Speaking of tanks, and other combat vehicles, I don't know if you saw this article on nanotech and the military.

Click me

2 points.

1-They said the same things about the B-52

2-If I'm an infantryman fighting in an urban environment, I would want tank support. Helicopters are nice too, but the relatively resistant armor and firepower (not to mention bulldozing ability) of a tank make it my best friend.

I agree with Mr. Duchame. I don't know if we're to see tank-to-tank mayhem as in 1942 Africa, but I'd guess that the tank appears to be nearing obsolescence--beyond the "lighter is better" enthusiasm in military circles--because its mechanics (propulsion system, weaponry, defensive scheme) are caught at the end of a technological plateau. The 20th Century did well for a paradigm shift in warfare--in fact, birthing the tank. Even so, the 20th Century will only stretch so far.

Until individual soldiers can carry any appreciable amount of protection, I'd say, the military principle of infantry and ground fire support still stands. And once internal combustion, static armor and aging ballistics can be surpassed, the tank (incarnation notwithstanding) will regain favor.

Land warfare out in the open, no. Urban warfare ... hmm. Seems the Israelis worked out some nice tactics in Jenin using tanks as spearheads to clean out suspected ambush sites before the infantry moved in. (I think you commented in that, in fact.) And they've been useful around Arafat's slowly diminishing compound, too – although the Palestinians have begun to figure out where the vulnerable spots are without high-tech tank-killers.
Maybe there's a version of an APC – current or in development – that would be as useful in high-intensity urban combat, to go in and establish a control zone before the infantry emerge and fan out to completely pacify the area, but tanks will be around to do the job for the foreseeable future. And it's a job that will likely need doing.

What was the primary naval weapon in November 1941? Believe it or not, many American admirals, even before Pearl Harbor, had already concluded that it was in transition AWAY from battleships towards aircraft carriers.

The irony is that it was the Japanese who failed to see the ramifications of Pearl Harbor (thus, at Midway and in the '44 battles in the Philippines, they intended to use battleships as the decisive force).

My point is to suggest that many of our commanders may well recognize that the DECISIVE arm may not be tanks. And, indeed, not since the desert battles of '41-'42 has anyone really tried to rely on tanks alone. (The Army has been about combined arms for a long time now.) But just as BBs continued to have important contributions to offer, so, too, will tanks.

Interesting points, but I do think that the strategy,tactics & equipment will evolve, just like they always do, but some elements of the tank era will remain.

As much as we disliked the infantry, all of us in the US Cavalry knew that you can't hold ground with airpower alone. And infantry can't hold out indefinitely against armor without their own backing them up.

I agree with Dean's overall point, but that the Japanese were hell-bent on battleships as the primary naval weapon. They had four flattops in the Midway Strike Force alone, with more up hitting the Aleutians. Indeed, the success of Nimitz and Spruance at Midway may have required a further reliance on battleships, as four of the Japanese carriers (in addition to the squadrons and pilots) were destroyed at Midway.

Tanks and heavy armor will probably play a part it all land warfare for a long time.
A couple points

1) China is probably not building tanks to threaten the US. But billions of Chinese peasants don't have anti-tank weapons and neither do a lot of starving Koreans.

2) India is counting on any conflicts with Pakistan to stay conventional (non-nuclear) and therefore tanks make sense.

3) Both countries can make lots of money selling tanks to your small African nations that need a little military help.

Anyone who wants to take on the US, Britain, Chine, or Russia in a fullout war has obviously gone off their rocker and no amount of tanks are going to help them. But that doesn't mean they aren't going to want tanks and heavy armor around.

It's doubtful that US forces' conventional armor will be replaced in the near future, if for no other reason than command inertia. The Cav had a hard enough time giving up their horses, and asking 'em to abandon the Abrams series will likely prove (almost as) difficult.

However, there are some considerable downsides to the Abrams. Primarily its size and weight which make it impossible for incorporation in Air Assault ops (watch out Airborne. I have seen the future and its name is Air Assault). With an emphasis on rapid reponse and expeditionary warfare, retaining a highly mobile delivery capability means future armor will have to be air-transportable. Also, the maintenance requirements put it on par with some of the most sophisticated fighter aircraft... something like 20-30 hours of maintenance for every hour of operation (someone QC that statement... cause I may be way off).

There are a number of intriguing ideas for lightweight armor on the drawing boards, and they typically combine impressive firepower with even more impressive maneuverability all the while abandoning the massive profiles of modern armor. But for troops in the field, there's a lot to be said for a 65+ ton piece of whoop-ass backing you up.

I agree that logistical considerations cut against tanks, but I'm not so sure warfighting issues do. But I disagree that it's technologically obsolete. So it can be killed by smaller and cheaper weapons? SO can airplanes, and so can every other piece of equipment the military has.

Smart mines, BATs, and SADARMs are no more intelligent and just as expensive as most SAM systems. And the airplanes are a lot more expensive than the tanks. Yet this cost balance is supposed to dicatate in favor of air and against armor?

The key is that air power has developed tactics and countermeasures to reduce their susceptibility to the opponents weapons. Armor can develop similarly.

And tanks may not be ideal, but if not them, than what? You want some sort of infantry close support. Air doesn't cut it--way too slow and unreliable. Maybe you can get away with lighter armor like LAVs, but they're just as vulnerable to SADARMs, and add in vulnerability to much lighter weapons, like RPGs and even .50 cals, that an M-1 can shrug off. I don't think shifting to LAVs improves this offensive/defensive balance; if anything it makes it worse for the US side.

I agree with Mr Turnbull.
As I stated in my first post, If I'm in infantry and fighting in an urban area (something that seems to be getting more likely in possible conflicts around the world) then a tank is my best friend. You can talk about cost effectivness and mobility and lighter weight all you want but I doubt that the IDF troops fighting in the west bank would trade their big/heavy/slow lump of armor with the big gun for something cheaper/faster/lighter.

Within certain limitations only.

For *us* (the Anglosphere), tanks will continue to be useful. For non-AS armies going against civilians or other non-AS armies, tanks will (perhaps) continue to be useful.

But as for the rest of the world's militaries going against us, tanks are indeed obsolete. Just take one look at the Javelin test/demo mpeg movie. Just take one look at the Explosive-Formed Projectile web pages.

Our guys can take out a tank without even breaking a sweat. One artillery-shell EFP can tank out 2 tanks. One EFP cluster-bomb can kill 20 tanks at once.

When I read this stuff, I got sad. Because I don't think we'll ever get the chance to use them. Nobody, NOBODY in his right mind will get into a tank if they are going up against us.

Just so the rest of us know what you are talking about:

Javelin

Skeet

Sadarm

Pretty Colors

I love Jim's iconoclastic style, but he knows better. Jim knows that the end of armor has been projected since the U.S. invented the anti-tank rocket in 1942.

You folks are a lot smarter than I am about battle tactics and what is needed to win on a battlefield.

But I hope the M1-A1 Abrams doesn't hit the scrap pile too soon. Anything that can move that fast and aim its gun enroute to hit a badguy right square in the butt is OK in my book.

I have to agree with ray. US (and British etc.) tanks vs. non-US anti-tank systems is still a good bet, as are, to a lesser extent, non-US tanks vs non-US anti-tank systems. But non-US tanks vs US anti-tank systems is ground chuck and scrap metal. The Javelin is an incredibly impressive anti-tank system, more so because it is man portable. The Gulf War already demonstrated the effectiveness of the numerious anti-armor systems we had developed during the cold war, apaches, A-10s, M1s, etc. they destroyed an incredible amount of armor. Now the vast majority of US weapons are "smart", as well as being more powerful. A group of US foot soldiers is now effectively much more powerful than a battalion of enemy armor, they can call down airstrikes that will land with near pinpoint accuracy, and they can destroy (with a variety of means) armor at near or beyond the maximum range of the weapons of that armor.

Armor isn't quite obsolete just yet, but opposing US armed forces in battle just about is.

I am sorry, but LONG LIVE BOLO!

These 'tanks are obsolete' comments overlook that warfare is dialectical.

If the infantry anti-tank weapons get too good, someone will put a lot of money into finding and killing them. Or designing some sort of new armor to stop the weapon (there was a story recently about a new way of stopping hollow charge type warheads: thin outer layer of metal, layer of nonconductor, main armor; the whole thing's a big capacitor. When you breach the insulator layer with the hollow charge jet, a circuit is established and the electric current vaporizes the jet).

When someone smashes all them tanks with cheap weapons ON A BATTLEFIELD, I'll believe it.

The problem with replacing tanks (anybody's tanks) is that tanks, like cavalry in its day, combines mobility/speed and force into shock-power. Now, you can argue that helos can do that, but until helos gain some ability to "fight hurt," they're awfully fragile things. "Golden BBs" (in the form of lots of small arms fire) can still do a world o' hurt to choppers.

My comparison is w/ larger warships and small, fast-attack craft. Ever since the sinking of the Israeli destroyer Eilat in the '67 War, there has been the claim that larger warships are doomed to fall to little fast attack craft armed w/ anti-ship missiles. But the reality, as seen in subsequent Arab-Israeli Wars, the Falklands, the Gulf War, etc., is that, in fact, fast-attack craft are horribly vulnerable to larger warships, and especially aircraft carriers w/ lots of aircraft to scour the seas around them. Larger ships can "fight hurt," can mount defensive weaponry, and are much more versatile than little PT boats.

The same applies to tanks, for now. Tanks can mount air defense systems and jammers/blinders against a variety of systems (including against lasers, radars, etc.). Modern armor can still defeat most shaped-charge warheads (like on anti-tank missiles) and it still takes a tank to mount a cannon for kinetic-kill rounds.

Eventually, you'll wind up w/ such big guns (rail guns, frex) that just can't be stopped w/ reasonable thicknesses of armor, but we're not there yet. So, you're still going to have vehicles running around w/ lots of armor, punching the lights out of anything else around.

Both Doug and Dean touch on a very important point. Countermeaures for tanks are just now coming into their own. Much/most of the infantry mobile anti-tank guidance systems are in the visible or near visible bandwidths. You can futz this stuff. It's not necessarily more difficult to design countermeasures, but it is a relatively new initiative. There are armor mounted CM systems already deployed and better ones just at the door. The Mark 1 eyeball is harder to counter, but you have to get close in for it to be effective, and that's a short life and not very merry. On open ground, sophisticated armor (US and some few other countrys) will maintain an overhwelming advantage against infantry moblie weapons for quite some time. You have to hit it to kill it. Air attack and mines can take a toll on armor, but then that's been true to a greater or lesser degree since before WWII. Control of the air battle along with having sophisticated armor will be an unbeatable combination for some time. Broken terrain, including city fighting, is actually where armor is most vulberable in infantry armed with good weaponry. The Israelis are successful using armor in city situations because the opposition does not have appeciable amounts of the right kind of weapons.

My primary experience in the army was in light and airborne units, but I always felt better more comfortable working within the framework of combined arms task forces with armor. Current trends at JRTC w/in a MOUT environment have looked at various scenarios with light and heavy forces. Mr. St. Onge, are you related to Alison? We were neighbors at Schofield Barracks.

And they make excellent party favors!

Another useless prediction. Cheap antitank weapons? The Soviet Union gave tons of cheap antitank weapons to the Egyptians before and during the 1973 war and they still lost it. And the article doesn't even mention the recent British invention of a purely electric armor improvement, as quoted by Stephen M. St. Onge.

I don't see tanks becoming obsolete any time soon, if ever. There are too many advantages: a hardened mobile artillery platform that also provides protection against nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. The M1 Abrams is fast, maneuverable, and can fire accurately while moving.

Whether tanks are really useful in urban warfare depends on the mission and the tank. A Main Battle Tank (MBT) will actually be more vulnerable in an urban environment because it loses one of its biggest advantages -- maneuverability. Smaller tanks or armored vehicles are more useful in urban warfare because they can still maneuver in smaller spaces than an MBT.

When it comes to tank armor, there are still quite a few tricks up the sleeves of the engineers and scientists. Though reactive armor has been around for a while, it is becoming more sophisticated and more effective. In effect you have two layers of armor with a layer of explosives sandwiched in between. If a weapon strikes the outer armor with sufficient force, the explosive layer under the strike point detonates, with the force of the explosion directed away from the tank. The force of the antitank warhead is diffused and deflected away, preventing a breach or spalling of the second layer of armor and protecting the crew inside the tank.

Reactive armor can be defeated by anti tank missiles with two warheads like the Javelin. The first warhead is a small charge that is specifically intended to set off reactive armor. The main warhead then goes through the hole for the kill.

Nobody, NOBODY in his right mind will get into a tank if they are going up against us.

Or against anybody with good AT weapons.

That's why I think that a tracklaying version of the Predator might have a role on a future battlefield. Driverless and crewless, it would't need as much armor as a conventional tank. Thus, it could be very fast. It wouldn't dominate by any means, but it would enable some breathtaking high-risk tactics.

I ordinarily have great respect for Mr. Dunnigan and his books. He has an uncanny ability to state the obvious (e.g., "tanks cannot sneak up on people") that so many "professionals" seem to forget -- especially when they move up in rank to what us Dumb-Ass Tankers (DATs) refer to as "echelons above reality". However, I think he has missed the boat on this one.

The tank, in it's original incarnation, was designed to break through the stalemate existing on the Western Front during WWI. They were large, lumbering beasts, with minimal power, which were able to traverse No Man's Land and survive due to their armor and their cross-country capability. This "breakthrough" role has indeed diminished over time -- and as previous posts have shown, the idea of the tank's obsolescence in that role is not new. As a matter of fact, in Soviet doctrine (at least in the 80's and early 90's), the breakthrough element of their Army was NOT the tank, but the mechanized infantry division.

So the "shock" role of the tank has diminished. Other roles, however, have not. The tank is the element on the ground that has the MOST tactical mobility. Certainly Airmobile Infantry possess a great deal of operational mobility, but once their choppers drop them on the ground, their mobility is limited to their LPC's (Leather Personnel Carriers). Tanks remain vital for the traditional Cavalry missions of exploitation, pursuit, and reconnaissance (yes, recon -- it's not for nothing that half of the fighting vehicles of the ground reconaissance squadrons in a Armored Cavalry Regiment are tanks). They are also useful for delivering a lot of firepower to the critical point in a hurry, in all weather, and with more independence from roads than any other ground element.

Certainly the availability of more effective anti-tank weaponry on the battlefield will compel a change in tank tactics. But this is nothing new. Where do you hide a 13 foot tall tank? Behind something 14 feet tall. American tankers have been trained to reduce their exposure time to enemy weaponry as much as possible ever since I was a private back in the '70s. (Certainly earlier than that, but I wasn't there). When they DO have to expose themselves, their mantra is "DO NOT SLOW DOWN FOR ANYTHING". Until ground forces come up with a better way to shlep around a four-inch cannon, a half-inch quick firing cannon, and a couple of machine guns, in a package aginst which small arms and most artillery (to include nukes) are pretty much useless, and for whom a chemical environment is but a nuisance instead of a threat, there will be tanks.

The current balance of technology dictates that ALL ground forces are sitting ducks in the presence of enemy air, missle, or other remote attacks. This does not relieve the need to take actual possession of enemy ground positions. Ground forces are not the leading edge of a blitzkreig-like attack, they are trailing occupation force that follow a well-coordinated assult. Do these ground forces have nothing at all that provides the protection and firepower of a tank? I would think not.

Besides, the balance of technology changes over time: http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/ns/story.jsp?floc=FF-PLS-PLS&id=406125505&dt=20021109145000&w=APO&coview=

Can you imagine what life in a TANK must have been like for the Germans in North Africa during WWII when all they had to eat was sardines and chocolate?

Ewwwwww! (my son will supply the armpit fart-noises if you need them)

I wonder if, rather than cheaper and lighter, bigger and stronger might be the way.

What if the tank could actively defend itself against missiles and shells? For instance, we have heard about the use of a laser destroying an artillery shell. What if the tank had enough power to operate one of those?

If you check Anna's links above, you find that all these wonder weapons depend on two things: millimeter wavelength or infrared sensing, and a hollow charge warhead (aka 'explosively formed penetrator').

The sensors can be dealt with by stealth measures. The hollow charges can be stopped by proper armor. See 2F19%2Fnmod19.xml">here.

As for relying on tanks alone, the only people who did that were the British, and Rommel kicked their asses regularly with combined arms tactics. see Fire Power: British Army Weapons and Theories, 1904-1945 for some details.

Your comparison of naval warfare is apt. Edward Luttwak, in Strategy: the logic of war and peace, tells how torpedo boats were supposed to render battleships obsolete around 1900. Didn't work then either.

Anna: Cool links. THANKS!

Joe Mcnally: If I'm related to Alison, I'm not aware of it.

Fred Boness: Yes, and they can also make armor that explodes twice too.

Gary Renaud: Exactly. Someone will find ways to counter any weapon, and then someone will find a counter for the counter, and so on forever. See Luttwak's Strategy, passim.

Lots of good comments. Summary: I'd amend the thesis to state that tanks used in opposing force are rapidly becoming useless. It'll be a while before the M1A1 loses its utility, as long as any kind of organized ground warfare is taking place.

No one who could concievably oppose us has anything remotely resembling BAT, SADARM or anything else resembling working items in our inventory. These things take technology, intereste in technology, and lots of time and money to develop. BAT (and SADARM) has been around for a decade and a half and only recently has been made workable. I think the M1A1 will be useful for at least another decade.