This is a multi-part look at the role of armour in recent conflicts, their relevance in the future and a look at current programmes;
Part 2 – Selected examples of recent use
Part 3 – Looking into the crystal ball
Part 4 – SDSR, Army 2020 and the Challenger LEP
Part 5 – Future Protected Vehicle
Part 6 – A Few Ideas on the Future
To start with, a quote from Director Royal Armoured Corps;
Tanks are agile and well protected, have a first class direct fire precision strike capability (minimising collateral damage), can be utilised as a surveillance asset (in overwatch and route protection for clearance and logistic patrols), have permanence and, once deployed, are cheaper and quicker into action than both aviation and air. They also serve as a deterrent; highly effective in both the prevention of engagements as well as demonstrating a proven ability to bring about the early cessation of hostilities. Critically, and fundamental to effective deployment, our tanks must continue to be maintained and our crews properly trained if they are to be used in the future.
Some might say, well he would say that wouldn’t he.
But this is a good description that covers a broad span of operations, it is not just about how intimidating they are in a COIN setting or how they can be a destroyer of enemy morale in an open tank on tank engagement, it is about both.
And therein lies the continuing usefulness of the main battle tank, it utility in a broad span of conflicts.
But to say the world is not going to change in the couple of decades is clearly nonsense, of course the basic principles of warfare will remain but the context in which war is waged will change. The tank has continually evolved, changed and adapted to the prevailing conditions around it so there is no reason to expect that it will not need to in the future.
There are many factors that will influence tank design, their employment, purchase and maintenance of the capability.
Yet again we have to look into the crystal ball and rely on the work of the Ministry of Defence’s Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC) with their guiding document, the Future Character of Conflict.
I do like this document, it’s fascinating and in the introduction section is a quote from Professor Sir Michael Howard that recognises the limits of looking into the future;
No matter how clearly one thinks, it is impossible to anticipate precisely the character of future conflict. The key is to not be so far off the mark that it becomes impossible to adjust once that character is revealed
So this is about making educated guesses and having enough wriggle room to ensure that should the less likely manifest itself, your broad predictions are not too far off.
In addition to looking into the future context in which ‘war is waged’ there are also technology factors to consider and of course, the likely budget and defence planning assumptions that colour so much of our thinking.
The Future Character of Conflict
Perhaps it is worth recapping on the brad conclusions of this work and especially the six assumptions on which it is based
ASSUMPTION ONE
The UK has significant global interests and will therefore wish to remain a leading actor on the international stage as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), a nuclear power, a key member of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union (EU) and other international institutions, irrespective of the potential for its power base to decline.
ASSUMPTION TWO
Defence will be the Nation’s ultimate insurance policy. We cannot rule out the re-emergence of a major state-led threat, but in the foreseeable future, there is no state with the intent and capability to threaten the UK mainland; threats are more likely to be manifested in less traditional, non-military domains. However, the sovereignty of some of our Overseas Territories will still be subject to territorial claims by other states, which will seek to exert pressure on them through some or all of diplomatic, economic or military means.
ASSUMPTION THREE
Future planning will be conducted against a background of finite financial resources while the military purchasing power of potential competitors is increasing and their pace of adaptation is outstripping ours
ASSUMPTION FOUR
Our adversaries are unlikely to engage us on our terms and will not fight solely against our conventional strengths. They will seek an asymmetric advantage and some will employ a wide range of warfighting techniques, sometimes simultaneously in time, space and domain. Their logic will not necessarily be our logic and thus our ability to understand adversaries – and our ability to make them understand our intent – will be challenging
ASSUMPTION FIVE
Since final resolution of conflict will involve people and where they live, strategic success will often, but not exclusively, be achieved through the results of actions on the ground. These actions are unlikely to be purely military although it will be vital for the UK to achieve military effect both on the land and in the global commons
ASSUMPTION SIX
The UK will act with others where shared interests and values coincide. We will routinely operate with allies and partners, in particular as a supporting partner in a US-led coalition. It is extremely unlikely that the UK will conduct warfighting without US leadership, but in other operations the UK may be called upon to lead a non-US coalition
Although the document is a few years old these assumptions are still valid and in many regards were repeated in the SDSR and related publications.
My only reservation is the use of the term warfighting, come on!
The document then goes on the describe the ‘2014 Battlespace’
Congested; In the future, we will be unable to avoid being drawn into operations in the urban and littoral regions where the majority of the World’s population live and where political and economic activity is concentrated.
Cluttered; Clutter (which leads to an inability to distinguish individuals, items or events), particularly in congested environments, will provide the opportunity for concealment and will confound most Western sensors
Contested; Adversaries will contest all environments where they seek to deny our freedom of manoeuvre
Connected; Activity, including our own and that of the enemy, will continue to gravitate towards the inter-connected nodes
Constrained; In the complex battlespace of the future, Western legal and societal norms will place continued constraints on the conduct of operations
The five C’s neatly describe the likely operating environments that should inform any discussion on the tank. So whilst the likelihood of traditional conflict with peer enemies would seem unlikely, it still remains a possibility and therefore, not to be ignored.
These conditions were reproduced in Southern Iraq
To demonstrate the difficulty of operating in this kind of environment an example from Basrah is almost perfect; a Challenger 2 from C Squadron Royal Scots Dragoon Guards came under intense fire which disabled their sights, backing up it went into a ditch and came to rest at an angle that exposed the under belly armour. Blind and immobile it was a sitting duck until a recovery was executed but they could not have used their main gun because it was a cluttered and constrained environment.
Despite improvements on operations a decade or so earlier, the Iraqi forces in Basrah failed to capitalise on their advantages, instead choosing to engage at distances that made them relatively easy to defeat. Had they made better use of fixed defences in the denser areas around the Old City, dense streets and canals, things might have been very different.
Would a piece of equipment other than a Challenger 2 have fared better?
Should it have been there in the first place?
This kind of difficult environment is likely to be encountered again, regardless of whether we have main battle tanks or not.
The question therefore, is this;
In this kind of difficult environment does the main battle tank have a role?
If it does not then we can drastically reduce their numbers and hold what is left in reserve, ready for the less likely Gulf War open tank battles?
Defence Planning Assumptions
Defence planning assumptions and the reality of a relatively small Army 2020 also have to be considered.
The image below shows the SDSR 2010 Defence Planning Assumptions
It is important to understand these because they set the tone for discussions on scale.
At full stretch and with ‘sufficient warning’, the UK will be scaled for 3 Brigades, or roughly a division.
In Iraq in 2003 the Army deployed 130 Challenger 2’s
The current plan is for 227 Challenger 2’s to remain in the fleet, is this number reflected in the defence planning assumption?
Technology Trends
The amount of precision weaponry available to Western forces is staggering and in comparison with only a decade ago, even more so.
It is easy to be seduced by the allure of modern systems but their impact cannot be ignored; Brimstone, Paveway IV, Javelin, Hellfire and even GMLRS are extremely effective against armoured vehicles. If one is to assume that modern tanks are primarily used to counter other modern tanks then it could be argued that in an age of precision everything, they have slipped down the league table in terms of significance.
Control of the air allows Apaches, RPAS and current and future aircraft to unleash unrivalled destructive effects. Driving T72′s around the desert without control of the air is an extremely hazardous occupation and likely to be repeated only by the lunatic fringe.
But don’t forget, control of the air is not always a given and taking it for granted is likely to end in tears. Portable anti-aircraft systems are proliferating and even old fashioned massed automatic gunfire has proven devastatingly effective, especially against low flying and slow aircraft like helicopters.
An occasional TD author, Monty, posted this as part of a comment on a similar post some time ago
Moreover, we’re also now seeing the proliferation of third and fourth generation hand-held surface-to-air missiles that are lighter and more deadly than their predecessors. Weapons such as the Russian SA-18, French Mistral and US Stinger Block 2 are frighteningly effective, while China and Iran have developed their own versions of such weapons. Whatever the source, hand-held SAMs are the new weapon of choice for terrorists. Strategic analysts predict that shoulder-fired SAMs are likely to have the same equalising effect on expensive combat aircraft as shoulder fired anti-tank missiles such as Javelin, or even the humble RPG7, on battle tanks
Active protection systems look likely to negate some of the hard advantages of light weight precision anti-armour missiles
It is a theme I have often covered but one threat that I think we consistently underestimate is the proliferation of micro unmanned systems in the ultra-low altitude zone.
One can go online today and buy a sophisticated quadcopter UAV for less than $10k.
Apart from the obvious threat of not being able to hide anywhere it does not take an enormous leap of the imagination to envisage an enemy fielding a couple of hundred of these, each one equipped with an explosively formed penetrator warhead and accurate radar distance sensor. They could be programmed to recognise armoured vehicles shape or EM signature, fly right over them and at the correct distance, detonate their warheads.
EFP’s are very effective and they would be directed at the traditionally thinner top armour.
We are ill equipped to counter this threat and flying at an altitude of 50 feet, twenty of them, launched from the back of a civilian truck or out of a flat window is a problem any number of F35’s or Typhoons are not going to help one bit with.
This threat does not exist today, no one has mounted an EFP on a quadcopter and equipped it with a recognition capability, but does anyone think it is far off?
If the risk of this threat is realised, how can we defend against it?
I was a little unfair on the Tyhoon and F35 because they provide the capability of interdicting the launchers and provide a link in the ISTAR chain but in a cluttered and congested urban environment with its many urban canyons they might not be enough and the ground forces will have to face that threat alone.
We might ensure ground forces operate inside a powerful ECM bubble or we might even equip tank commanders with a modern version of this;
However we counter the threat of ultra low level suicidal UAV’s EFP carriers it is just one of the future threats to armoured vehicles.
The traditional effect and counter effect continues, armour and anti-armour solutions will continue to evolve with one or the other having temporary supremacy over the other.
Threats should always be considered in any discussion but should they be the overriding consideration?
…
So, there are a wide range of factors to be taken into consideration when discussing the future of the tank and although we can make reasonable predictions about the future there is always an element of uncertainty that must not be ignored. We may well think that the future is going to be more like Basrah or Lebanon than the open desert and we would probably be right but as the quote from Professor Howard quite correctly states, the future is an uncertain place.
The next post in this series will look at what path the UK armed forces are treading in respect of the heavy metal
As I said in my post on Pt 1 I think the MBT/Anti-tank balance has moved in favour of anti-tank. It’s not just air delivered weapons, it’s the variety of infantry operated ATGW with varying attack modes (The Spike family come to mind) and indirect fire, weapons of the SADARM (EFP) type (eg BONUS and SmArt155, or a clutch in a GMLRS warhead to start attrition early), and short range versions fired from mortars should be technically possible. Costs will come down. The issue is how available these munitions will be to lesser armed forces and non-state parties.
Assuming it is limited then the conclusion is that there is no role for the MBT, they won’t survive on the ‘advanced’ battlefield and are overkill on the lesser one.
This takes us down the path of driverless (and possibly totally unmanned) middle weight vehicles with a medium velocity largish calibre gun. To use a historical (manned) example, the modified Centaurs used by the RM Assault Regts in the summer of 1944 (and then disposed of).
Not really Obsvr, Spike family and the like are a weaker system than the heavy MILAN, and during the incident TD mentioned, a MILAN was used against the CR2 with a noticable lack of results. I havn’t encountered any reference of use of the artillery deployed munitions, so it’s really anybody’s guess how effective the 155mms would be, but that doesn’t overlook the fact that artillery needs a spotter, and that MBTs tend to deploy with a medium weight scout screen. If anything, I’d pity the scouts in the 30-40 ton probes.
My guess is MBTs would be kept hidden and protected until a high value target is found, then deployed in a rapid strike before being pulled back to hidden positions again, similar to artillery when there is a counter-arty environment or planes when landed.
“Assuming it is limited”
-this is the part where it is speculation. There is no premise that an MBT is limited to the point where it becomes useless. You might as well say since infantry are weak against everything from a 9mm to a near miss from a HEAT round, infantry is useless. Arguement is similar isn’t it? Tanks can get killed by ATGMs, which are a lot, so it’s useless = infantry can be killed by ARs, which are even more in number, so infantry is useless?
RCing 40 ton vehicles might not be so good an idea. Anyone playing with RC cars knows you tend to run into things. Now imagine a 40 ton RC car, and the wall of someone’s house.
TD, I prefer our version of the 5Cs
Cash, Car, Career, Condo, Credit Card. lol
We are I think foolish to fail to regard not only the sophistication of technology, but also its proliferation as a real issue. I did post a while ago about how Maplin and Radio shack could be as big a threat to modern war theories and anything being cooked up by foreign govts in secret programs.
The example of the I phone ballistic fire director cooked up in libya comes to mind. IED’s never forget are just that IMPROVISED. It took the spams years to cook up the EFP using the Miznay Shardin effect… It too some Iraqi insurgents months to figure out how to make them out of scrap and trigger them using mobile phones.
No tank is invulnerable nor has any tank ever been. So saying –
‘thats the end of the tank’ is a little simplistic. But the portability of many of the new threats remain. eg That Milan that was fired against a chally 2 with little effect:-
Who fired it?
When?
Against what part of the tank?
I will be seriously impressed if it’s roof or rear armour withstood the blow… And that is where the current and future generation of anti armour weapons are going to aim..
If we reach for active protection measures such as the Israeli system, if it works – then do we need all that 70 tons of armour?
Ultimately a tank has to ‘come out and fight’ if it does, and invited cheap and easily carried destruction from TD’s quadcopters, then we are in a different position than we were. I am sure tactics will change tanks will evolve to meet the threat. But for example they could evolve into something a lot smaller and easier to hide!
Point IXION, after all, I did light into SO for not considering 50 years of tech development merging the assault gun/cruiser tank into the MBT, and you are right, anything doing an ATOP attack on a tank is worrying. On the other hand though, a blanket statement like “MBTs are worthless” is going too far in the other direction, and even more ironic that the proposed replacement is a 40 ton tank weaker to a wider range of threats.
On the quadcopter armed HEAT though, the payload is a bit low. A 40mm HEAT MV grenade penetrates ~1.5cm RHA, not enough to even pierce the hatch cover of a tank. Might need something bigger. Saw a testplate cutaway of a 40mm HEAT hit at STK company showroom years back along with the cutaway model of the 40mm at one of their display cases. Wasn’t very impressed with the penetration, was thinking that might not even pierce APC armour.
Observer
Yea I’m not saying it is easy, – Yet! But there are plenty of RC controlled mini helicopters that can carry a decent weight of bang- eg double charge rpg warhead or such.
Did not the US loose some Abrams to rpg7′s in Iraq? Lots of talk about ‘precise targeting’
I remain concerned that the big gun big tank, thing could be coming to the end of that particular development branch.
So at the moment IMHO Tanks finished – NO Heavy (anti tank biased) MBT possibly.
I don’t see why people think this. Yes they are vulnerable. Everything is vulnerable. Infantry are pityfully vulnerable yet they remain the bedrock of all armies. There are only so many ways to skin a cat when you want a mobile, well protected death machine.
MBTs may be more vulnerable than for a long time but that really doesn’t equate to not having utility. They might change in detail but the basic recipe of armour, firepower, optics and engine I can’t see changing.
In fact. In any future general war I see them becoming simpler but far more numerous. Like a modern Sherman. Mass and depth are a quality all of their own.
Soooo, as fare as I remember the Chally 2 in the incident mentioned soaked up multiple RPG’s on the turret and was hit on the front of the turret by a Soviet era Wire guided ATGW NOT a Milan. Of note is that the tank was a mission kill, a operational casualty caused by being blinded, its 7.62 co-ax being disabled by one of the many hits on the turret, and unable to use its 120mm because of the mentioned constraints.
Either way for who ever it was said a Milan is more apropos than Spike, think again, Milan is old tech, at the end of development, Spike comes in various sizes and has a EO / IR guidance system which can be used in fire and forget or man-in-the-loop (via fibre optic) which would allow you to precisely target optics etc (under the right conditions of course).
Does this mean the death of the MBT, does it bollocks. Note what Chally 2 does not have yet is active protection system a la Merkava MK4. Is the EFV carrying quadcopter the death of the MBT, no of course if isn’t ! A small Millimeter wave radar for spotting them, an evolved active protection system or RWS to shoot them down, BAe’s IR cloak, IR / visual smoke, jamming the quadcopters RC command link, burning out its el cheapo sensor with a laser (like existing helicopter active manpads countermeasures kit). Come on, use your imagination gents…..
Anti-tank measurve versus countermeasure versus counter-countermeasure, plus doctrine, procedures and training – it is a complex world and no single weapon system auto-magically renders another obsolete overnight.
Nothing’s invulnerable. The role of armed forces is to inflict violence on the enemy. Protection as nice as it seems to us civilians really is a secondary consideration. When you look at the number of tanks (and AFVs) deployed by the US and Israel in recent conflicts and the losses to ATGMs and mines etc. you see the latter is a very small percentage of the former.
Personally I think the protection is more about an easier repair than particularly stopping damage. It’s relatively easy to mission kill a modern tank but relatively easy to return it to service too since the armour should have protected most of it. I believe most knocked out Allied tanks in WWII were repaired and sent back to the front.
@ Phil
I think some of my civilian friends put a little too much emphasis on the “vehicle” surviving. Nobody wants dead soldiers because of Snatch Landies like scenarios. But there is a substantial difference between accepted risk to 60tons of Chobham armour skinned and near negligence of the Snatch.
I’m having a sense of Deja Vu.. Didn’t we have this argument a couple of weeks ago, in the Chally 3 or Leopard Thread?
I suggested the idea of a Chally fitted with a Short Barrelled Demolition Gun for the purpose of fighting in towns. I was promptly shot down!
Anyway, whether in the past, present or future, a Good Tank Crew is worth more than a Good Tank.
Yeah that’s something of a myth. Lots of broadly competent crews in large numbers of average tanks will defeat the good tank crews in good tanks. Our professional army model is excellent for limited conflicts but it is massively flawed for anything larger. For example, artillery doesn’t care how good your infantry skills are.
Phil
I think its a matter of who’s left in control of the battlefield as to who gets to collect up and repair it’s tanks.
German war effort suffered quite a blow when it started going backwards, and it could not collect up its enemies ‘leftovers’.
I do not think the ‘Tank’ is finished.
If however it is relying on projectile active defence systems or even: – (And at this point all the Star Trek fans get excited); Phase plasma shields, and cloaking devices.. Yes really, both are in the pipeline. Then it will probably look a lot different and if its got all the above, will it need to be 70 tons and 3.5 metres wide?
Nothing relying on solid armour alone is going to be able to deal with top attack by a 120mm double headed heat STRYX type mortar round. So maybe much of the bulk and weight goes. It is that bulk and weight that counts against the tank the mobile protected firepower combination is always going to be a good idea, if we could reduce it then the Tank may be more relevant (and used) than it is now.
Plse note Milan is a bit old hat as an anti armour weapon, there are many around now much more powerful.
The Kornet is supposed (and I do say supposed) to have caused the Merkava problems, in Lebanon. Certainly the promise of it lead to the MK 4 being brought forwards as the Mk 3 was felt to be potentially vulnerable.
@ Phil
I think you misunderstood what I meant.
How long does it take to build to build any AFV, from start to finish, say 6 months? What’s the average age of a British Tank Crewmember, would I be wrong if I said 21 years of age. Give or take a year or two. That’s a combined total of 80 odd years to produce one crew for any one Tank. We put a lot of time and effort to train our men and woman.
When we send them into harms way. I would prefer giving them the best possible chance of coming home.
Yeah and that’s fine in the limited wars we fight. But in a general war our model is flawed. The people are just as easy to replace as kit in such a scenario. Quite a grotesque thought isn’t it.
@Simon:
“When we send them into harms way. I would prefer giving them the best possible chance of coming home.”
The tank driver’s sister is sick, she suffers from a rare and lethal disease that will kill her by 2025 at the latest.
Will you spend additional millions on the tank for it could eventually maybe save some lives or will you spend the money on medical research that doesn’t interest profit-driven corporations instead?
Resources (such as budgets) are scarce and resource allocation should thus follow the idea of optimisation, not of perfecting or maximising select details.
@Simon
Still shooting on the 165mm demo gun part. A 120mm firing HESH is going to be able to do what a demo gun does, with the addition of AT capability to boot. That’s an advantage the British Army has over the more common US APFSDS route, that their main ammo type is as effective in infantry support as AT, while the US would need to switch to HE/HEAT for buildings or softer targets. HESH also doesn’t really lose penetration over range like FSDS does.
@SO
Ironically, I’m actually qualified to comment both on military and medical, and I’ll honestly say that I have never found a relationship in amount of money poured into a project vs results, especially medical research. Amount of money spent = results is a fairy tale, and unless you have a proper method of treatment, no amount of money is going to change that. If that tankee’s sister is going to go post-2025, she’s going to go. Tough shit, life’s like that. Phase 1 clinical trials already take about 10 years, Phase 2 10-15, and that is even assuming you can find a promising new treatment in the first place.
Forget fairy tales, they don’t happen in real life.
Observer, you have a remarkable talent for not getting what I write.
The tanker’s sister was a placeholder and her connection to the tanker was merely meant to make it more connected. There will be other sick people a decade later, or two, or three…
Furthermore, medical research was a placeholder for alternative benefit-offering opportunities for allocating the resources. The efficiency of medical research is thus an irrelevant detail here.
Even if it wasn’t a placeholder: Your reply is fatalistic and simply illogical unless one accepts the premise that all medical research is ineffective.
Keep in mind the example wasn’t about adding the millions to an ongoing huge research, but about research in a field that’s not being properly researched.
Maybe someday my creativity will expand to the point that I can anticipate how you will misunderstand anything I write, but so far I’m astonished how exactly you manage to misunderstand everything with perfect reliability.
Surely the point is that the battle tank is just one instrument in a bloody big orchestra. It is how it performs when working with other instruments that counts not how it manages when on its own. When the Challenger, in the example above, was being attacked in Iraq, where were the other tanks in the troop? Where was the armoured infantry? Where was artillery and air support? There isn’t a weapon system on the planet that cannot be defeated when it is on its own.
As for the five C’s everything will depend on how desperate you are to win the battle. Congestion and Clutter will literally be blown away in a desperate battle, where fire power will decide who the victor is. If we go in with rules of engagement written by the liberal establishment that runs our country the battle will be lost before it starts. Better then not to join the battle however good our soldiers, tanks, MICVs, etc are.
@Jed
Sorry I keep thinking the MILAN is larger/heavier than the SPIKE. It isn’t. No idea why. Maybe it’s because I got taught that the MILAN is a heavy AT missile (or F-cking HEAVY!! if you asked the guy hauling it) while the SPIKE was promoted as “light” for a vehicle mount.
Though I think you might have misunderstood my intent, it was not to sell the MILAN over the SPIKE, we got both as an AT-counter, but when you see a report that indicates that one of your main AT missiles might not be as effective as expected, you worry a bit, not to mention the OP was selling the ATGM as the cure-all for the MBT, which needs a lot more evidence for the claim.
@SO
I can see why I might keep misconstruing your meaning. I’m seriously analytical and deals in specifics while you tend to work in hyperbole, so when you use such a broad brush, I’m going to be picking out all the imperfections that such a general sweep is going to make.
Not to mention you seem to love ignoring things like combat loss ratios accepted for a long time without stating WHY it’s no longer valid or “ignoring the political” (I’m still smiling at Phil’s reply to that one) or tech developments that invalidate your premise.
Good points Martin but one of the C is constrained, i.e. the degree by which our methods are constrained by Western moral norms i.e. we don’t do a Grozny
Hear hear Martin.
@Martin Ryder: the tank concerned was from a squadron of RSDG’s detached to 3 Commando Bde. It had no armoured infantry support, but had a platoon of RM’s in direct support who made a difference. But a platoon in Warrior would probably been better (no disrespect to the RM) since they could have supplied more suppressive fire via Rarden and deployed a dismounted base of fire further forward
@Observer:
Most amusing.
I suppose we agree to disagree on each other’s skills.
_________
About the five Cs:
The first three are promoting an aversion to large scale manoeuvre to a degree uncomfortable to me.
It’s about the same as the current over-emphasis of infantry support (easily visible even in R&D and procurement, see the urban warfare kits that do not add, but subtract a lot from large scale mobility).
It’s dangerous to be(come) reliant on tanks for tactical success (tanks are weak in too many terrains if faced with adequate munitions, training, morale and tactics).
At the same time it’s large scale manoeuvre that exploits the tanks’ unique strength of keep moving in face of most threats (if on suitable terrain or enabled by surprise).
Tactical anecdotes from tankers are fine, but it is the report that for example a brigade has cut off three hostile brigades in a long hook manoeuvre that means a politically useful victory (as happened IIRC in Namibia).
“in face of most threats”
Tanks that don’t stop to fight such threats get brewed up.
Manoeuvre is earned, it is not a choice. To earn manoeuvre requires density, mass and fire-power in a combined arms attack that involves MBTs supporting infantry and fighting other tanks where and when. The beauty of the MBT is that by simply swapping the chambered round or firing it off and reloading another it moves seamlessly from infantry HE support to APFSDS tank killer.
The emphasis is correctly on fighting close with the infantry because it is these engagements which are the norm when fighting forces meet.
wf,
Suppressive fire via chain gun is orders of magnitude more likely than suppressive fire via Rarden. Rarden isn’t the sort of piece suited to suppressive fire..
Observer,
The Primary UK AT round is APFSDS. HESH is the secondary nature. It scores over the older US system that had APFSDS as primary with HEAT as secondary as the older HEAT round was somewhat limited against targets that weren’t AFVs in that it would go through light armour or walls but not really do much damage beyond the shot-line, while HESH was effective at causing substantial damage against buildings, softskins and LAVs.
These days there are much more effective secondary natures available for 120mm smoothbores, so the Challenger advantage is less pronounced.
Regarding loss of effect at range, there isn’t really much difference between secondary (HESH and HEAT respectively) in that regard.
non-specific comments:
Even with active protection systems, there is still a relationship between weight and protection. A vehicle with a higher carrying capacity could either carry more active protection consumables or more passive armour to increase the threshold at which an ADS is used, therefore reducing the amount of consumables it needs to use.
If we are calling for the death of the tank (whatever that is specified to be – it changes greatly from person to person) based on its vulnerability to anti-armour technologies then we must, by logical progression of the argument, also call for the death of the armoured fighting vehicle in all it’s forms, as every other AFV is equally vulnerable.
Regarding remotely operated vehicles – this fails, in my mind, due to the issues with bandwidth. You cannot possibly relay all the data required to operate any significant number of vehicles wirelessly. Not without taking over the whole spectrum for it. As a specialist capability for certain situations, perhaps it would be a neat trick to have up your sleeve as well, but I wouldn’t stake normal operation on it.
Top attack ATGW suffer from having to take an attack path that takes them out of ground clutter, which makes them more vulnerable to active defence systems, silhouetting them against an otherwise clear sky.
““in face of most threats”
Tanks that don’t stop to fight such threats get brewed up.”
You didn’t really think about what I wrote, did you?
Count the AT weapons on a battlefield that can penetrate at least the side of the tank, then count the assault rifles.
Voilà, I am perfectly correct. The tank’s strength is to move on in face of most threats since assault rifles are really only a problem for its optics and antennas.
Unlike infantry (even in most vehicles), which proved repeatedly to be impressed by small arms fire and cannot simply move on in face of such a threat.
Tank forces cannot only move on in face of most threats, they can also deploy much quicker from marching to combat formation and back, possibly frustrating delaying action efforts.
Tanks cannot just keep moving in the open in face of powerful AT weapons and expect few or no losses, and may be bogged down into lots of short dashes between different cover/concealment. I was writing about their strength which defines them, not their imperfection, though.
“Voilà, I am perfectly correct.”
Alright fine by your definition you are right. Personally I wouldn’t define an assault rifle as being a practical threat to an MBT but there we go I’m not getting into definitional debates.
Manoeuvre is still earned.
Questions:
If the modern top attack weapons are not going to hurt the MBT why is everyone from Sweds to Isrealis banging them out?
If they are going to be stopped with Plasma armour, trophy or whatever, then why do those systems need to be on MBT sized vehicles?
If they are as effective as claimed (Including against APFSD), then why do we need to keep the 120mm non standard guns on them?
Like I said the mobile protected firepower triangle in one platform, is I think here to stay, just I suggest current heavy tanks (and they are heavy tanks), are the last of this Mastadon class of vehicles.
Looks like I’m not the only one having problems with SO’s reasoning style.
“It’s about the same as the current over-emphasis of infantry support”
…. how do you spell “irony”..
“Tactical anecdotes from tankers are fine, but”
This part is usually called user feedback by experienced operators. I’m going to ask something that some young officers fresh from OCS get asked regarding their warrant officers. By what qualification do you brush aside the advice of people who have been doing this for years in the field while most of your experience comes from a textbook in a classroom? Or to put it bluntly, why should I take your word over people who have years of experience and have put their skills into practice in the field?
@Mr fred
Ouch. Sabot in a rifled barrel.
Phil, simple explanation for the misunderstanding:
My context was the whole force, not tanks alone:
“At the same time it’s large scale manoeuvre that exploits the tanks’ unique strength of keep moving in face of most threats (if on suitable terrain or enabled by surprise).”
See? This was meant as a descriptive of armour relative to the other arms.
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The infantry tank perspective rather emphasizes that a tank can return fire and actually gain fire superiority in face of most threats even if infantry cannot do so reliably.
Different emphasis, different influence on compromises regarding hardware. Just as it can be seen with the urban warfare kits for tanks and their cages.
A design modification for optimised operational-level mobility would rather aim at a more compact engine, more internal fuel, less friction components/coatings, higher durability dynamic components and the like.
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The 200#’s occupation campaigns have left an impression in hardware and minds, but the tank’s future may lie somewhere else.
The legacy/leftover MBTs with extra kits are acceptable for the infantry support / cooperation role.
Future tanks (MBTs) should rather place an emphasis on mobility – unless we assume that the legacy inventories might not suffice for the infantry support / cooperation role.
This, of course, is when I want to repeat my warning to pay attention to inventories of supposedly obsolescent tanks, even models such as T69s. They can be turned into acceptable infantry support tanks real quick, and we don’t have many such old tanks.
(This is in part a consequence of the CFE treaty, of course.)
What can achieve the same effect then IXION? Protection costs weight. Tracks or wheels are needed to move. And big guns are needed to defeat enemy tanks.
I’ve not seen a realistic counter proposal to a massive great big bastard of an MBT.
SO those old tanks come at a cost in force structure and money.
Yes M48s were useful in the Territorial Heer Home Defence Brigades back in the Cold War, but when budgets are tight and there’s already more tanks than there are political will to deploy overseas, old tanks have no utility at all.
In a wider war they’d be better than nothing certainly, but they are a millstone around the neck of modern expeditionary forces.
@IXION
What you are seeing is actually a sequence of offence/defence/offence/defence countermeasure-counter countermeasure race that took place over a period of time.
The progress was something like this
Direct fire ATGM -> reactive/composite armour -> Top attack missiles -> Active defence system -> Precursor rounds.
There are a few sidebranches, like tandem charge warheads and it is very simplified, but that’s the gist of it. And this was over 50 years.
You don’t really have to kill a tank hollywood style in war, there are other types of kill classifications, like mobility kill (tracks blown off), firepower kill (main gun damaged) or mission kill (tank unable to proceed any further). All these can take the tank out of a fight temporarily, so even if missiles can’t penetrate the main body, it’s still not good to let them hit, optics damage can mean a mission kill (can’t see), or a bent main gun can mean a firepower kill (can’t shoot).
As for ADS vs APFSDS, the system can get overwhelmed, so your best tactic would be to gang up 2-3 vs 1 with 120mm guns and overload the system.
Not so sure on the demise of the heavy MBT. They, by virtue of their heavy armour, actually have the highest survivability of all the armoured platforms in existance currently. A 120mm sabot MAY get through a CR2. It will against a CVR(T).
Observer,
Of course Sabot in a rifled barrel. The original sabot rounds (APDS) were fired from rifles. Sabot from smoothbore is the recent invention.
Well, that’s true. The switch to smoothbore was only after people kept trying to improve the efficiency of the sabot and found that spinning it was redundant and slowed the round down, so I do take your point that it was recent.
There are down sides to using old MBTs in a more limited capacity, like infantry support other than in fairly narrow windows of time. Leaving aside the learned lessons regarding single use tanks, there are economic impacts. The fewer new MBTs that you buy increases your unit cost for both the vehicles themselves and also your training and maintenance. Your older tanks are increasingly maintenance-intensive and progressively less efficient in terms of logistic supply. There tends to be decades between generations of MBTs so the automotive technology has greatly progressed, not to mention the development of other systems key to the operation of the vehicle.
When you are changing from one to another, running two fleets is inevitable. Running two fleets for extended periods doesn’t make much sense economically, strategically, operationally or tactically, unless there is a step change from one to the other and the two vehicles essentially perform different roles. Examples of this would be the Leo2 vs Leo1 (potentially, I’m not sure that anyone did) or retaining the Cromwell as a recce tank when the Centurion was introduced. That said, the latter example also had a couple of years gap between the designs, tops, and there were lots of low mileage Cromwells knocking around from the preceding conflict.
Observer,
Sabot rounds progressed from spin-stabilised to fin stabilised when it reached the point where the Length/Diameter ratio was too great to be gyroscopically stabilised by the spin. Greater L/D ratio improves your retained energy at range and your armour penetrating capability*. Sub-calibre fin stabilised projectiles from rifled barrels tend to have slip rings to limit spin-up and the fins tend to kill the spin pretty quickly anyway.
The drag in the barrel from the rifling wastes energy imparted to the projectile compared to a smoothbore, so a smooth-bore firing long rods is more efficient. However, it also increases the cost and complexity of full-bore rounds (HE and other secondary natures) because they must be high-tolerance fin-stabilised as well.
Mr Fred
I partly disagree. I think it depends on the context. The German Cold War context for example made perfect sense to cascade older tanks down to the Home Defence units since it was likely to be a tank familiar to the older reservists who filled out the TH and a light infantry brigade on the Central Front was a pretty pointless proposition unless it was just for point defence, which those formation weren’t.
In such cases I think they have utility since their resource impact is easily absorbed.
But I argue it would be positively harmful to have them in the fleet now.
Mr.fred, there’s no real standardisation in large armies anyway.
The German army still uses a heavily modified M-48 chassis as well as several types of modified Leo 1 chassis for specialist vehicles, for example.
Infantry support tanks aren’t single use tanks either. They’re still potentially effective tank destroyers, too. Their tactics repertoire is merely more limited.
A T-62 could still kill a Challenger2. It only takes good enough visibility, camouflage/concealment/deception, a flanking position, a daring platoon or company leader, competent crews and 1980′s ammo.
“A T-62 could still kill a Challenger2. It only takes good enough visibility, camouflage/concealment/deception, a flanking position, a daring platoon or company leader, competent crews and 1980′s ammo.”
Wittmans don’t win wars.
Phil
What I am trying to say, (and obviously failing to get over), is
The modern heavy tank is likely to be able survive the various smart targeted weapons when it adopts active defence measures.
If it only survives with active defence measures, then why do those active defence measures have to be on a 70 tonner.
If we have to have 120mm smooth bores, (if thats whats wanted), they can be mounted on warrior type hulls. If that has all the clever active defence systems on it how is it worse off defence wise – it’s smaller size would assist its survival.
I am not challanging the well protected Tank as an Idea. Just the nature of the protection. After all if resultant easer deployabillity and a relative cost reduction, means we get more, and they ‘get out a bit’ more is that not a good thing?
Had the cold war carried on, our MBTs would probably be armed with 135 or 140mm electro thermal guns by now.
In this expeditionary age, lighter armour is easier to shift to the “danger zone” (Thunderbirds lives on), so playing fantasy tank, what about an updated/uparmoured Stormer with the unmanned 40mm CTA turret.
Phil that’s kind of why I wrote earlier
“Tactical anecdotes from tankers are fine, but it is the report that for example a brigade has cut off three hostile brigades in a long hook manoeuvre that means a politically useful victory (as happened IIRC in Namibia).”
Nevertheless, an obsolescent MBT modified to be an RPG-resistant HE dealer is not really a one trick pony either.
Lighter armour is easier to transport? Yes if you’re transporting it to be sold not if you intend to fight with it. AFVs would have to be significantly lighter to realise any major benefits along with the corresponding massive lightening of their logistical footprint and combined arms force structure. And there’s nothing out there even remotely comparable to an MBT that’s lights enough to do that and powerful enough to allow force structure reductions.
It’s all marginal again.
@Phil: good to see you know your history
And we got him eventually anyway
@ Phil
Yes I do agree with you, that we do fight our wars, a certain Moralistic way. Whether it is the right or the wrong way, I honestly don’t know. Unfortunately our Enemies don’t seem to want to fight that way!
Whilst watching GW2 unfold. I remember watching News footage of a British Platoon pinned down by an unseen Iraqi Sniper, who was hiding in a building on the outskirts of a small town. It took quite awhile for the Platoon to pinpoint him. And he was eventually dealt with by a USMC Harrier. I was watching this with my late Grandfather, a Former Sapper with the 53rd Welsh Division. I turned to him and asked him how they would have dealt with that situation in 44/45. He replied rather coldly, “We would simply pull back and let the Artillery level the place. Our lives were more important, than theirs!” I couldn’t really argue with that.
@ S O
This Friday, will be the Tenth Anniversary of my last session of Chemotherapy. I was being treated for Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. I had a Huge Tumour grow on the right-hand side of my face. Their was a young Woman, who also had Non-Hodgkins and was receiving the same treatment as me. Who strangely enough was in the same school as me, although a couple of years below me. I survived, sadly she did’nt. It came back 4 times and eventually overwhelmed her… Such is life. You can the best health care in the world, which hand on heart, I can honestly say, I received. When your time is up, it’s up, and theirs nothing you can do about it!
‘The Tank Drivers Sisters Sick’ comment, doesn’t wash with me.
@ Observer
I was just pointing out, that we have recently done this that’s all… Although I just wonder why we felt the need in WW2 to fit Short Barrelled Howitzers to Churchills, the above mentioned Centaurs, Cromwells and Shermans for the Close Support Role.
Is fighting in built up areas in WW2, any different from fighting in built up areas in the 21st Century?
Simon247 – well done on fighting that cancer matey !
Ref; “Is fighting in built up areas in WW2, any different from fighting in built up areas in the 21st Century?”
Yes – the 5 C’s, the western morals, the restrictive ROE that is the reflection of those morals, the concept of the 3 block war, etc etc etc
Just as British Chally 2 regiments would not be expected to undertake a Grozny, neither would they be expected to undertake a Moscow / Stalingrad / Berlin type campaign.
Might this change – maybe if we were to be engaged in a war of survival against an existential threat, but in expeditionary “wars of choice” – well we would need our entire “best efforts” division to invest a single reasonably sized city (if not more).
@Ixion
Ah, I think I see the point now. You’re assuming active defences protect against all attacks. This isn’t the case, it’s specifically designed to stop missiles and maybe sabot, anything else is still handled by the passive armour, like HEAT/HESH rounds and fast firing 25-40mms.
You can put an ADS on a Warrior, that would give it protection against ATGMs and maybe 105-120mm FSDS, but then that would shift it’s main worry to the quick firers mentioned above, which can still get through it’s armour, or the HEAT/HESH, and these are still countered by heavy armour.
There is no perfect defence system, like there is no perfect offensive system, it’s all about tradeoffs, shifting one weakness to another. MBTs have an advantage in their weight translates to more systems to complement each other, so less weak areas. Remember why the Viking was temporarily withdrawn from service? It overloaded on the defences.
@Simon
To be honest, when WWII kicked off, I don’t think the UK was in any means ready to fight a war on that scale, nor did it have the right equipment, design, training or doctrine, it was all learn as you go, hence the experimenting and retrofitting.
As for what is different now? Yes, you can refit a 165mm demo gun onto “insert MBT of your choice”, but why not simply load HESH into the gun instead? HESH originally was designed as a building breaker, ironically for the same 165mm gun, but 120mm isn’t small either and in most cases, it’s just making rubble bounce to use the 165mm.
IIRC, the CEV 165mm is rather slow firing, fairly inaccurate (not totally unable to hit target, just not likely to hit anything moving fast) and has limited range, which suits the job of demolitions, but why not just use a 120mm which is designed for a higher standard, which, once you finish tearing down buildings, can be rolled elsewhere to kill tanks? You don’t even need to spend money to refit it, it does the job fine already, just need to load the right ammo.
@SO
I think I’m starting to see where the difference is. You’re not avocating MBTs be replaced by assault guns in tactics, you were talking about using older, smaller tanks as assault guns in lieu of MBTs to cut costs. Might want to indicate you were talking about economy instead of tactics/strategy. Swapping for a weaker tank makes no sense in terms of tactics and strategy, but does have sense in possible economy. Might want to indicate the POV you’re coming from so that people know there is a change of focus, most of us here failed “Mind Reading 101″.
@Observer
Spike family and the like are a weaker system than the heavy MILAN, and during the incident TD mentioned, a MILAN was used against the CR2 with a noticable lack of results. I havn’t encountered any reference of use of the artillery deployed munitions, so it’s really anybody’s guess how effective the 155mms would be, but that doesn’t overlook the fact that artillery needs a spotter, and that MBTs tend to deploy with a medium weight scout screen.
The point of using Spike family as an example is that it has moved beyond rather small HEAT warheads attacking more or less parallel to the ground. CR2 with lots of addon is optimised to defeat this threat. Another benefit of some Spike variants is ‘son of Swingfire’ as it were, the ability to fire from behind cover. Brigade long range anti-tank fire from the ground, up to say 6km range, could equip an RHA bty. That plus the air delivered, plus arty delivered, plus scatterable mines, plus off-route mines with radio activation, the game has changed, one tank is no longer the sole solution to another tank as it was throughout the Cold War. Tanks are no longer critical in the anti tank role. As I said I’m also unconvinced by the cruiser tank role. That leaves the infantry support role. Its very simple really, I look forward to Centaur 2030.
Re arty needing observers, glad you reminded me, after some 100 years the British Army has at last got itself a reasonable scale of arty observers. Add to that MUAVs have been put into core which means seeing what’s the other side of the hill and you don’t need precision mensuration for SADARM types weapons – each shell has a footprint of 100/150 metres diameter (or more I haven’t checked). Then the TUAVs can probably standback out of SAM range use their radars and also derive an adequate fix on moving tanks.
As for tank defensive measures, that’s what dumb arty fire is for, it only kills tanks when it gets really lucky (45kg incl 10kg of HE through your engine deck is going to be a big job for REME and I don’t think your sqn ftr sect will be much help), what dumb arty fire does to tanks is seriously bash around the external fittings including precision sensors and armament. Never mind an enemy who is unsporting enough to use bomblets (and the serious players haven’t signed up to the treaty). I’m sure our US friends will happily point out what lots of bomblets do to AFVs.
In summary, MBTs may well seem invincible against a second class opponent, and if that’s your league fine, but don’t be silly and play against the big boys.