>>The tank's problem is not anti-tank missiles by themselves. The same missiles would do a number on lighter platforms and infantry.
Not really. Javelins and NLAWs can't directly target infantry, though they do have a dumbfire mode. But there's no guarantee the warhead would detonate correctly or take out all that many soldiers, because it's specifically designed to penetrate tank armor, not fragment or concuss. There's a "multipurpose warhead" that was later designed for the Javelin, but every MPWH you carry onto the battlefield is an ATGM you didn't.
Even targeting artillery is hit-or-miss, no pun intended. A towed piece has to be shot in dumbfire as well, has got enough greebles that you're not guaranteed a kill just from a direct dumbfire hit. A self-propelled piece certainly can be taken out by the Javelin, but now you're right back to saying exactly what Noah did - that Javelins are in fact the threat.
>> Since armies want to attack and need to mass for it, there's a need for an attack platform.
While this is half-correct about there being need, there's no reason to believe that the answer is "tanks". Why not air support? Why not drones? Why not Javelins and NLAWs? Ukraine is already pushing back into Russian-held territory using the latter two. It's totally conceivable that they'd be able to penetrate into Russia with them as well.
You're focusing too much on the "massed" and not enough on the "attack" part. Massed attacks in fact _didn't_ work in WWI; that was the entire problem with trench warfare, was it not? Armor was needed not because of its "massability", but because it provided the _penetration_ to get through entrenched defenses. Tanks only worked en masse later on in WWII because their armor allowed quick penetration; it's not like there's anything else about tanks such that if you massed them together without their penetration ability, they'd magically overcome an entrenched position (EG imagine if the driver and gunner were exposed to enemy fire: they'd be torn to shreds PDQ). This is precisely what we saw happen with the infamous "Column To Kyiv": Once the massed armor column ran out of fuel, it stopped being penetrative and just became a sitting duck.
Drones get you that penetration, but better. Switchblades can take out an enemy platoon or tank just like a tank cannon once could, from further away, without direct LOS, and all on a nice video camera that lets you guide it right on in without a million dollars' worth of fancy tank optics helping you make a shot you only have one chance at. And they're cheaper and easier to move around than tanks! They don't run out of fuel or get stuck in the mud, and they're not insane gas hogs that have to be refueled every few hours. As long as you can move a man around, and that man can carry a Switchblade, he can kill more, bigger, and better units than with his rifle alone.
Noah's only half right when he says that defense is heavily advantaged by this - specifically, he's right that a Ukraine-style defense can indeed be successful with drones and Javelins. But really, drones and Javelins simply advantage whoever has the sensor and logistics advantage. As long as you can (1) keep your soldiers properly supplied with drones and Javelins, (2) see the enemy, and (3) move your soldiers and supplies around the battlefield quickly enough, well, you're probably going to win. Surprise surprise, the West is handling the back end of the logistics part, OSINT is helping with #2, and the Ukrainians are managing not to fuck up the rest, so they're winning.
Drones and Javelins haven't frozen the battle space, they've merely expanded and decentralized it. We've already seen this in the air, which is another part of the Ukraine war you're not acknowledging here. MANPADs and AA missiles have basically prohibited most air power from being used in this conflict. Neither side has the stealth strike capacity to perform proper SEAD/DEAD, so they're just sticking to the ground. Essentially, the range that one would need to strike the enemy from is larger than the range of the airborne weapons platforms, so each side can only nibble/snipe at each other in the air for now, while they just carry on hoping that their ground forces counter enough AA to reopen the skies. Likewise, the expanded and decentralized battlefield doesn't mean tanks will never be useful or that the battlefield will stay frozen, it just means that until either side can eliminate the drone/Javelin threat, they're better off focusing on winning in that sphere of the conflict before relying on those tanks to do what they do best.
We don't need more or different tanks. We need Jeeps/Hummers, Javelins, Switchblades, NVGs, and fuel. I'm not saying there will _never_ be niches for tanks; that's stupid and narrow-minded, of course. But we shouldn't be spending billions of dollars on them anymore, or purchasing and maintaining them by the tens of thousands. As of today, they're a reserve/auxiliary unit, not the centerpiece. They're what we roll in when we know we've got the conflict mostly wrapped up, and just need to counter against a desperate enemy resorting to the sort of trench warfare that might cause us hiccups and indigestion. In that context, having two variants we rarely use will be more expensive than a reserve force of MBTs we rarely use. And we'll be spending a lot less money on all those lighter units than any enemy of ours who's foolish enough to rely on _his_ tens of thousands of tanks, all while being able to totally annihilate and embarrass his precious centerpiece force.
So, like I said, we're better off just buying a lot more Jeeps. Get soldiers to within drone/Javelin range, or a short march thereof, and pummel the enemy from afar until it's safe to move in and mop up.
From The Comments: The New Battlespace
From The Comments: The New Battlespace
From The Comments: The New Battlespace
>>The tank's problem is not anti-tank missiles by themselves. The same missiles would do a number on lighter platforms and infantry.
Not really. Javelins and NLAWs can't directly target infantry, though they do have a dumbfire mode. But there's no guarantee the warhead would detonate correctly or take out all that many soldiers, because it's specifically designed to penetrate tank armor, not fragment or concuss. There's a "multipurpose warhead" that was later designed for the Javelin, but every MPWH you carry onto the battlefield is an ATGM you didn't.
Even targeting artillery is hit-or-miss, no pun intended. A towed piece has to be shot in dumbfire as well, has got enough greebles that you're not guaranteed a kill just from a direct dumbfire hit. A self-propelled piece certainly can be taken out by the Javelin, but now you're right back to saying exactly what Noah did - that Javelins are in fact the threat.
>> Since armies want to attack and need to mass for it, there's a need for an attack platform.
While this is half-correct about there being need, there's no reason to believe that the answer is "tanks". Why not air support? Why not drones? Why not Javelins and NLAWs? Ukraine is already pushing back into Russian-held territory using the latter two. It's totally conceivable that they'd be able to penetrate into Russia with them as well.
You're focusing too much on the "massed" and not enough on the "attack" part. Massed attacks in fact _didn't_ work in WWI; that was the entire problem with trench warfare, was it not? Armor was needed not because of its "massability", but because it provided the _penetration_ to get through entrenched defenses. Tanks only worked en masse later on in WWII because their armor allowed quick penetration; it's not like there's anything else about tanks such that if you massed them together without their penetration ability, they'd magically overcome an entrenched position (EG imagine if the driver and gunner were exposed to enemy fire: they'd be torn to shreds PDQ). This is precisely what we saw happen with the infamous "Column To Kyiv": Once the massed armor column ran out of fuel, it stopped being penetrative and just became a sitting duck.
Drones get you that penetration, but better. Switchblades can take out an enemy platoon or tank just like a tank cannon once could, from further away, without direct LOS, and all on a nice video camera that lets you guide it right on in without a million dollars' worth of fancy tank optics helping you make a shot you only have one chance at. And they're cheaper and easier to move around than tanks! They don't run out of fuel or get stuck in the mud, and they're not insane gas hogs that have to be refueled every few hours. As long as you can move a man around, and that man can carry a Switchblade, he can kill more, bigger, and better units than with his rifle alone.
Noah's only half right when he says that defense is heavily advantaged by this - specifically, he's right that a Ukraine-style defense can indeed be successful with drones and Javelins. But really, drones and Javelins simply advantage whoever has the sensor and logistics advantage. As long as you can (1) keep your soldiers properly supplied with drones and Javelins, (2) see the enemy, and (3) move your soldiers and supplies around the battlefield quickly enough, well, you're probably going to win. Surprise surprise, the West is handling the back end of the logistics part, OSINT is helping with #2, and the Ukrainians are managing not to fuck up the rest, so they're winning.
Drones and Javelins haven't frozen the battle space, they've merely expanded and decentralized it. We've already seen this in the air, which is another part of the Ukraine war you're not acknowledging here. MANPADs and AA missiles have basically prohibited most air power from being used in this conflict. Neither side has the stealth strike capacity to perform proper SEAD/DEAD, so they're just sticking to the ground. Essentially, the range that one would need to strike the enemy from is larger than the range of the airborne weapons platforms, so each side can only nibble/snipe at each other in the air for now, while they just carry on hoping that their ground forces counter enough AA to reopen the skies. Likewise, the expanded and decentralized battlefield doesn't mean tanks will never be useful or that the battlefield will stay frozen, it just means that until either side can eliminate the drone/Javelin threat, they're better off focusing on winning in that sphere of the conflict before relying on those tanks to do what they do best.
We don't need more or different tanks. We need Jeeps/Hummers, Javelins, Switchblades, NVGs, and fuel. I'm not saying there will _never_ be niches for tanks; that's stupid and narrow-minded, of course. But we shouldn't be spending billions of dollars on them anymore, or purchasing and maintaining them by the tens of thousands. As of today, they're a reserve/auxiliary unit, not the centerpiece. They're what we roll in when we know we've got the conflict mostly wrapped up, and just need to counter against a desperate enemy resorting to the sort of trench warfare that might cause us hiccups and indigestion. In that context, having two variants we rarely use will be more expensive than a reserve force of MBTs we rarely use. And we'll be spending a lot less money on all those lighter units than any enemy of ours who's foolish enough to rely on _his_ tens of thousands of tanks, all while being able to totally annihilate and embarrass his precious centerpiece force.
So, like I said, we're better off just buying a lot more Jeeps. Get soldiers to within drone/Javelin range, or a short march thereof, and pummel the enemy from afar until it's safe to move in and mop up.