The end of tanks as we know it?

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wm
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Re: The end of tanks as we know it?

#31

Post by wm » 22 Mar 2022, 19:31

Well, it seems all the nice toys didn't help much in Afghanistan, the partisans died in great numbers but they still won.
One wonders what they could have achieved with modern weapons - mass supplied by a sugar daddy, e.g., the West.

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Re: The end of tanks as we know it?

#32

Post by Peter89 » 22 Mar 2022, 20:06

LineDoggie wrote:
22 Mar 2022, 18:29
wm wrote:
22 Mar 2022, 02:04
We need a real war to be sure of that.
Do we ?
I think that the whole industrialized world is full of built-up areas now, mostly made of concrete, bricks and other inflammable materials. So if a war broke out between industrial powers - ie. huge operations with tank armies would be possible at all - that would mean many serious urban fights and some rapid, albeit important maneuvers in the countryside. Just think about the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macau Greater Bay Area or Tokyo or New York areas: these places are nothing like we have seen in previous wars.

In my opinion, large tank armies are slowly becoming the battleships of our age: we need them to control the countryside, without them, no army can win. But they require a huge escort, a disporportionately large infrastructure and they are susceptible to assymetric warfare with RPGs, Molotovs, land mines, etc. - aka. modern-day torpedoes, frogmen and naval mines.
"Everything remained theory and hypothesis. On paper, in his plans, in his head, he juggled with Geschwaders and Divisions, while in reality there were really only makeshift squadrons at his disposal."


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Re: The end of tanks as we know it?

#33

Post by Hans1906 » 22 Mar 2022, 20:21

The russian aggressors will lose, as they did in Afghanistan before...
Anyone who has not been able to bring even a "third world country" under control, will lose the "battle" to Ukraine.

They will leave behind a ruined country, nothing will be achieved, nothing at all.
And the western alliance will rebuild everything as before, with billons of euros and dollars...

Russian nuclear weapons, shit, they can't even supply these few own troops properly... :roll:


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The paradise of the successful lends itself perfectly to a hell for the unsuccessful. (Bertold Brecht on Hollywood)

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Re: The end of tanks as we know it?

#34

Post by Cult Icon » 22 Mar 2022, 20:25

On Telegram/youtube the Chechen paramilitary/Regiment Azov have been uploading footage from Mariupol. The three Ukrainian units' positions are shrinking and shrank further today with their withdrawal from the Mariupol airport.

The Russians are using firepower-dominated methods for urban warfare (drones, airstrikes, missiles and artillery, special ammunition) with infantry assaults. There are armor/AFVs but not very much, and shoot & scoot as I said earlier.

WW2 urban combat, in contrast, had a lot of armor use.

In the first 2 weeks the Russians had attempted to blitz villages/towns/cities with armor but the Anti-tank defense was often too strong.

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Re: The end of tanks as we know it?

#35

Post by Peter89 » 22 Mar 2022, 20:34

Cult Icon wrote:
22 Mar 2022, 20:25
On Telegram/youtube the Chechen paramilitary/Regiment Azov have been uploading footage from Mariupol. The three Ukrainian units' positions are shrinking and shrank further today with their withdrawal from the Mariupol airport.

The Russians are using firepower-dominated methods for urban warfare (drones, airstrikes, missiles and artillery, special ammunition) with infantry assaults. There are armor/AFVs but not very much, and shoot & scoot as I said earlier.

WW2 urban combat, in contrast, had a lot of armor use.
The problem with firepower-dominated methods is that they inevitably cause large material damage and civilian casualties. The former makes the occupation of the said urban area a financial disaster, and the latter sows the seeds of resistance. When Hitler said observing the material damage to German cities during the terror bombing raids that "No problem, these cities would have been rebuilt anyway", he was right in a sense. A lot of cities in Europe were old, very old. Much of the urban areas got rebuilt from 1945-1975, even those which were not subjected to bombings and urban warfare. But now we do not have a new technology to rebuild large metropolitan areas in a completely different manner, and the population is also sinking in basically every developed country.
"Everything remained theory and hypothesis. On paper, in his plans, in his head, he juggled with Geschwaders and Divisions, while in reality there were really only makeshift squadrons at his disposal."

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Re: The end of tanks as we know it?

#36

Post by Cult Icon » 22 Mar 2022, 20:43

Peter89 wrote:
22 Mar 2022, 20:34
The problem with firepower-dominated methods is that they inevitably cause large material damage and civilian casualties. The former makes the occupation of the said urban area a financial disaster, and the latter sows the seeds of resistance.
Yeah, the Russians have already destroyed a lot of Mariupol in 3 1/2 weeks, satellite images show a lot of ruin.

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Re: The end of tanks as we know it?

#37

Post by wm » 22 Mar 2022, 21:16

So the solution is to use tactical nukes and be done with it?
Everybody dies, tanks mostly survive (especially if dug in) and then we would have tanks battles again.

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Re: The end of tanks as we know it?

#38

Post by gebhk » 22 Mar 2022, 22:37

Nope, the answer is chemical warfare as demonstrated in Syria. Much less material destruction, you just get rid of the pesky people.

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Re: The end of tanks as we know it?

#39

Post by LineDoggie » 23 Mar 2022, 02:01

wm wrote:
22 Mar 2022, 19:31
Well, it seems all the nice toys didn't help much in Afghanistan, the partisans died in great numbers but they still won.
One wonders what they could have achieved with modern weapons - mass supplied by a sugar daddy, e.g., the West.
How many M1A1 tanks used in Afghanistan again? How many IFV's? you might as well ask how many M26 Pershings were parachuted into Normandy as it makes the same nonsensical idea.

OEF was a predominantly light fight. Canada used some Leopard tanks there
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Re: The end of tanks as we know it?

#40

Post by mezsat2 » 23 Mar 2022, 10:03

The second possibility for future tanks is extreme speed and large numbers. 100,000 medium tanks traveling at 60 mph cross country with infantry riding aboard would be difficult to suppress because you don't have enough ordnance to do it. A new type T-34 comes to mind. Of course, you're accepting massive casualties with that approach.

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Re: The end of tanks as we know it?

#41

Post by gebhk » 23 Mar 2022, 10:34

Hi Meszat2

The trouble, I suspect, is that no one these days is going to accept the main battle in the open country and conquering swathes of open countryside, if you can find any in the modern increasingly urbanised landscape, does not get you victory. I don't think tanks will be phased out, but they will eventually cease to have a role as a breakthrough weapon, much as the heavy cavalry of old did. They will most probably revert as did cavalry, to the traditional cavalry role in terrain in which wheeled vehicles cannot operate. Ie a niche and they will probably get smaller and lighter.

My prediction has been, and for a long time now, that the next stage has to be the armoured helicopter or other armoured airbourne platform.

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Re: The end of tanks as we know it?

#42

Post by Steve » 23 Mar 2022, 17:39

Rudel and his Stuka showed what can happen to tanks that operate without air cover and in the 2001 Gulf war the Iraqi tank force was almost wiped out by US planes. However, in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war Azerbaijan did not decimate the Armenian tank force with air power they did it with Turkish drones. In Libya Turkish drones have destroyed Russian Pantsir S-1 missile defence systems which are currently in service with the Russian army. In early 2020 in Syria Turkish drones over three days probably knocked out over 100 plus Syrian armoured vehicles and dozens of artillery pieces. The small number of drones used by the Ukrainian military seems to be enjoying great success against the Russian army. Perhaps the future of anti tank warfare belongs to cheap kamikaze drones that loiter over the battlefield till they see a tank and then pounce. The tank could be in the same situation today as cavalry was in the late 19c.

According to an article I read by an ex US soldier Turkish drones are not cutting edge technology and the reason they have been so successful is because the armies they have operated against are second rate. The bandwidth they operate on, GPS signals whatever can be jammed and you would expect the Russian army to have prepared for drones but seemingly they haven’t. The Americans may send perhaps the ultimate drone tank killer to Ukraine the Switchblade 600.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nY78DIduaI

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Re: The end of tanks as we know it?

#43

Post by Cult Icon » 23 Mar 2022, 17:55

The Russians use drones to spot for their artillery/rocket batteries and missiles. They have entire drone companies.

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Re: The end of tanks as we know it?

#44

Post by Cult Icon » 23 Mar 2022, 18:16

wm wrote:
22 Mar 2022, 21:16
So the solution is to use tactical nukes and be done with it?
Everybody dies, tanks mostly survive (especially if dug in) and then we would have tanks battles again.
recent Drone footage of Mariupol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Puk5trBxRBI

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Re: The end of tanks as we know it?

#45

Post by James A Pratt III » 23 Mar 2022, 20:06

Right before WW II a US General said that tanks will not be able to run around the battlefield like in the last war do to modern anti-armor weapons. He was talking about the 37mm ATG and the 50 cal MG. The Polish campaign of 1939 proved him wrong.

archive.org has the US army's FM-90-10 on MOUT Military Operation on Urban Terrain and other works on the subject.

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