sfoil blog

Tag: Tanks

Do Tanks Have a Future?

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On May 22, 2019

In Military Theory

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.

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The ATGM Threat Part 3: Solutions

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On August 9, 2018

In Current Affairs, Military Theory, Tactics

I’ve previously posted about the history of antiarmor weapons and the current state-of-the-art.  The takeaway: tanks have never been invulnerable, and they don’t need to be.  Also, Anti-Tank Guided Missiles have become and are becoming longer-ranged, more accurate, and more lethal.  Despite improvements in ATGM technology over first-generation weapons like the AT-3 Sagger, American tactics have remained essentially unchanged for decades, although armor protection has improved.

The ATGM threat profile is a combination of standoff and high kill probability (per launch).  Remember, these don’t have to make ATGMs completely worthless, just make them less useful.  I’ll look at standoff first.

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The ATGM Threat Part 2: Early Countermeasures & Modern Developments

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On August 5, 2018

In Military History, Military Theory

In the last post, I recounted the history of antiarmor weapons up to the development of the anti-tank guided missile (ATGM).  Now I’ll look at early countermeasures, and how well they hold up now.

Tactical Countermeasures

As stated previously, ATGMs allowed standoff both for aircraft and ground troops against armored vehicles.  The Israelis, facing these weapons for the first time in 1973, struggled to counter the new threat of the AT-3 Sagger ATGM.  The Yom Kippur War only lasted about three weeks, so all combatants were stuck with the equipment they had at the outset with no time to develop or even purchase new weapons.  With no hope of a technical solution, the IDF settled on three basic tactics: suppression, evasion, and obscuration.

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The ATGM Threat Pt 1: A Brief History of Anti-Armor Weapons

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On August 2, 2018

In Military History, Tactics

Right now, I think that anti-armor weapons have gained an upper hand over tanks and other armored vehicles, and that the United States is falling behind in anti-anti-armor measures.  They can take several courses to correct this.  First, however, I want to lay out the history of the threat and how the current situation developed.

The First Tanks

Although it wasn’t the first battle in which tanks took part, the Battle of Cambrai in 1917 is the first major combined arms attack with a significant armored component, the use of armored vehicles beforehand having been relatively piecemeal.  Together with the infantry of the 51st Highland Division, 476 British armored vehicles took part, of which 350 were combat vehicles (the rest were supply carriers and mobile radio stations, with perhaps some engineers in the mix).  The attack succeeded, although as usual in the First World War the attackers proved unable to exploit their gains over the following days.

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