Tag: Armor

Do Tanks Have a Future?

tl;dr: yes

What is a Tank, Anyway?

In three words: Mobile Protected Firepower.  Implicitly, it is also ground-based.  This discussion will involve three other somewhat related but important qualities — autonomy, responsiveness, and availability — which will be covered in more detail later.  However, Mobile Protected Firepower is the fundamental nature of the tank.

A tank is mobile because it moves faster than a man on foot; also, practically, it moves faster over certain terrain types than motor transport vehicles.  It is protected likewise because it requires more firepower to kill than a man on foot.  And it itself has more firepower than a man on foot.  The comparison to the infantryman is not only for historical reasons but because he is the fundamental component of warfare.

“Armor” and the Holy Trinity of Mil-SF

I’m not into military science fiction.  Hammer’s Slammers?  I’ve heard of it.  Honor Harrington?  Never read it.  Some guy named Marko Kloos got into some sort of spat.  A distaste for open-ended series accounts for more than a bit of my aversion, though, so if I’m going to dip my toe into the subgenre, it’s through standalone books.  The three milSF books that everyone should read, so I’m told, are Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein, The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, and Armor by John Steakley.

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