm wrote: | Where did I write that you can go to preemptively flatten | every country you don't like? | themadturk wrote: | A draft takes a long time to ramp up, and soldiers take a | lot of time to train, so we're unlikely to start up a | draft unless we expect a conflict to be protracted. The | United States is unlikely to invade China and vice versa. | A war pitting the US against China is likely to be | largely naval- and air-oriented, with ground action (if | any) concentrated on Taiwan, and will probably take at | most a few weeks or months. | | We mustn't forget Vizzini's Aphorism: Never get involved | in a land war in Asia. | int_19h wrote: | If only all the wars that were deemed "unlikely" before | they began never happened, we'd all be much better off. | | The problem is that once shots are fired, things can | escalate very quickly, and decision-making is often not | rational. | FredPret wrote: | That war (god forbid) might only take a couple of hours | usrn wrote: | Unless it's a land war we're more than able to defeat | China with what we've got now and their future looks very | dim due to the demographic bomb they've created so that's | unlikely to change. | | I'm not too sure it would be motivating to people either. | Usually what motivates people is the fear of being | overrun by some other group but with immigration the way | it is that's happening anyway. | moffkalast wrote: | I think the guy has a point in tanks being useful, but | nobody's saying it can't be satelite controlled drone tanks. | CamperBob2 wrote: | I think that's a potentially useful idea. At this point, | putting _people_ in tanks is irresponsible. But that doesn | 't mean they couldn't be used as remotely-operated | vehicles. | kcb wrote: | How could you figure? How would they be controlled while | under communication jamming? Until autonomous AI exists | we'll need people on the ground. | moffkalast wrote: | The same way that airplane drones are controlled, from a | satelite in orbit directly above. To jam that you'd need | to get yourself above the tank, which to be fair is | probably doable to some extent, so there would have to be | countermeasures for it. But it's not exactly impossible. | dragontamer wrote: | Or you launch an anti-satellite missile. | | Which is the reason why great-powers don't go to war with | each other these days. Forget nukes, the first thing that | will be destroyed is each other's satellite communication | systems. That alone would devastate the world's economy. | | Anti-satellite warfare is a huge reason why the Space | Force (stupid name) came into existence. | smsm42 wrote: | Drones fly pretty high and usually avoid contact with the | enemy, and if there's trouble, they can easily flee and | come back later. For on-the-ground vehicle, one need to | stay much closer to the enemy, and if something goes | wrong, the opportunities for fleeing are much harder to | come by. You certainly don't need to physically be on top | of the tank to jam - there are military systems that can | disrupt communications in a wide area. And, probably, | just dumping something non-transparent on whatever it | uses to acquire visual information would work too. There | would be nobody to come out and clean it up - a trivial | task for a human, much harder for the robotic drone. | Humans are very flexible, robots aren't, at least not | until we get some AI going. And tbh, if we have such an | AI, I'm not sure we really want to give it a tank to | drive around. | dsr_ wrote: | If it doesn't have to carry people, it can carry much | less armor, which makes it more maneuverable; it might | carry so much less mass that it doesn't need tracks to | handle rough terrain. If it's light and nimble enough it | doesn't need a turret to point the main weapon. | | Is a remote-controlled dune buggy with a low-recoil rifle | a tank? | jacquesm wrote: | You still need to protect the ammunition, otherwise a | nearby explosion will set it off (this also happens at | the moment but less so than I would expect it to happen | with less armor, which also would make penetrating the | wall much easier and which would make the tank a softer | target altogether). | dsr_ wrote: | Sure, but you might not care as much because: | | - you can airlift 25 2-ton dune-buggies instead of 1 | 50-ton tank | | - you can buy 25 $2 million dune-buggies for the cost of | 2 $25 million tanks | | - if you sent 2 tanks, losing one is half of your force | projection. If you sent 25 dune-buggies, losing one is 4% | of your force. | | - maintenance on an unmanned 2-ton dune-buggy has to be | easier, faster and cheaper than maintenance on a tank. | Tanks need dedicated recovery vehicles (or Ukrainian | tractors) that cost nearly as much as another tank. | Maintenance is going to be much, much easier without | armor and the concomitant suspension for the armor | getting in the way. | | A hybrid powerplant is probably best -- a diesel motor- | generator to charge batteries and run for distance, with | an electric motor system and nice quiet relatively cool | batteries for an hour or two of sneaking around at a | time. Tanks don't sneak up on you, but a hybrid dune- | buggy in battery mode can. | | This also has knock-on effects for the civilian economy, | because if the cool support weapon for the infantry is a | quiet hybrid dune-buggy, the same thing with a crew cabin | instead of a gun and ammo will be a smash hit. | imtringued wrote: | https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TUv5xkY0wic | smsm42 wrote: | Probably not with the current level of technology. | Especially given that the lifetime of the tank is not only | "drive forward and shoot" - it needs to be fueled, oiled, | repaired, restocked, pulled out of the mud, etc. Fully | automating this would be a very complex task. Especially | achieving it on a battlefield where there are people who | are present there, unlike the remote controller, and do | their best to try and not let you do any of that. | [deleted] | kashkhan wrote: | Maybe war shouldn't have a future and not a role. We've had | enough of the european way of war. | skylanh wrote: | This is sort of my reference point from a salient and | personal perspective on why government's have departments of | defense. | | TEDxAmsterdam: Peter van Uhm: Why I chose a gun: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjAsM1vAhW0 | | Link to TED profile: | https://www.ted.com/speakers/peter_van_uhm | | "Peter van Uhm [was from 17 April 2008 until 28 June 2012] | the Netherlands' chief of defense" | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_van_Uhm | kashkhan wrote: | A government needs to wage war at some level to exist. | | To eliminate war the motives for war created by governments | need to be addressed. There is only one logical outcome, | once you decide you don't want war. | phillc73 wrote: | Dispense with the government? | int_19h wrote: | Governments are fine. It's states that are the problem. | Nation-states (whether ethnic or civic) especially, | because they have motivations to wage war that are | connected to the fiction that forms their core: "this | territory is historically ours", and "you're treating our | people poorly". Both are in full display in Ukraine | today, but just look at any "Greater ..." article in | Wikipedia to see numerous other examples. | Mountain_Skies wrote: | Unless you somehow achieve global equality in all things, | there's always going to be one group that wants something | another group has. Combine that with democracy and you | get a government that's happy to assist them with taking | it. | mike-the-mikado wrote: | Arguably the war is happening because we had prepared for it | insufficiently. | the_af wrote: | It's hard to understand how "we" could not have prepared | sufficiently. This conflict in Europe isn't a spur of the | moment thing. Arguably it could have been in the making | since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but even if you | don't go that far back, then _at least_ from 2014. It | certainly didn 't come out of the blue! | | I'll make my comment more assertive: I think "we" (for | almost any value of "we") prepared for this. Some | assumptions were proven wrong, like it often happens with | war. But a lot of it is playing out like many assumed it | would, or at least, it's playing out so that some factions | can observe what modern war fought with modern weapons | looks like. | vorpalhex wrote: | I think EU specifically dropped it's defense and R&D | budgets and became too weak, making land grabs by Russia | possible. | | There's a reason Russia feels good blustering about | attacking Finland. | foverzar wrote: | > There's a reason Russia feels good blustering about | attacking Finland. | | When did that happen? | vorpalhex wrote: | https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/12/russia-threatens- | retaliatory... | | https://nypost.com/2022/05/14/russia-threatens-nukes-for- | us-... | | https://www.newsweek.com/russia-threatens-finland-sweden- | nat... | | This was major news and carried by almost every outlet. | It is almost certainly just bluster, but escalatory | bluster for sure. | whimsicalism wrote: | If war was the predictable outcome, Ukraine should | probably have been more dovish towards Russian-speaking | Ukrainians in the East, ie. not banning Russian language, | not shelling cities. | | Obviously what Russia has done is reprehensible, but if | Ukraine saw war as incoming I don't see why they took | these aggravating steps. | The_Colonel wrote: | It's said to see such misinformation here. | | > [not] banning Russian language | | Russian isn't banned in Ukraine. Millions of Ukrainians | use Russian in their day to day life just fine. You can | hear Russian spoken by Ukrainians on the battlefield. | | > not shelling cities | | Check photos from Donetsk in e.g. 2020, city ~10 | kilometers from the frontline. Does it look destroyed? | No, it looks like any peacetime city. | | There were artillery exchanges between _both_ sides | targeting military fortifications. Civilian casualties in | the last few years have been minimal. | | But this doesn't really matter either way. Putin doesn't | care about civilian casualties, otherwise why would he | start this war? | whimsicalism wrote: | > Russian isn't banned in Ukraine. Millions of Ukrainians | use Russian in their day to day life just fine. You can | here Russian spoken by Ukrainians on the battlefield. | | It is illegal to have Russian language radio stations, | Russian language schools, and for government to | communicate officially in Russian (in addition to | Ukrainian & English). Of course people still speak | Russian in Ukraine. | | > There were artillery exchanges between both sides | targeting military fortifications. Civilian casualties in | the last few years have been minimal. | | Yes from both sides. 3.4k civilian casualties prior to | the actual war. | The_Colonel wrote: | > Of course people still speak Russian in Ukraine. | | Then it's not banned as you claimed. | | > Yes from both sides. 3.4k civilian casualties prior to | the actual war. | | With 3000 out of that in 2014 and 2015. In 2021 - 18 | civilian deaths, half of that caused by unexploded | shells/mines - https://ukraine.un.org/sites/default/files | /2021-10/Conflict-... | | War in Donbas was actually dying out in the past few | years, until Putin decided to escalate it and cause | deaths of 10 000s. | cestith wrote: | Russian is as banned in Ukraine as French, Hindi, or | German are banned in the United States. That is, they are | not the primary language taught in schools nor the | language in which government business is conducted but | nobody's being jailed for speaking it. | whimsicalism wrote: | The comparison with the US is disingenuous - it is not | illegal to open a French language school in the United | States, it is in Ukraine. | | Previously, Russian was allowed to be taught in schools | in Ukraine. It was then banned from being taught in | schools even in regions where the majority of people | speak Russian. | | Furthermore, it is illegal in Ukraine to have a Russian | language radio station. | | I encourage you to read up on the actual policy | differences. | scrose wrote: | Many of your statements are outright false. | whimsicalism wrote: | For radio: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from- | elsewhere-37908828 | | For schools, businesses and public services: | https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210401-new-law- | stoke... | AnimalMuppet wrote: | Evidence beats a bare denial. (Of course, the original | claim didn't have any evidence, either...) | | "Yes it is" "No it isn't" is a really uninteresting | conversation. Somebody supply some _evidence_ , not just | claims. | scrose wrote: | I don't have the time to google citable sources to refute | false claims without any evidence in the first place. My | sources are my own multiple very recent visits to | Ukraine(last visit earlier this year), and my extended | Ukrainian family and friends who were all taught either | only Russian(older and grew up in Russian occupied | territories or Eastern Ukraine) and at times spoke | Ukrainian under threat of death. Or were taught both | Russian and Ukrainian(younger, recent grads from the Kyiv | region) | whimsicalism wrote: | I've provided some media reports in another comment. | Evidence for everything I've said is also very available | on Google. | cestith wrote: | https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-parliament- | langua... does not mention banning Russian-language | schools nor, in fact, mentions banning teaching it in | addition to Ukrainian in the same school. | | There's an education law that says that starting in 2023, | all *state* schools must be taught *primarily* in | Ukranian at and above the *fifth grade*. While imperfect, | it does allow teaching in several minority languages, | especially in primary school. Russian is not allowed at | state schools above primary school as a teaching language | for other subjects, but it *can* be taught as an elective | subject and other organizations are free to teach it. The | ECHR implications of this are mentioned specifically by | the Venice Commission. | | https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine- | language/criticis... | | https://web.archive.org/web/20190516190140/https://www.pr | esi... | | https://www.venice.coe.int/webforms/documents/default.asp | x?p... | | From section 5 of the Venice document.: | | "69. Thus, it appears that members of the Bulgarian, | Greek, German, Polish, Romanian and Hungarian minorities, | in addition to being able to study their language as a | subject, may also study one or more other subjects | through the medium of their language at the secondary | education level. However, members of national minorities | who do not speak an official EU language -- | Byelorussians, Gagauzes, Jews, and, significantly, | Russians -- will only be able to study at the secondary | school level their language as a subject. Thus, a | hierarchy is created at the secondary school level, with | indigenous peoples potentially treated more favourably | than national minorities which speak an official language | of the EU, and national minorities which speak an | official language of the EU treated more favourably than | other national minorities." | | There is a high quota for state-language content on radio | but other languages are allowed a percentage. From | section 7 of the Venice document.: | | "95. With regard to the use of languages in broadcasting, | Article 24 refers to the Law on Television and Radio | Broadcasting. At the same time, a transitional provision | of the Law (Section IX, point 7.24) amends Article 10 of | the latter Law, tightening the language quota | requirements, by increasing the proportion of the | Ukrainian language content for national and regional | broadcasters from 75 to 90 per cent and, for the local | broadcasters, from 60 to 80 per cent. This amendment will | come into force five years after the Law's entry into | force (i.e. on 16 July 2024)." | | So is the situation perfect for everyone? No. Is the EU | (and Hungary and some others) pushing Ukraine to | compromise? Yes. Have they promised to work on | compromises? Also yes. | | There's no need to go beyond the actual, documented | issues and spread falsehoods and propaganda. | | *TL;DR:* I invite *you* to read up on the issue. | int_19h wrote: | Russian language isn't banned anywhere in Ukraine. | Indeed, 5 minutes of combat footage from the Ukrainian | side will quickly show that the majority of their armed | forces speak Russian. | | Even Russians themselves reflected on this, noting that | most volunteer forces they have faced so far come not | from the Western (majority-Ukrainian-speaking) regions of | Ukraine, but rather from Kharkiv, Dnipro etc. Their | explanation is that all those people are "brainwashed by | Ukrainian Nazis". | | There is some real contention with the status of Russian | as 1) the official government language, and 2) the | official education language in schools. But I don't think | it's fair to phrase that as "banning Russian". | whimsicalism wrote: | It is illegal to have government communication in Russian | or to have a Russian language radio station in Ukraine. I | would call that banning Russian language from some | aspects of public life. | thraway11 wrote: | Do you have a link for this? I hadn't heard about the | Russian language being banned. I did know about this from | 2019: | | https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-parliament- | langua... | | "The new legislation requires TV and film distribution | firms to ensure 90 percent of their content is in | Ukrainian and for the proportion of Ukrainian-language | printed media and books to be at least 50 percent." | | It also says civil servants must speak Ukrainian. It does | not say they can't also speak Russian. | | In any case, that's not a ban. | whimsicalism wrote: | It is illegal for any business to offer services or | communicate in Russian unless the customer explicitly | asks. It is illegal to have Russian language newspapers | or schools, all of which existed before the crackdown. | | Turkey has done the same thing to Kurdish speakers and | most of the West has rightfully condemned their attempts | to crack down on the language. | notahacker wrote: | And anyway, the Ukrainian population did take those steps | when most of them voted for a political outsider from a | Russian speaking background seen as sympathetic to | Russian speaking culture and somewhat willing to | negotiate better relations with the "independent | Republics". Putin interpreted that as a sign of | weakness... | the_af wrote: | Let's just say I find your comment very on point. I would | like to discuss this, but I don't think this is the best | venue, and also this is a very sensitive topic and people | are likely to be upset. And I wouldn't blame them. | | I did want to say your observation is astute. | zoomablemind wrote: | >...Ukraine should probably have been more dovish towards | Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the East, ie. not banning | Russian language, not shelling cities. | | This is an understandably myopic view. Especially now, as | the whole charade of justification and "objectives" of | russia's invasion in Ukraine is in full swing. | | Perhaps, remembering that in putin's view, Ukraine is not | an independent state, its existence is a mistake, the | land is a sphere of russia's influence... well, the | madman outright wants it "back" into the "empire". | | Thus it has long been clear that no amount of pacifying | or "non-irritating" is to alter such policy. Language, | aspirations and affinities are simply pre-texts for the | forceful grab. | | Fundamentally, we're dealing with a clash of mentalities. | One adopting to modern day and the one still stuck in the | "age of empires". | | To putin's russians, tank is a symbol of forceful | conquest. So it's not going away. Perhaps, more images of | the charred russian army tanks could break this | perception... temporarily. | cestith wrote: | Ukraine has, in fact, been partly occupied and claimed by | a foreign power since 2014. | malwrar wrote: | What do you propose instead? | | A state is always going to need a military to defend its | stability and continuity from existential threats. Despite | what the internet would have you believe, the world is a | massive place with a vast diaspora of peoples with tons of | different contradictory policy preferences. I don't think we | could give up preparing for the next fight if we wanted to. | bnralt wrote: | What was the last successful offensive war? When was the | last time American tanks were successful in creating a | positive outcome for United States citizens (which, | theoretically, is the entire reason they're built)? You | could make an argument for 30 years ago, but you'd need to | go back closer to 70 years for a strong case. | | The other poster raises a valid point that war, as it is | typically been envisioned, might be far less prominent than | people realize. The argument is that the tank has a task on | the battlefield, but we should ask ourselves how much that | battlefield matters in this day and age. | kashkhan wrote: | Right. When did the US last win a war? Even with | unlimited weapons, nobody wins any more. Sure you can | destroy governments like Saddam and Gaddafi, but you | don't win the hearts and minds, and eventually you lose. | dragontamer wrote: | So do what Russia does. | | Deport the unfavorable people to Siberia. Then import the | willing population into Ukraine. | | Given the Russian "tactics" and "strategy" for its war in | Ukraine, it is clearly a threat of cultural genocide. | Russia aims to destroy the Ukrainian people and their | history, and disperse them into Siberia where they won't | be able to become a threat. | | --------- | | USA tries to "win hearts and minds" because we've | convinced ourselves that we're the "good guys", and want | to win under certain conditions. Without hearts and | minds, we lose and we're willing to accept that. | | When Russia fights, they're not aiming for that at all. | Its just destruction. Even against "brother Slavs", its | better for Ukraine to be destroyed than for it to play | nice with NATO (or so they want to believe). | | Under these circumstances, the only solution is to arm | the Ukrainians and give them a fighting chance. | Otherwise, the Ukrainians will be completely, and | utterly, annihilated as a people. | | ---------- | | Russia has the will and the right strategy here in broad | strokes. | | They fortunately, don't seem to have the right tactics or | approach. So it looks like the Russians will fail. But | even as they fail, they will cause hundreds-of-billions, | maybe trillions of dollars worth of damages, and likely | cause the largest famine event the world has ever seen. | | Better weapons and a better defense could have prevented | the Ukrainians from losing their coastland. Better | weapons could have allowed Ukraine to continue their | grain exports. Better weapons and defenses could have | protected Ukrainian's grain silos, which are being blown | up and pillaged. | AtlasBarfed wrote: | Well, financially (and logistically) the Russians are | fighting a losing war of morale and economics. Every day | the Ukrainians effectively resist the Russians is a | victory for Ukraine and the West. | | The West will HAPPILY fund the Ukrainians to proxy | destroy the Russian military, and proxy bankrupt them. | | We'll see how long Putin lives with cancer. The speed of | deployment and assumed schedule for victory would point | to very fast cancer. | kashkhan wrote: | Transporting wins in the short term. Extermination wins | too. The europeans exterminated the natives on many lands | and took over. They have many lands for centuries now. | | Not many Ohlone on hacker news. | | The US tried exterminating the Taliban, but failed. | abfan1127 wrote: | you're argument is more that American force has been | misused, not that it has not place. I'd agree it has been | misused for 70 years. | kashkhan wrote: | The US has far superior military now than 70 years ago, | and military power imbalance is more in favor of US than | ever before. | | But the world has changed faster. All use of military now | is misuse and futile. | | We don't look at veterans now and say wow what heroes. We | just thank them for their service. We don't celebrate | them for "Mission Accomplished". Thanking is like a | participation trophy. | msla wrote: | > We've had enough of the european way of war. | | So trying another region's way of war would be an | improvement, then? | kashkhan wrote: | Not many continents imposing war on europe past millennium. | Europe imposed war on everyone and tried to exterminate | everyone else. Do better. | kansface wrote: | Ignoring Africa, Asia and North America more recently, | sure! | echelon wrote: | There will _never_ be peace. If there are resources held | without power, someone will take them. | | The fact that the world is as peaceful as it is now is | remarkable. It's because of MAD and the high cost of war. | | What we revolt at is the industrial scale of modern war. But | war has been with us since prehistory. Our ancestors killed, | raped, and pillaged. Far enough back in time, and they even | ate one another. | | Look to nature. It evolved thousands of types of killing | machines to harness the energy of other creatures. Lions eat | wild prey alive. Hornets lay their larva inside live hosts so | that they can feed. Orcas play with their food for sport. | | Just imagine what happens when we get AGI or BCI. | | It's easy to be pacifist and condemn war. And we should hope | for that. But we also have to protect our sovereignty and | safety, and that means maintaining an adequate defense with | weapons, food, energy, and supply chain. | | Our comfort comes at great cost. | aetherson wrote: | What would your current advice be for the Ukraine? | paganel wrote: | Not the OP, but they should seek for peace as soon as | possible, that will reduce the number of dead Ukrainians | and also the amount of territory that they might further | lose. | | Ideally the Zelensky regime should have gotten the message | and should have left for the West as soon as the Russian | paratroopers landed at Gostomel. The Czechoslovaks in '68 | and the Hungarians in '56 had done exactly that. Yes, that | would have probably meant a couple of decades of a Russian- | backed puppet regime in Kyiv but the future would have been | open for anything. As things stand right now Ukraine has | almost no access to the Black Sea anymore, about 7 million | people have left their homes, not to mention the tens of | thousands of civilians dead in this war. | kashkhan wrote: | Getting more tanks ain't it. More war also not it. | | Russian empire needs to be dismantled. But unlikely UKR | waging war on russia will do it. | brokencode wrote: | So basically you have put no thought into this except | that you don't like war. | | I think most people will agree with you that war is bad. | But if you get attacked, then all you can do is either | give up or defend yourself. | | Afghanistan chose to give up to the Taliban, and now | their rights are being taken away. | | Ukraine chose to defend themselves, and the jury is still | out on whether they'll be successful and what the cost | will be. | | But there is no third option where you simply will war | out of existence. | | Diplomacy works with certain enemies, and that will | hopefully be the outcome in Ukraine too, but that too | will come with a heavy price, such as giving up major | amounts of territory. | paganel wrote: | The Talibans are the Afghanistan, or a bit part of it. | kashkhan wrote: | "Afghanistan" is a western colonial construct made up of | many groups. Most states are western colonial constructs. | We might need to move past that. | kashkhan wrote: | Plenty of people have put thought into what to do to end | war. You don't need original thoughts from me. | | The natural corollary of someone attacking you is not to | get into an arms race. | | Afghanistan didn't choose Taliban. Pakistan and Saudi | chose Taliban and armed them enough to take over. War | obviously works. | | What's going to happen in UKR is that the warlike will | win and then naturally turn their guns towards the | locals. Exactly like in Afghanistan. You can arm them as | much as you like, but they will not turn into gandhis | with an excess of guns. | | My point is not that war doesn't work. My point is that | we should all be fighting against war. | pasabagi wrote: | In the specific case of Ukraine, a people's war of | national liberation is a pretty classic form of nation | building. That's how a lot of nations came about. The | Taliban are a particularly bad analogy, because they | represent regionalist resistance against central | government in Afghanistan. Countries like Italy, the USA, | or Vietnam were formed in this manner. | vel0city wrote: | > My point is that we should all be fighting against war. | | By what, asking nicely? | kashkhan wrote: | Yes. Be very persuasive. But restrict yourself to | persuasion. | | The way is for the antiwar people to be more successful | than warriors and turn war into the losers' choice. | | I refuse to arm myself, refuse to serve in militaries and | refuse to support war as much as i am able. If antiwar | people are successful, war will evolve out. | brokencode wrote: | Do you think Ukraine can persuade Putin to call off the | invasion? If they didn't defend themselves, they'd be a | Russian province or puppet state today. | | That's always the unfortunate downside of relying on only | persuasion. Some people will just take what they want if | you don't force them to stop. | | Just read about how well persuasion (aka "appeasement") | worked in the buildup to WW2. Spoiler: it didn't. | int_19h wrote: | marcosdumay wrote: | > the warlike will win and then naturally turn their guns | towards the locals | | Whether they do that as a democratic government, a | dictatorship, a paragovernamental entity, or a set of | mobs makes all the difference in the world. | kashkhan wrote: | Anyone pointing a gun at me is not my friend. Anyone that | chooses a gun to get their way is not my friend. | | I don't trust people with guns. They are the same because | they all choose violence to get their way. | | "Democratic" gun holders point more guns at me today than | mobs. | dageshi wrote: | You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in | you. | pizzachan wrote: | That's what I tell people about politics. | bombcar wrote: | > I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world | without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, | because they'd never expect it. | | As long as there are conflicting desires, there will be | conflict, and it can break out into war. | | However, it's possible that war can be reduced, but it may | require things we're not quite ready for, such as the end of | Westphalian states. | Jistern wrote: | Your comment is extremely misleading. | | Modern militaries are rapidly transforming into what was | science fiction, say, 50 years ago: almost exclusively remote- | controlled robots and primarily (or even exclusively) | autonomous robots. | | If you call small, unmanned, armored vehicles "tanks" you are | misleading people. | | In modern militaries, whether it be surface ships, submarines, | airplanes, tanks, etc.... within another few decades, people | almost certainly won't be inside of them. People will control | them remotely and/or algorithms/artificial intelligence will | control them. | | What we are seeing in Ukraine is Russia and NATO disposing | obsolete military weapons in a disgusting farce of a war. | Washington and Moscow should have divided up Ukraine like they | did much of Europe in the waning days of World War II. | | There was no need for a single bullet to be fired, let alone | mortars and missiles. Washington antagonized Moscow | ceaselessly. Eventually, Moscow took the bait. It's tragedy | that could have, and should have been avoided. | | Nonetheless, just because these days you see men in tanks | fighting in Ukraine on your phone or laptop, don't think that | "Tanks are still relevant in modern warfare!" They aren't. | Tanks, by which I mean large vehicles with people inside of | them, are obsolete in modern warfare. | | People who claim tanks are still viable in modern warfare are | either fools, liars, or manipulative purveyors of falsehoods | who enjoy twisting words by referring to small, unmanned robots | as "tanks." | | The Economist.com is yet another legacy media property that | regularly engages in obvious yellow journalism in a doomed | struggle to remain profitable. Articles with headlines like, | "Does the Tank Have a Future?" are clickbait. | | I didn't take the bait; I didn't read the article. Why should I | have? A better article would have been, "Does Economist.com | Have a Future?" | jeffdn wrote: | This is a complete misunderstanding of warfare. Drones cannot | take and hold ground. Without infantry, an external power | cannot exert influence over an area. Sure, they can wantonly | kill civilians, but that doesn't mean they are in charge. | Until and unless autonomous drones with general artificial | intelligence can be mass-produced and deployed on the scale | of infantry brigades, massed infantry will be required. Even | then, an EMP could disable those drones in one fell swoop. | | They are absolutely not disposing of obsolete weapons -- and | the West has no desire to "carve up Ukraine". How did | Washington antagonize Moscow? NATO is a voluntary defensive | pact. The Eastern European countries, who all have a long | history of being oppressed and occupied by Russian (and | Soviet) governments, asked to join NATO. What good would it | do for the West to start a war? What is there to gain from | brinksmanship when the stakes are a strategic nuclear | exchange? | | The idea that this war is at all something provoked by the | West, or in any way defensive on Russia's part, is pure | Russian propaganda. The Putin regime fears the | democratization of its neighbors resulting in its own people | losing confidence in its ability to lead the country. This | phase of the war is merely an extension of Russia's desire to | quash any semblance of Ukrainian agency -- this war started | in 2014, after the last vestige of Russia's control over | Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich, fled the country. | | Finally, your view actively denies the Ukrainian people their | agency. If they did not find this war worthwhile, if they did | not think Ukraine as an idea was worth defending, why are | they dying in their tens of thousands to defend it? | YarickR2 wrote: | jeffdn wrote: | echelon wrote: | Is there a good rundown of every piece of weaponry and its | corresponding utility and strategy somewhere? | | I'd love to update or correct my understanding of tanks, | artillery, HIMARS, aircraft carriers, cruisers, littoral | combat, submarine classes, F-22, F-35, AWACS, etc. | themadturk wrote: | One place for a quick look at different types of armor and | their uses, is the recent post at the A Collection of | Unmitigated Pedantry blog: | | https://acoup.blog/2022/05/06/collections-when-is-a-tank- | not... | ranger207 wrote: | Not a single source, but old.reddit.com/r/warCollege is | fantastic. It's not as strict as /r/askHistorians (for better | or for worse) but there are lots of active military officers | on there who know their stuff | pizzachan wrote: | I used to get a copy of Janes Defense Weekly at work. It was | always a good read when I was a young kid on the hill. They | even used to put out a buyers guide for IFVs/LAVs. If you | want to cut through the noise for good military analysis you | usually have to drop some decent dough. | dragontamer wrote: | Video games. | | https://www.matrixgames.com/game/armored-brigade | | Armored Brigade is probably a good start. 4 minutes for | artillery to aim, 1 to 2 minutes for shells to actually | arrive, 10 minutes for air-support to fly in. | | 1 to 2 minutes to deliver commands to any particular squad | (depending on how good their radio contact is). | | Roughly realistic levels of arms, armor and penetration. | Angle of shots and type of weapon (kinetic energy, such as | APFSDS, or Chemical energy, such as M47 Dragon or HEAT | rounds) are factored in. | | Guided missiles, top-down missiles, fire-and-forget missiles. | Etc. etc. Its not every weapon, but its a solid set of | important weapons that probably cover a wide variety of | possible combat situations. | | Line-of-sight is simulated on an incredible degree: height | maps matter, but so do trees (partially obscured), houses, | and smoke grenades even. Line of sight is best at 12noon. | Line of sight is worst at night, unless your squads are | equipped with thermal vision. Weather (foggy conditions | especially) can change things dramatically. | | ------- | | The simulated soldiers/tanks aren't the best, but they're | smart enough to run away during artillery barrages and hunker | down. They'll seek cover on their own (and if you tell them a | direction to defend against, they'll look for cover on their | own too against that direction). Tank commanders "button up" | during enemy fire (reducing their vision but likely saving | the commander's life). Covering fire is therefore effective. | | ------ | | The AI is okay. The AI runs into traps and ambushes, and | never really figures them out. Still, good enough to get you | the basics of strategy of each of these weapons. | | Seeing the 3000m range of a tank vs the 150m range of a M72 | LAW really demonstrates the bravery that those unguided anti- | tank bazooka squads have. | jacquesm wrote: | There are some very interesting developments in this field: | | https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1523791050313433088 | MezzoDelCammin wrote: | Single place? Probably no. But You can go branch by branch. | | For armor, Chieftain is probably as good as it gets in | English when it comes to universality (he's both a historian | and an active service Lt.Col. in the US NG). | | For further armor sources, I'd highly recommend the YT | channel of Tank Museum Bovington: | https://www.youtube.com/user/TheTankMuseum | | The chap whose video Chieftain replies to ("Perun") is worth | following in his own right for the modern take on Russian / | Ukraine war. He's more of an economist / logistician, but | well worth watching: | | https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC3ehuUksTyQ7bbjGntmx3Q | | From Perun You'll often hear the name "Michael Kofman". He | doesn't get one single place where you could find all of his | stuff, but google him and go through the articles / videos he | is in. He's often used as a source for quite a lot of | commentary about Russian Army in the past 20 years or so. | https://russianmilitaryanalysis.wordpress.com/ | | When it comes to general doctrine, it's sometimes useful to | know the compositions of forces. This is a good starting | point: https://www.youtube.com/c/BattleOrder | | When it comes to modern navy, Jive Turkey (now called | "SubBrief") is probably a cool starting point. Mainly | submarines (he's an ex US Navy 688 sonar operator), but : | https://www.youtube.com/c/SubBrief | ansible wrote: | Upvote for Perun. He very recently did a video on the | apparent infantry shortage that the Russian forces seem to | be facing: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKewF8_SiIs | | The short, short, short version is that the Russian BTGs | (battalion tactical groups) and undermanned in general, and | the conscripts are supposed to be filling most of the | infantry slots. Theoretically, because this isn't a | declared war, the conscripts aren't supposed to be | fighting, and weren't sent to the "special military | operation". | | I enjoyed watching all the Ukraine war videos on that | channel. | nonameiguess wrote: | The US Army keeps a public repository of all field manuals | approved for general release here: | https://armypubs.army.mil/ProductMaps/PubForm/FM.aspx | | I think the closest to what you're looking for is FM 3-96 the | Brigade Combat Team (https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/ | DR_a/ARN31505-FM_3-9...). The is the smallest unit that | includes effectively everything the Army can bring to bear, | including infantry, armor, artillery, and rotary aviation. | There might still be some fairly specialized intelligence, | surveillance, and recon assets only available to divisions, | but most of what the Army can deploy for fighting purposes | exists in the BCTs at this point. I imagine other branches of | service have their equivalents in terms of doctrine on how to | employ submarines and fighter jets, but I only ever served in | the Army and am most familiar with their tactics and | doctrine. | ufmace wrote: | Yup. The key point is, a weapon system becomes obsolete when | something else does its job better, not when it becomes more | vulnerable. When something valuable becomes more vulnerable, | you protect it better. When it becomes less valuable because | something else does the job better, then you get rid of it. | | As of right now, nothing does a ground offensive like a few | dozen tanks advancing at top speed with appropriate support. | They'll blast anything in their path and charge right through | all but the toughest and most concentrated defenses. As long as | you can see those really concentrated defenses in advance and | go around, they're pretty tough to stop. | objektif wrote: | This is like asking Michael Saylor if Bitcoin is still a good | investment. | bpodgursky wrote: | A lot of people are asking whether tanks are survivable anymore, | but nobody is asking whether unarmored infantry are any more | survivable in the era of small-drone warfare. It's all relative. | dragontamer wrote: | Small drone warfare? | | The Ukraine / Russian conflict has degenerated into trench | warfare with thousands of 155mm / 152mm artillery being shot | into each other's positions per day. | | These are the kinds of conditions where tanks excel. Humans who | try to walk at 3km/hr get blown up by shrapnel, even 100m away | is "close enough" to cause a significant injury and take a | human out of a fight. | | Tanks? They pretty much ignore everything except a direct hit | (within 2m) of the target. All that shrapnel just bounces off | the tank. We've gone full circle back to WW1 trench/artillery | warfare, where tanks were invented to break through the | stalemate. | | Other vehicles (even armored cars) don't have thick enough | armor to survive the shrapnel reliably. APCs, IFVs, Humvees | still get shredded by artillery and air-burst munitions. | | ------- | | How do you beat artillery? You travel at 50km/hr, so you're | hard to aim (a 20km shot takes 1.5 minutes to land. Easy to | kill a human who can only travel a hundred meters in that | timeframe, especially since its +/- 100m target size since the | shrapnel blast is so huge). | | Tanks / vehicles on the other hand, move too fast to be | targeted by dumb artillery. Smart artillery still kills you, | but its relatively rare on the battlefield (due to the high | costs of computer parts needed to make a smart shell). The vast | majority of these holes are dumb artillery. | | --------- | | https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/... | | This isn't the landscape of "drone warfare". This is WW1 style | dumb-artillery wars. | the_af wrote: | In support of your statement, I'm impressed that Russian | doctrine seems to rely so much on good ol' trusty massive | artillery, of the dumb kind. | | I guess, if it works... | int_19h wrote: | Said massive artillery fire is directed from the drones. | You hear a lot about Ukrainian Bayraktars, but the most | mass-deployed combat drone in Ukraine right now is actually | Mavic 2 & 3 - on both sides! In fact, it got to the point | where there's a shortage of them in Russia because DJI | stopped importing them, but units fighting in Ukraine | constantly demand and get more via crowdfunding. | | (For the curious, here's a blog post from the Donbas | separatist side that talks about drones and their combat | use and maintenance, among other things: | https://kenigtiger.livejournal.com/2140772.html) | | However, Ukrainians have learned to embrace the drones in | 2014-15 already, and have had a lot more experience with | them since. Russia is still learning that lesson in the | field. | int_19h wrote: | BTW, the same blogger also wrote a post recently that | specifically discusses the differences in how Russian and | Ukrainian forces employ their artillery. Also worth a | read: | | https://kenigtiger.livejournal.com/2148946.html | | (I would generally recommend this entire blog for those | curious about the tactics and the logistics of the | conflict, because it's one of those rare cases when a guy | who is directly involved in the war, and has a long- | standing reputation as one of the prominent hawks, is | consistently writing posts that are critical of _his own | side_ - which criticism is far more likely to be accurate | than propaganda from the other side.) | bombcar wrote: | Puts the whole Seoul situation in a new light - there's | something about just massive amounts of shells being thrown | that's hard to deal with. | | And dumb is cheap. Cheap can be king, especially if you can | keep making them. The US had the same thing in WWII, the | Panzer tanks were better than the Shermans in nearly every | way - except cost and repairability. | the_af wrote: | Yes. This is also a lesson the Red Army learned in WWII, | and why not continue with it? Simple systems that can be | mass produced are better than complex, harder to repair | ones. | bombcar wrote: | The complex, hard to repair ones are great if: | | 1. You're selling them. | | 2. You have absolute complete superiority and are trying | to minimize _your_ casualties | | There's a country that fits those parameters very well. | whimsicalism wrote: | Both Russian and Ukrainian, also grad rockets. They're | pretty much fighting each other with the same weapons. | dragontamer wrote: | Whenever people talked about "suicide drones", I felt like | they haven't studied the history of warfare. | | A surprising number of conflicts: WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, | degenerated into artillery slugfests. You can't get much | cheaper, faster, or more effective than guns shooting dumb | explosives 20km away. | | Only when the opponents were stupidly overmatched by US Air | Superiority (Afghanistan / Iraq) did things change. But | even with Air Superiority over say, Vietnam, USA still | degenerated into an artillery slugfest. | | ------- | | Its hard to beat 100lb shrapnel bombs delivered 20km away. | Logistics wise, trucks carrying shells is just far cheaper | than any other delivery mechanism. This fact has been true | since WW1, and no technology has ever really changed the | calculus. (Adding li-ion batteries, cameras, remote-control | and other features so that you can turn the delivery | mechanism into a drone is just unnecessary chips in most | cases) | thraway11 wrote: | > But even with Air Superiority over say, Vietnam, USA | still degenerated into an artillery slugfest. | | I just finished James Holland's Normandy '44 and I'd say, | according to his book, that sentence pretty accurately | describes pretty much all of the WW2 Normandy campaign as | well. | bpodgursky wrote: | I simplified the argument for brevity, but drones are | critical to the artillery war right now because of spotting | and fire-correction. | | Artillery is far more lethal in 2022 than it was in 1945 | because you can spot and kill individual infantry units from | ten miles away. | mtnGoat wrote: | ten? i think its closer to 30 miles. | | If memory serves me correctly, my brother said the cannon | he captained was capable of incredible accuracy at 30 | miles. | dragontamer wrote: | That's just drones serving the role of forward-observer | though. | | The underlying tactic of someone, or something, out in the | field, issuing radio messages back to home-base to | coordinate artillery has been around since WW2, maybe | earlier. Drones represent an evolution to the forward- | observer paradigm, not a revolution. | | In WW2, those were paratroopers, commandos, or other scouts | who were performing those forward-observer duties while | hiding inside of a treeline. | | Sure, they were Morse code messages over a radio powered by | a 20lb lead-acid battery pack with terrible encryption, but | the fundamental tactic hasn't changed (especially because | said forward-observer team would rarely be spotted... since | they aren't firing their guns they're really hard to find) | bpodgursky wrote: | I think there's a meaningful difference here, and it's | very incorrect to consider it an incremental change. | | An infantry squad dug into foxholes in some forest in | WWII was really quite safe against artillery. A forward | observer can maybe spot a tank or artillery battery | (sometimes). A drone can scan an entire battlefield and | identify infantry 10 miles behind a line of trenches, and | coordinated artillery strikes can wipe them out. | | That's hugely difference! It vastly changes the lethality | per unit of artillery, and the relative risk for infantry | units who aren't in obviously-fortified positions. | metabagel wrote: | Infantry can more effectively hide, disperse, and bring down | aerial drones. | bpodgursky wrote: | This is very terrain-dependent. | | It worked around Kyiv because it's forested and hilly, it | works in cities with large soviet apartment blocks, but isn't | working well at all in flat Donbas farmland. | | It's also a 100% defensive strategy. Unsupported infantry | have almost no ability to retake dug-in positions. | dilyevsky wrote: | The truth is they never were. I think i heard somewhere that | avg battlefield lifetime of a tank in ww2 was less than 20 | minutes | 1123581321 wrote: | A lot of money is being invested in anti-drone tech. | syntaxfree wrote: | I expected this to be about Shark Tank somehow. | pclark wrote: | It seems like the future of warfare is longe range (eg: firing | missiles at tanks from across the horizon) or hyper short range | (eg: troops clearing cities block by block) -- anything else | seems like it'll get wrecked by either the precision of long | range or the precision of short range stuff. | | A tank isn't hyper mobile, isn't hyper accurate and isn't hyper | long range. I don't get it's role -- especially when it costs | tens of millions and can be destroyed with either a $5k anti- | armor launcher or from a missile fired across the horizon. | jopython wrote: | Long range missiles are expensive. ATGMs require you to be | closer (2 miles or less) to the target which means the | operating crews are vulnerable to the same tanks and other | mortar fire which they are trying to kill. | | I think long range artillery (> 50kms) is the solution. | int_19h wrote: | There's also drones to consider. | Tsiklon wrote: | A tank is certainly more useful in the middle distance than at | extreme range, or in tight spaces, there's better choices of | tool for those jobs guided artillery/rockets at distance and | heavy auto-cannon clad infantry fighting vehicles like in the | city. But not all warfare exists in either of those ranges. | | Tanks are great at assaulting enemy hard points, taking fire | away from supporting infantry who can move in and cleanup the | position after the tank has suppressed it or broken it open. | It's a heavy weapon of mobility and manoeuvre on the field. | | A tank's role is that of heavy cavalry, designed to intimidate | and break defensive lines in a charge across contested | territory and to provide immediate direct fire on a target in | support of advancing infantry. As the modern rifleman company | is the descendant of line infantry of old, the tank is the | descendant of the Cuirassier. | trhway wrote: | Russian tanks aren't a representative of a modern tank as among | other things they have crappy active defense - it is all about | electronics. Israel's is a good one, and their tanks survive | multiple shots by actively killing incoming RPG warheads and the | likes. | | Also Russian tanks are on the light side as they can't manage a | powerful enough engine required, ie gas turbine of 1500hp+. The | best they have so far managed is 1000hp diesel on may be 200 | tanks by now, the rest is old one 800hp. Thus their tanks have | armor lighter and of older type than say Abrams. | | And there is huge area of discussion about integration of all | weapons on the battlefield - without such integration any weapon | loses its efficiency tremendously - and Russian military is very | bad at integration, and tanks in isolation are much weaker target | as opponent much easily finds the window opportunity. | int_19h wrote: | Have Israeli tanks ever faced Javelins tho? | aerostable_slug wrote: | They have faced formidable ATGMs including Kornet E, and have | suffered losses. Time will tell how effective their hard-kill | countermeasures will prove to be. | cturner wrote: | Not a direct answer, but an advantage of Israeli armour is | that they only need to deploy locally. This means less | penalty for armour than US systems which are designed to be | carried in air transports for foreign deployment, or Russian | units designed around train transport. The Israeli Namer IFV | weighs more than twice as much as a Bradley IFV, and can | carry more troops. | bell-cot wrote: | Does infantry have a future, given what WWI taught us about their | vulnerability to artillery and machine guns? Do (naval) ships | have a future, given what WWII taught us about their | vulnerability to torpedoes? Do air defenses or air forces have a | future, given what happened in Mole Cricket 19 ( | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mole_Cricket_19 )? Do... | | Zzz. | FinanceAnon wrote: | Tanks Considered Harmful? | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: | The USMC got rid of their tanks. The closest thing to a tank they | still have is a Light Armored Vehicle. | mellavora wrote: | And some people in the USMC hotly debate if this was a good | idea or not | ranger207 wrote: | The USMC decided it's going to fight a different kind of fight, | being dropped off on small Pacific islands with antiship | missiles and artillery to produce a set of distributed antiship | bunkers. Their divestment of the tank is not because they | thought the tank is obsolete, but because the tank doesn't fit | with the fight they're planning for. Most armies, including the | US's, still plan to have fights where tanks make sense. Of | course the question of whether or not those kinds of fights are | likely to happen is a valid question, but is orthogonal to the | question of whether or not drones and ATGMs make tanks obsolete | gherkinnn wrote: | They got rid of their tanks because the Army will provide them. | It says so in the 2030 doctrine document. | | How is that so hard to understand? | cestith wrote: | This is an excellent question that's asked every five to ten | years since 1916 and so far always ends up answered "yes". | prometheus76 wrote: | Judging by the current situation, it seems that there are more | resources for building tanks than there are for building anti- | tank weapons. Once the anti-tank weapon stocks have been | depleted, tanks still play a devastating role in warfare. | | EDIT: I'm just relaying what I read in several articles about the | difficulties in making anti-tank weapons because they rely on | rare-earth minerals and because they rely on silicon chips, which | are in short supply worldwide. Here's one of the articles I read: | https://news.clearancejobs.com/2022/04/26/managing-the-dod-s... | 323 wrote: | Tanks also rely on silicon chips. Many more than in an anti- | tank weapon. | horsawlarway wrote: | I don't understand this comment. | | The anti-tank weaponry is an order of magnitude less expensive | than the tank (some is several orders). | | The M1A2 Abrams has a unit cost of around 10 million USD | (numbers from 2016, so likely higher now). | | The drones currently destroying tanks in Ukraine (Bayraktar | TB2) had a unit price of around 5 million, although some | estimates are as low as 1-2 million per unit delivered to | Ukraine at this point (production has ramped up). | | notably - the whole drone isn't consumed when a tank is | destroyed, so I really suspect we're going to see a _drastic_ | ramp up in drone warfare. | imtringued wrote: | Tanks can also destroy more stuff than they cost. | prometheus76 wrote: | It's the scarcity of the parts, not the overall cost. | Javelins require rare-earth minerals (which largely come from | Russia) and rare silicon chips that are in short supply | worldwide. I edited my original post to include a link to an | article about the difficulties in replacing the diminishing | stock of anti-tank weapons. | pclark wrote: | Modern tanks also use minerals and chips, they're basically | armoured computers. They also, obviously, take a huge | amount of resources to produce, transport and train to use. | jacquesm wrote: | That's the expensive drones. But there are plenty of kills | attributed to octocopters dropping modified anti-tank | grenades. | dsr_ wrote: | A tank is 15-75 tons of armor, engine, chassis and gun. It | costs millions of dollars per tank. | | An antitank weapon is 6-120 lbs of propulsion, controller and | warhead. It costs between a thousand and tens of thousands of | dollars per weapon. | | Economics refutes you. | prometheus76 wrote: | I'm not speaking about cost. I'm talking about the scarcity | of the parts and the manufacturing capability required to | make anti-tank weapons. | | https://news.clearancejobs.com/2022/04/26/managing-the- | dod-s... | lapsed_pacifist wrote: | A soldier is tens of thousands of dollars of training and | gear. A bullet costs pennies. Thus soldiers have no place on | the battlefield? | | I think you should watch Chieftains video and read some | military theory. Simply being vulnerable to less expensive | weapon systems does not make a unit/vehicle/soldier useless | or obsolete. | horsawlarway wrote: | Personally - I agree. I don't yet think we're at the point | where tanks are obsolete. | | That said... I think the niche the tank occupies right now | is getting a LOT smaller. | | Infantry screening is no longer enough. It's not just | manpads and other anti-tank weaponry coming in from close | quarters... it's gps guided missiles dropping on the tank | from drones miles above. | | We're definitely still going to see ground vehicles play an | important part in combat, but I strongly suspect it's going | to move back towards favoring nimble vehicles with specific | utility. Not the current style of armored tanks. | dsr_ wrote: | Indeed, if you value a soldier's life the same as a human's | life, you really don't want them on the battlefield any | more than absolutely necessary to defend against the | invaders. | | Spears and catapults and bows make your soldiers effective | dozens of yards away from the enemy. | | Rifles get your soldiers to a hundred, sometimes two | hundred yards away. | | Artillery and drones make your soldiers effective up to a | few miles away. | | The further away you can keep your soldiers while | accomplishing your goals, the better. | metabagel wrote: | You could say it the other way around - once the tank stocks | are depleted, anti-tank weapons can still play a devastating | role (against other armored or unarmored vehicles). | prometheus76 wrote: | You could say it the other way around, but the complexity of | the electronics in the anti-tank weapons have proven to be | difficult to produce in large quantities because of the chip | shortage, but also because of the high level of experience | and knowledge required to continue to make them. Tanks are | much less reliant on complex electronics and manufacturing | capability in order to be effective on the battlefield. | | The US Defense Dept. has said it will take at least ten years | to rebuild the stock of anti-tank weapons that have been used | in Ukraine in the last five months. | mattnewton wrote: | How many years will it take to replace the 700 or so tanks | lost in Ukraine? Russia is estimated to have 3,000 or so | tanks currently operating, they are closing in on losing | 1/4th their number. It's unclear how many of their roughly | 10k in storage are still working and whether making new | tanks or repairing those will have the same chip shortage | problems. | MrRiddle wrote: | There is absolutely no chance Russia lost 700 tanks. | Ukrainian sources are pure garbage. | dilyevsky wrote: | The ones in storage are like t-62s so no chips required | =) | metabagel wrote: | Yeah, no. This defies credulity. Tanks are complex systems | too, with very high cost and long lead times. Javelin | production is currently 2,100 per year and ramping up. I | don't know what NLAW production is, but some 24,000 have | supposedly been produced in the lifetime of the weapon. | Russia started the war with about 3,000 tanks. | toast0 wrote: | > The US Defense Dept. has said it will take at least ten | years to rebuild the stock of anti-tank weapons that have | been used in Ukraine in the last five months. | | Reponding to this and some of your other comments | elsewhere... These anti-tank weapons may be the best anti- | tank weapons, but they're not the only ones. If all of | these are used, there are plenty of other ways to destroy | tanks, so it's important, but not required to have a large | stock of them. | | You could probably increase the rate of manufacture of | these, but there's also value in having ten continuous | years of manufacturing instead of long time periods between | batches. | | I may be overly cynical, but in some ways, this war seems | like a warehouse clearance event. It seems like everyone is | finding their old stockpiles of Soviet era equipment and | sending it to Ukraine to be used and/or destroyed. And | presumably afterwards, it'll be time for the military | industrial complexes to turn back on and build new | stockpiles. Add in a few field demos of new equipment too. | the_af wrote: | > _Tanks are much less reliant on complex electronics and | manufacturing capability in order to be effective on the | battlefield._ | | I don't disagree with your overall comment, but note the | modern main battle tank is a really complex beast, both in | sensors, gun control, and also defensive systems. Even | Russian tanks are very complex (their current high losses | notwithstanding), but Western tanks are incredibly complex. | They are not meant to sustain heavy losses, they are | designed to _survive_. | | If modern weapons strongly reduce the survivability of | tanks, at least the future of _Western_ tanks may be in | question. | secondcoming wrote: | Have you watched any of the Ukraine footage? Tanks are | being blown up from bombs dropped from COTS drones. Longer | range semi-autonomous drones seem to be the future. | the_af wrote: | I agree tanks seem to be very vulnerable in the current | Ukraine war. | | That said, drones cannot replace tanks. Maybe something | else will, but drones cannot make breakthrough advances, | nor accompany and shield advancing infantry. Drones may | be cheap tank killers, but I don't think they can replace | tanks. | int_19h wrote: | Not every weapon system has a direct and obvious | replacement when it becomes obsolete - the nature of the | combat itself changes around what's viable given the | tech. | namelessoracle wrote: | How well do long range drones work if the other side puts | up a serious blockages of radio waves and decides that | "no you dont get satellites anymore"? | lapsed_pacifist wrote: | Much of this has to do with Russian tank doctrine and the | lack of sufficient infantry to provide mutual support to | armor. | londons_explore wrote: | I think the shortage is mostly due to a lack of a desire to | make big changes to resolve the issue. | | If a meeting was called of 10 big tech/manufacturing | companies and they were each told they'd be hansomely | rewarded if they managed to make large volumes of a missile | design, and that all IP/Patent laws would be suspended for | the purpose, I guarantee you that there would be massive | stockpiles within the month. | bombcar wrote: | We have no idea what a major economy like the current US | would look like if it went on a real war footing. | According to this [34] we spent 40% of GDP on WWII | (equivalent of $5 trillion today) - that would be almost | $10 trillion _a year_ now if we did the equivalent. That | 's absolutely _insane_ numbers, and many, many things | would change, and quite quickly. | | [34] https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the- | economy/2020/february/war-... | hermitdev wrote: | When was the last time the US even produced a new tank | hull? Pretty sure they haven't produced a new Abrams hull | since the 80s (yes, they've been rebuilt and upgraded a few | times, but no new hulls to my knowledge). I'm not even | talking about a new design, I'm talking about production of | an existing design. | brokencode wrote: | That's probably because anti-tank weapons aren't all that | important for the US military. The US military has guided | missiles from planes and ships that serve this role much | more effectively. | | If we actually needed infantry anti-tank weapons, I don't | think we have any problem building them in huge quantities. | aerostable_slug wrote: | Tanks used correctly and in sufficient mass produces something | called the _Shock Effect of Armor_. Smart munitions are getting | more and more effective, but it 's really hard to calmly lob | missiles at a charging unit of tanks supported by artillery, | infantry, CAS, etc. | | " _Principle: armor in strength produces decisive shock effect_ | | The psychological shock effect that comes to troops on the | receiving end of a massed armored assault is terrific. This | effect radiates from the point of attack in concentric semi- | circles, as do the waves from a stone dropped in the water near | the edge of a millpond. If the attack is in strength, these | shockwaves reach to the enemy division, corps and army | headquarters. Shock effect gives armor part of its protection and | hastens the disintegration of the enemy force attacked. The shock | effect of the mass employment of armor varies as the square or | cube of the number of tanks used. Attacking with armored strength | too small to produce decisive shock effect often results in great | losses and inconclusive results." | | https://www.benning.army.mil/armor/earmor/content/Historical... | | Simply put, they are pants-soiling terrifying spectacles of death | and they prove overwhelming. Once significant momentum of a well- | executed armored attack has been gained, they are difficult to | slow or stop. Drone swarms may make this tactic obsolete, but | we're not there yet. | throwaway1492 wrote: | Former US Army 19k here. Tanks are expensive to build, | expensive to maintain, expensive to operate, hard to transport | and require certain levels of infrastructure to operate in | theater (bridges to support their weight). With current threats | they are bound to become even heavier (and require more fuel). | | While I am all for seeing the rise of Bolo's, and I love shock | effect as much as the next enthusiast, the ability of a $500 | drone with the equivalent of a RKG-3 grenade to take one out is | really the only relevant part of the question. Tanks are dead. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RKG-3_anti-tank_grenade | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo_universe | | Edit to add; "expensive to operate" was a bit of an | understatement, the logistical support required for a tank | company is tremendous, totally preposperous; 1000s of gallons | of fuel a day, 3 types of ammo, support equipment and | personnel. | mymythisisthis wrote: | What about drone tanks? | aerostable_slug wrote: | I don't think the commodity drone approach is going to work | very well against a competently-run military with electronic | warfare capabilities the Russians seem not to be employing. | | To defeat capable EW, you'd need self-directed swarms of | drones, and we don't have those yet (especially not at Best | Buy). I agree that remotely-piloted commodity drones would | likely make a terrible mess of something like an African army | with T-55s and not much else, and of course today's Russia (I | never thought I'd write that sentence). | | I concur on the cost of armor, but it comes with significant | benefits, hence the investment we've made in logistics to | support them. It's only preposterous when the situation makes | it so, like a highly mobile island hopping campaign. They | worked pretty well in Iraq. Twice. | ckozlowski wrote: | To paraphrase The Chieftan (who's video is linked elsewhere | in this thread but I'll included here: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI7T650RTT8 ), it's not about | the tank's vulnerabilities, but the capabilities it provides | that have yet to be provided elsewhere. | | ATGMs, RPGs, guided mortar rounds and switchblade drones are | not offensive weapons that can take and hold ground. But | infantry, supported by a tank which they can knock on the | hatch of and tell to obliterate the machine gun nest pinning | them down with instant 120mm fire, can. | | When armies find something that can replace the mobile, | protected, and relatively _instant_ firepower a tank can | provide to the infantry, the tank will be dead. But nothing | yet has quite come along to combine those things, and so | regardless of the tank 's vulnerabilities, it will remain. | [deleted] | eftychis wrote: | Why do portable drones not offer the instant firepower? | matt_s wrote: | How much ammo can a drone carry? Even if its an African | ... drone or a European one, it's a simple question of | weight ratios. | moogly wrote: | Perhaps it could carry 5 -- no, 3! -- holy hand grenades. | yding wrote: | If you're talking about DJI or equivalents they only have | 30 minutes or so of flight time and can carry at most one | bomb at a time. They can be useful in guerrilla | situations but firepower wise it's not even in the same | league as a tank with 40-60 cannon rounds and several | thousand machine gun rounds. | wyldfire wrote: | What if the drone were so inexpensive and portable that | you could consider it like you do ammunition? Then the | flight time and payload is much less critical - it's just | a pilot-able bomb. | ckozlowski wrote: | They don't offer the same level of firepower. A portable | drone may be faster employed than a helicopter, large | drone, or close support aircraft, but it suffers from | lack of payload. It also takes longer to get on target, | and has it's own set of vulnerabilities. (The | vulnerability argument being that even if it is | expendable, a drone disrupted or shot down does not help | your unit eliminate the threat it was facing.) | | A large-caliber, direct-fire gun provides long range, | precise, and instant effects. As The Chieftan explains: | https://youtu.be/lI7T650RTT8?t=934 (timecode link | provided.) | dragontamer wrote: | Because when a tank fires its APFSDS gun, the muzzle | velocity is 1500 meters-per-second. | | In contrast, a drone flies at 25 to 50 meters-per-second. | | ------ | | To put it in concrete terms, a tank 3000 meters away will | hit its target in 2 seconds. A drone 3000 meters away | will take 1.5 minutes. | | In contrast, the Javelin you launch will take 12 seconds | before it hits the tank at that range. That's more than | enough time for the tank commander to see the Javelin and | return fire, killing you before the Javelin even strikes | the tank. (This is why "fire and forget" is so important | on a missile like the Javelin). So we can see that even a | missile like a Javelin has a significant speed | disadvantage on these long-range plains that exist on the | Donbas region. Its a different fight than the typical | heavy-urban environment that Ukraine was doing well in a | few months ago. | | ----- | | Its one thing to fight a tank in urban combat, where they | can only see 200 meters out (too many buildings blocking | your vision and the tank's vision). | | Its a totally different thing to fight a tank on open | plains, where 3000m worth of vision is common. | wyldfire wrote: | > To put it in concrete terms, a tank 3000 meters away | will hit its target in 2 seconds. A drone 3000 meters | away will take 1.5 minutes. | | > In contrast, the Javelin you launch will take 12 | seconds before it hits the tank at that range. | | What's the latency for the turret to pivot to the target | angle? I suppose it's pretty fast but let's say in worst | case 180deg? How long does that take? 1s? 10s? | ineedasername wrote: | T72 is about 3 seconds for 180 degrees. But it also takes | time for a human in the tank to notice the incoming AT | round, trace it back to the source, acquire a target | lock, and then swing the turret over. | | I can only guess at how long the full return fire process | takes, but you only need to be pointing a javelin AT at | the tank, it will do the rest. You can be sprinting away | pretty much as you launch and get 50 meters away. Safe? | Hell no, but it's not as bad as the "2 seconds" comment | makes it out to be. | ineedasername wrote: | That 2 seconds is the projectile. Unless you're already | aimed directly at the AT firing point it's going to take | more than 2 seconds for the tank to acquire a target lock | and swing the turret into place. | | Assume the turret is 90 degrees off target and it will | take 2 seconds just to swing the turret around. Assuming | it takes 2 seconds to notice the AT round fired, 2 | seconds to target lock, that's still 8 seconds total for | the tank shell to hit. | | That's not great for the AT team, but it is a survivable | amount of time for shoot-and-scoot tactics, enough that | it's going to be a hellish war of attrition between armor | & AT teams, not a completely one-sided battle. Which | seems to be roughly what we're seeing in eastern Ukraine, | unfortunately. A truly shitty and hellish situation all | around. | dragontamer wrote: | > Assume the turret is 90 degrees off target and it will | take 2 seconds just to swing the turret around. Assuming | it takes 2 seconds to notice the AT round fired, 2 | seconds to target lock, that's still 8 seconds total for | the tank shell to hit. | | That's a lot of "assumptions" that still leads to a | virtual tie situation: both parties kill each other. | | There's also the situation where the tank commander | emerges out of hide-position, fires a shell, and kills | the enemy infantry before they even know where the tank | is, and the tank then retreats back into hide-position | before any enemy even knows that a tank is there. | | A tank in turret-down position is still exceptionally | difficult to spot. And that tank commander looking out, | waiting for the ideal time to ambush with his main tank | gun, will have night-vision, thermal vision, and loads of | other equipment. | | See this screenshot of the Chieftan's discussion: | https://imgur.com/tk10YHN.jpg | | In "turret down" position, pretty much only the tank | commander is visible. They can spot you 3000m away in | this kind of position thanks to modern binoculars. | | ---------------- | | Given that the tank moves at 50km/hr, and has more | expensive equipment (thermal vision / etc. etc.), the | tank honestly has the advantage in most of these fights. | | Infantry might (?) have the advantage of surprise and | hiding. But tanks also might have that advantage. There's | no guarantee that the infantry always ambush the tanks. | Especially when you consider how much faster a tank | travels, and the shear size / distance that these weapons | cover (a tank can choose any point with 3000m line-of- | sight to attack the enemy infantry, knowing that the | infantry is too slow to keep up with the tank's | movement). | yding wrote: | Drones or no drones, I'd rather be sitting behind 35cm of | hardened steel than out in the open with maybe 2cm of body | armor max. | jeffdn wrote: | Dropping an RKG-3 grenade on a tank from a cheap drone also | requires that the tank be stopped -- something that happens | far less often in a war of movement than in trench warfare. | The war in Ukraine has been extraordinarily static (like the | Nagorno-Karabakh War), and this has provided the | opportunities for COTS drones to be useful in this way. A | combined-arms offensive on a divisional or corps front might | take a handful of losses this way, but it most certainly will | not be stopped. | stonemetal12 wrote: | RPGs have existed for along time. How does using a drone to | deliver the grenade instead of a rocket really change the | scenario? | hutzlibu wrote: | Would you rather take on a tank with an RPG in hand, or be | safe in a bunker and remote control your attack? | | If you made a misstake in the first scenario, there is no | second try. But if you have a second drone, there is. | | (ukraine has more men than drones, though) | tonyhb wrote: | The "shock" part of "shock effect" is kind of diminished if | you can hide miles away from tanks, completely safe, and | neuter them. | etrevino wrote: | The Trophy Weapon System can intercept and defeat anti-tank | missiles and grenades and has been proven in combat. Both US | and Israeli tanks have those mounted on them. I wouldn't be | so quick to dismiss tanks as dead. Just older tanks without | active countermeasures are dead. | [deleted] | motbob wrote: | Battleships are pretty intimidating too. Still obsolete. | 734129837261 wrote: | It's easier to make a weapon that takes out a tank, than it is to | make a tank that can defend itself to it. | | Javelin missiles are just one thing, but cheap drones with simple | rockets on them should be able to take out a moving force of | numerous tanks. | | Imagine having an arsenal of 20 tanks storming your city. | | Now imagine having about 100 drones ordered from Amazon, | outfitted with RKG-3 anti-tank grenades. One each. You can fly | low, you can fly through the woods, and you can fly each | individually operated drone right up to the top part of a tank, | and boom. | | No clever software automation. Just a drone that can lift | something like 1 kg worth of anti-tank grenade. | | You have 20 drone operators. You'll have 5 drones per tank. One | after the other. Skip the already defeated tanks. Attack the | tanks that will create a barrier when destroyed first, take | natural barriers into account. | | Your tanks can have all the power and shock and awe you might | think they have, but any 12-year old will be able to take you out | as if they were playing a video game. | nimbius wrote: | >It's easier to make a weapon that takes out a tank, than it is | to make a tank that can defend itself to it. | | This has been a fact of warfare for almost a century. in fact | it was so easy the US Government published a warfighter | training video on how to do it, and it didnt even fill 15 | minutes. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taHFUKKKmJM | | Tanks had shock and awe value _in nineteen sixteen_. for the | first time on the battlefields you had an imposing, lumbering, | seemingly unstoppable juggernaut of forged iron that if left to | its means, could obliterate hard targets like buildings and | bunkers without much effort and keep advancing seemingly | endlessly. if you could reason to stop them, the thought was | perished by the overwhelming terror alone they imposed. | | by WWII most antitank technology had reached horrors | unimaginable; being a tanker was objectively near suicide. the | swedish bofors sabot rounds could not only pierce most german | armor, but cook the occupants alive with a shower of boiling | steel before they invariably detonated the ordinance on board. | even smaller mines like the TM41 were enough to blow the road | wheels through the driver and out the hatch. And if all that | proves too technical, the Japanese tactic in WW2 was to simply | hose tanks in petrol and light them ablaze. | | the only shock and awe of a 21st century tank is watching your | tax dollars propel something with 0.6mpg | jimmytidey wrote: | Your broader point might be correct but an anti tank grenade | would not be likely to knock out a modern tank. | earthbee wrote: | I think every half way capable military on the planet is seeing | the news and videos coming out of Ukraine and thinking, hmm, | must invest in anti-drone technology. | | A decade from now what's happening in Ukraine won't work | against most major military powers. The drones we're seeing are | very slow and very low but modern anti-aircraft systems aren't | optimised to detect things this small and low so are getting | away mostly untouched, but there's no significant technological | hurdle against modifying existing systems or developing new | ones that work against this type of threat. | firebaze wrote: | Either you're kidding, or you're really ignoring the fact that | "the enemy" will pursue the same? I'm slowly losing trust in | humanity (ok, I'ma slow learner). | amluto wrote: | Because solo tanks storming a city isn't what tanks are for. | | https://acoup.blog/2022/05/06/collections-when-is-a-tank-not... | | edit: for example, I would not want to be a drone operator | controlling a drone in real time anywhere near a modern army. | RF direction finders are a thing. | openasocket wrote: | The war in Ukraine doesn't provide sufficient evidence that | modern combined arms operations are outdated. Russia deployed | combat troops significantly short on man power, leading to a | situation where attacks had far more armor than infantry. See | https://warontherocks.com/2022/06/not-built-for-purpose-the-... | for example. It's been known since the Spanish Civil War that | tanks are vulnerable to anti-tank teams when not properly | supported by infantry, especially in adverse terrain. WW2-era | tanks were effectively countered by anti-tank gun teams in | entrenched positions, which is why they worked in concert with | infantry, artillery, and close air support to suppress anti-tank | guns and enable the tanks to advance. Or they could bypass these | well-defended positions and attack at weaker points, taking | advantage of the tank's superior tactical mobility. | | While it is possible that drones and modern ATGM teams could | effectively counter traditional combined arms operations, the | evidence from the war in Ukraine is largely inconclusive at this | time. If Russia were to correct their manpower issues, or at | least be able to conduct traditional combined arms offensives in | certain areas, then we'd have more solid evidence. Notably | Ukraine still sees value in the tank, since they've been | repeatedly requesting tanks (along with a variety of equipment) | from the West. | | Personally, I think we'll see an adjustment to the balance of | military forces, but the tank will continue to play a pivotal | role. Active protection systems will continue to improve, we'll | see the expansion of short range air defenses and doctrine to | counter drones (and even longer-ranged ATGMs), increased teaming | of drones alongside infantry and armor (in doctrine acting as a | sort of middle ground between artillery and air power), and the | usage of novel indirect fires for tanks like the KSTAM. | duxup wrote: | It's hard to get a feel for what is happening overall, but the | amount of video of Russian armor of all types operating alone ( | no infantry support) has been pretty shocking. | baybal2 wrote: | dibujante wrote: | Yes, it's still valuable to be able to move a heavily armored | computer onto the battlefield, even if you need to be more | cautious about exposing it to direct fire now. | cestith wrote: | They're cheaper and making them quite so heavily armored is | less important if there are no humans in them, too. That's a | whole different can of worms when the calculus changes from | blood and treasure to just treasure though, especially if only | on one side. | bozhark wrote: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTBA5tQsDbE | happyopossum wrote: | What we've seen in Ukraine is far from modern tanks fighting with | modern tank doctrine. | | Yes, technically some of those tanks are 'modern', but many of | them appear to have fake reactive armor, are poorly built, and | they are being deployed without infantry, air, or logistical | support. It's the perfect recipe to lose all of your tanks. | bergenty wrote: | Tanks are no match for drones. Anything that slow moving will | get taken out and cheaply. Reactive armor is good for one maybe | two hits and that's only a couple of thousand in drones. | diordiderot wrote: | One or two hits _in the same spot_. | | The bigger threat is dual charged ammunition like the | javelins | sixstringtheory wrote: | This is assuming there wouldn't be a swarm of drones deployed | alongside the tanks. Tanks could be used analogously to | aircraft carriers, which would be sitting ducks vs | jets/subs/battleships, if it weren't for their own jets | they're carrying, or the battleships sailing with them. | paxys wrote: | Most of what you have mentioned are inherent shortcomings of | tanks in a modern battlefield. They are fuel intensive. They | need massive logistical support. They are vulnerable to | targeted attacks, like from drones. None of this is unique to | the Ukraine situation. | | It is very hard for tanks to be effective in the age of cheap | UAVs. | nradov wrote: | Right. There were similar discussions about whether the tank | has a future after many of them were destroyed in the 2020 | Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The main issues were crappy | Russian equipment and poor tactics. | | https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your- | military/2020/09/30/... | ksidudwbw wrote: | There isnt a silver bullet for every situation and | condition, but a moveable metal box that can target heat- | emitting targets in its line of sight is useful. As long as | its potential is fully utilised like machine assisted | target aquisiton and liquidation (ai assisted optics + | firing) | hinkley wrote: | The Abrams A1 got like half a mile to the gallon didn't it? | How many miles can they move before you have to park them | next to a giant, unarmored gas can? | jasonwatkinspdx wrote: | US armor formations are based around a 12 hour resupply | cycle. This is why an armored brigade is not just the tanks | and such, it's also all the logistics equipment they need | to sustain operations. That said, logistics is a strength | of the US military, and something that is a severe | challenge in Ukraine atm. | dgfitz wrote: | I'll see if I can find a link, but there's a small program | the army is running for unmanned tanks, and the RCV-M is | electric with a diesel genset to charge the batteries, | range of ~450 miles I think? | aaronblohowiak wrote: | the abrams had a 500 gallon tank, so... pretty far? | formerkrogemp wrote: | Sounds like a pretty big explosive to carry on hand. | jasonwatkinspdx wrote: | Not really. The tanks are outside the armor and just blow | up if they get a direct hit. Shockingly enough the people | who design gas tanks for tanks thought of the possibility | the tank might get shot by something. | VincentEvans wrote: | It's ok. They can put it next to the actual explosives. | hinkley wrote: | TIL that the energy content of 33k gallons of gas is | equivalent to a 1 kiloton bomb. I am probably on a list | now for trying to figure out the explosive power of a | Javelin missile, which I did not find. | jasonwatkinspdx wrote: | Infantry are vulnerable to literally everything, and yet no | one besides some dingbats that watched terminator too many | times are suggesting the age of infantry is over. Aircraft | are vulnerable to missiles. Is anyone suggesting the age of | aircraft are over? Drones, particularly consumer quadcopter | adopted out of convenience are vulnerable to missiles, | autocannons, and electronic warfare. Does not the very same | logic being offered as proof of the end of tanks apply to | drones as well? | | This whole argument is stupid and predicated on a vast | misunderstanding of how combined arms operations work. | Systems are not discard because they're vulnerable, if they | can be employed in a way that min/maxes their impact vs | vulnerability. | | There is nothing new about this conflict as far as tanks and | ATGMs. Everything happening here happened in the Yom Kippor | war, in Grozny, in Syria, and in Yemen. | | You just have a bunch of lazy bloggers and journalists making | a sensationalized claim to sound like something exciting and | dramatic is happening, at the cost of grossly distorting the | actual reality. | | What will change is future tanks will likely prioritize | active protection systems and sensors over bulk armor. But | the basic concept of combing firepower, mobility, and | protection is not going away any time soon. | | Example, Rheinmetall just announced their new tank prototype | this week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTBA5tQsDbE | | A couple key features: | | * an active protection system specifically for top attack | munitions like Javelin | | * a remote weapons station with a machine gun specifically | for engaging small low altitude drones like quad copters | | * flexible manning, including looking at autonomy and remote | control | | * ability to host drones for its own situational awareness | | * a loitering munition that's being co-designed, launched by | the big gun | | Maybe the era of the T-72 is over. But the people confidently | predicting the era of tanks and armored fighting vehicles in | general are over, cuz missiles, cuz drones, frankly, have no | clue what they're talking about. | bergenty wrote: | Aircraft are fast, have actual deterrents against attacks | and can fire from a distance. Tanks need to be close to | attack, are slow and completely vulnerable to drone | attacks. | jasonwatkinspdx wrote: | For ground combat tanks are very comparable. They can | have an effect on any target within 2km or more within | single seconds of spotting it. Tanks also have | deterrents, such as the basics of combined arms tactics, | but also smoke screens, etc. | hinkley wrote: | > and yet no one besides some dingbats that watched | terminator too many times | | and missed the moral of the story... | | > This whole argument is stupid and predicated on a vast | misunderstanding of how combined arms operations work. | Systems are not discard because they're vulnerable, if they | can be employed in a way that min/maxes their impact vs | vulnerability. | | The mythology of the board game Go is that it was invented | by a Chinese general in an attempt to teach his son | strategy and tactics. In that domain there is a concept | called Aji, in which you should not write off pieces on the | board that are doomed. The fact that they are still on the | board makes them useful, even if they can't possibly be | saved, saved only by gross error by the opponent, or saving | them is possible but devastating to your overall prospects. | chrisseaton wrote: | Infantry disperse and hide. Tanks really struggle to do | either. | jasonwatkinspdx wrote: | Which is why you screen tanks with infantry. | chrisseaton wrote: | Not sure what you think a screen is... but it doesn't | hide anything. A screen is about finding, not hiding. | jasonwatkinspdx wrote: | Yes, exactly. The infantry screen the tanks from enemy | infantry ATGM groups. Everything that makes enemy | infantry with ATGMs more effective tank hunters makes | infantry screening the tanks more effective at countering | them. | chrisseaton wrote: | > The infantry screen the tanks from enemy infantry | | Then you mean the infantry screen the enemy infantry from | the tanks. You screen the threat, not what you're | protecting. | spacemanmatt wrote: | > an active protection system specifically for top attack | munitions like Javelin | | Worth noting: The western-made MANPADs are designed to | exploit a serious design flaw in Soviet-era tanks. The | ammunition is stored in the turret where it is easy to | ignite externally. That's why we have so much youtube of | Russian tanks blowing their turret sky-high. | | Long story short, design failure can't be remedied by | anything they can put on the top of the tank unless it's | another tank. | jasonwatkinspdx wrote: | Yeah, that's an issue too, though frankly speaking, | partitioned ammo rack and blow out panels be danged, I | don't think I'd want to be inside an Abrams that got hit | by a Javelin or equivalent. | ramesh31 wrote: | Tanks are not going anywhere. Especially depending on your | definition of "tank". The initial Russian push to Kiev was a | disastrous blunder as they ran into unexpected resistance; no one | just rolls unsupported tanks into a city they are expecting to | have to fight for. But taking (and holding) a city means taking | (and holding) the streets, which is impossible for the infantry | alone without direct fire and armor support. You will be | decimated by sniper and indirect fire otherwise. If anything, | this conflict underscores just how crucial armor is to modern | warfare. With GPS guided artillery, and omnipresent drone | threats, the days of infantrymen defending trench lines in the | open are over. | hutzlibu wrote: | " With GPS guided artillery, and omnipresent drone threats, the | days of infantrymen defending trench lines in the open are | over." | | But you aware, that there are currently many infantrymen | digging and defending trenches in the ukraine? (partly allmost | equipped like in WW2) | | What little russia has of precisiom ammunition is reserved for | more valuable targets, than infantry. They just get shelled by | dumb artillery. Lots of it. | adolph wrote: | > no one just rolls unsupported tanks into a city they are | expecting to have to fight for | | An example counterpoint is the Iraq war "Thunder Runs." Of | course the US had air superiority, etc, etc. However, sometimes | the resistance level cannot be known in ways other than getting | out there and seeing if your unit draws fire. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baghdad_(2003)#Thund... | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _the US had air superiority, etc, etc._ | | Thunder runs were limited incursions designed to test Iraqi | defenses. Beyond air superiority, which is huge, the American | tanks also had active defenses and well-trained crew. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-06-15 23:00 UTC)