Is the age of tanks over ?

[Micheal Corleone]

Tanks will be obsolete the day ground warfare will be obsolete and it’s coming in distant future

 

[Ryder]

I think Aselsan's concept art of future tank is very much something we may see in the future.

View attachment 2546
View attachment 2545

Is that a rail gun??

 

[500]

We should remember that in previous wars tanks were destroyed in enormous numbers, but no one said then that age tanks is over. In 1945 Soviet army lost 107 tanks a day - more than in all previous years - more than in disastrous 1941 and 1942.

Also we see now artillery and Grad MRL destroyed in large numbers, but no one says that age of artillery is over.

Manned tanks will be useless in the future(10/20 years) but for now they are still useful.

Manned tanks will continue to serve till the end of 21th century.

 

[Bayraktar TB2]

As long there is infantry there will be need of something to protect that infantry.

 

[Skyfall]

Why are tanks with so much armour needed when a single person with a ATGM or a light combat drone can take it out? I think Technicals are a better option and if hit by a ATGM or drone there is a greater chance of survival. Ok they don't have the fire power of a tank but they can always be armed with some built in ATGM.

The survivability is much higher and they are faster and more mobile. Can be used in tight urban areas. Cross light bridges and mountainous areas easily.

Tanks in recent conflict have turned into high value targets.

Problem with Technicals is vulnerability to IEDs.

I think that the Mongols would have loved Technicals.

Sorry if i have repeated what some of you may have said. I haven't had the time to read the thread yet I was just replying to the tread title.

 

[Skyfall]

Also to add: In the most recent conflict, how would Azeris have managed if they had technicals. When trying to break through defence lines the tanks were extremely vulnerable due to large size and slow speed. The soldiers trying to break through were even slower and vulnerable to machine gun fire and non direct artillery blasts.

If they have masses of Technicals as used by the other recent conflicts, I think that there would have been a lot less losses in terms of lives, hardware and psychological. Also the problem with the recent NK conflict is when a tank is hit and blocks a road or pass. Then we see the difficultly of moving it which causes further loss of life and equipment.

I must add that tanks do have their use, but more in the role of artillery.

 

[Reviewbrah]

Why are tanks with so much armour needed when a single person with a ATGM or a light combat drone can take it out? I think Technicals are a better option and if hit by a ATGM or drone there is a greater chance of survival. Ok they don't have the fire power of a tank but they can always be armed with some built in ATGM.

The survivability is much higher and they are faster and more mobile. Can be used in tight urban areas. Cross light bridges and mountainous areas easily.

Tanks in recent conflict have turned into high value targets.

Problem with Technicals is vulnerability to IEDs.

I think that the Mongols would have loved Technicals.

Sorry if i have repeated what some of you may have said. I haven't had the time to read the thread yet I was just replying to the tread title.

There is big difference between a capable modern army operating tanks and small "army" that would be identified as a "heavily armed militia at best" operating tanks. Small army will never be able to establish air superiority and their whole ground operation will become sitting ducks. Tanks concept will evolve but there is currently nothing that replaces tank's armored firepower. Yes, armor will not be able to keep up with anti-tank missiles. Much more reliable hard kill systems such as active protection systems (APS) are becoming more widely available that can even stop top angle attacks. Soft-kill systems like laser warning systems already been effectively used in Syria by Turkey and saved lives. Laser technology is getting much better, that might eventually used together with hard-kill systems to blind ATGMs.

When two comparable modern armies go to war, UAVs are going to be a much easier target even though even modern armies don't have layered air defenses to counter threats such as suicide drones currently effectively.

For example;

American troops does not set foot on the ground without establishing air superiority. During Iraq Invasion, they gaved enough shock to Iraqis after Iraqis realized what was happening Americans were at Baghdad with their tanks. America during Iraq invasion did not lose any tanks. Yes, at the time ATGMs were only available to special forces. America would adapted like they adapted to IED threats with MRAPS from South Africa.

U.S army depends on air force aircraft for air defense. They did not invested enough to ground based air defense systems compared to other nations like Israel (although they funded their projects). They don't have a air defense systems between a stinger and a Patriot. They are acquiring Iron Dome and in the future different systems as threats assessment are changing fast with drones and missiles.

Canadian Army wanted to replace their Leopard 1s with Stryker/LAV Mobile Gun System. After their bad experiences in Afghanistan. They decided to buy Leopard 2s.

According to research, during Russo-Ukraine War. Ukraine lost majority of their armor to artillery fire not ATGMs. Ukraine lacks sophisticated counter-battery radars and C-RAM are not even widely available. I gave this example, because people are forgetting how serious artillery threat is.

For the technical;

Modern armies tend to use technical with special forces. They act as scout vehicles as they are no match for heavier vehicles. Armies already use 4x4s for anti-tank.

 

[Kaptaan]

Are the age of tanks over ? Worth discussing.

I would say it depends. If you think you will have air superiority then tanks are ideal as mobile strong points that can provide infantry cover and good in holding ground. However if you do not have air superiority then the tanks will just make juicy targets for enemy tank busting aircraft and drones.

 

[Gary]

Looking at the past conflict as well as the recent one between Armenia and Azerbaijan, here's what I thought:

1. The age of tank vs tank warfare will be over, the era which who got the bigger gun and better armor will be irrelevant anymore.

2.instead of investing in tanks which is expensive ,heavy, bulky, man abd maintenance intensive. It's better to invest in UCAV, which is more disposable than that of tanks.

3. This is classic but, without adequate infantry or surveillance support, tanks are dead meat. We've seen Azeri tanks getting hit by RPG's in a very close proximity, while there's no visible Azeri infantry in sight.

4. IFV's and lighter vehicle will be the best way to send soldiers and hold ground, it's faster than tanks, it has a more rapid fire. seriously what's the point of having tanks holding ground while drones above could (depending on which side you're on) kill or protect those trying to hold the ground.

5. Surprisingly in a twist of fate, Tanks will likely be survivable and usable in urban combat scenario where they along with the infantry will tear through concrete walls and the urban jungle will shield them from aerial reconnaissance.

6. Stop investing in a single platform, modern wars showed that there is no single wunderwaffe that win wars, it all cones to how different units cooperate and communicate to achieve battlefield supremacy, you could have the very latest Leopard's,Abrams, Armata,..but it all comes down to how armies operate them and how they will cooperate with other assets in the vicinity and afar (drones, artillery, infantry, etc)

 

[Skyfall]

This is the moment that tanks died. Imagine if it was a SVBIED.

RIP tanks.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1231187080270708736

 

[Rajendra Chola]

As long as one country advances into the territory of another, tanks will be there. It needs to provide cover to advancing infantry. Just 3-4 tanks can be devastatingnwith the right combination will be devastating.

Tanks will be upgraded to meet threats like even developing unmanned ones but they aren't going.

 

[Captain_Azeri_76]

When we talk about these scenarios, many of us - including myself [in part] - tend to think that tanks were only designed for - or used only in the Middle Eastern, Anatolian, Afghanistan/Pakistani mountainous terrain. "Ambushes" and difficult circumstances are often used as counter-arguments. However, one must not ignore the fact that e.g. the Largest parts of Europe, for example, are totally flat, with forests (ideal for tank regiments), the same applies to deserts, etc.

Therefore I believe that the era of tanks is just beginning...

Automated, less manned (not non-manned), with active defense measures (areal scanning for human beings and enemy sensors) and in the future possibly with energetic shields - the possibilities are open.

But the time of heavy, mobile, weapon platforms is far from over - we will rather switch to "walkers" or "tripods" etc. than leaving tanks to use small, vulnerable "drones"

 

[bsruzm]

I think it isn't the end but a transsion.

 

[Test7]

Conflict in the Caucasus, recent exercise reinforce modernization needs, US Army chief says​

Armenian tanks stand idled in the town of Beylagan on October 5stand idle. Azeri army officials said were seized during the ongoing fighting with Armenia over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region, in the town of Beylagan on October 5, 2020. (Tofik Babayev/AFP via Getty Images)

State-produced videos of armored vehicles being devastated by airstrikes during the recent conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has caused some to wonder whether tanks are too vulnerable, slow and expensive for modern warfare.

Army leaders don’t think so, but the service’s chief of staff said the conflict does highlight a priority in developing air defense systems to defeat drones — and maybe even swarms of them.

“It reinforces some of the thoughts we already have," Gen. James McConville told Army Times during a recent telephone interview. “When we take a look at future warfare, we believe that we will be contested in every single domain. … We’re certainly going to be challenged on the land."

Manned and unmanned vehicles on the ground and in the air will up the stakes and “it’s going to be very lethal," McConville added.

To underscore how different this will be for U.S. forces, McConville noted that the last time a U.S. soldier was killed by an enemy aircraft was in 1953, during the Korean War.

“So we’re enjoying air superiority, but we don’t necessarily see that in the future,” he added. “As we’re seeing in this fight and as we see in other places, [there are] lethal drones that we’re gonna have to deal with."

That’s why one of the Army’s modernization priorities is air and missile defense, McConville explained, which includes lines of effort like putting short-range Stinger missiles on Stryker vehicles.

“We are developing multiple capabilities to sense swarms of UASs and then defeat them," McConville said. "Whether it’s with a missile, gun, high-powered microwave or laser, we’ll have multiple ‘arrows,' so to speak, that we can use against the threat.”

Tanks like the Abrams and infantry fighting vehicles like the Bradley still have an important role to play, however.

“I see those in the future, because you’ve got to protect the soldiers when you move around on a very lethal battlefield,” McConville said.

Traditionally, infantry and armor complement one another by negating each other’s vulnerabilities. Infantry, for instance, can spot and kill anti-tank guided missile teams, and tanks can provide greater cover and maneuverability.

Greater interoperability between combat arms and support branches is the trend around which Army leaders are planning. And they want it to take mere seconds to do key parts of that coordination in combat.

“It’s all about providing air and ground in the joint force, working together," he added. "And really, that’s the concept we have, this [Project] Convergence where we bring everyone together, and we have multiple sensors that can identify the enemy, and then choose the right weapon system, the most lethal effective weapon system to deal with that threat.”

Felix Jonathan, a robotics engineer from Carnegie Mellon University, inputs data into an autonmous ground vehicle control system during Project Convergence at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona. (Spc. Carlos Cuebas Fantauzzi/Army)

Project Convergence was an exercise that ran this August and September at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. The point of the test this year was to pair artificial intelligence, autonomous systems and robotics together to move data very quickly from sensors to shooters.

“Back in the days of Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, it was probably OK to take tens of minutes identifying the target and then actually putting rounds on,” Army Futures Command boss Gen. John M. Murray said during a virtual media event. “If you look at what we envision a future battlefield to look like, it’s not going to be tens of minutes.”

The test plan, according to an Army news release, was to cut those kill-chain times down to less than 20 seconds during demonstrations on Sept. 21 and Sept. 23.

Project Convergence combined low-earth orbit satellites, an MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone and ground sensors that fed data “to a surrogate developmental program” at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, the release stated. Information was then sent to shooters on the ground at Yuma, who fired an artillery piece at a target in less than 20 seconds.

McConville was “very pleased” with the results that came out of the exercise.

“The idea of picking up a target and getting it to the shooter in seconds versus minutes is really going to change the lethality of the battlefield from where we sit and we really see tremendous potential with what we saw out there,” McConville explained.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be a need for "a person in the loop,” as McConville framed it. Critical stages will require human oversight. The difference comes down to the amount of work that will need to be done.

Sensors on a drone or manned airplane, for instance, can “soak” a target area with video recordings from great distances. But having a human sift through those feeds to identify targets can be incredibly time-consuming.

“Now we can actually use different sensors together that can be using an artificial intelligence in the future to determine what’s the actual target," McConville said.

Conflict in the Caucasus, recent exercise reinforce modernization needs, Army chief says

“I see [armored vehicles] in the future, because you’ve got to protect the soldiers when you move around on a very lethal battlefield,” the Army chief of staff said.

www.armytimes.com

 

[Hexciter]

No, Drones Haven’t Made Tanks Obsolete

Wrecked armor in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was down to bad training and terrain, not magical technology.

foreignpolicy.com

 

[Test7]

Conflict has a strange way of connecting contradictory issues; the Armenia- Azerbaijan war in the Nagorno Karabakh has timed itself with a debate raging in the UK regarding the future of the tank

 

[Turko]

On earth where AK-47 still hasn't been absolute, the manned tanks will remain minimum a century.
Big caliber guns' ammunitions aren't feasible for unmanned doctrine. The drone IFVs use rapid fire while they are infiltrating deeply due-to there is no threat to any crew.

Unmanned tank or ifv doesn't mean the vehicle decide whom to kill.

They are all remote controlled. This beast can be controlled from mother Bradley. This working cycle will be future doctrine. Unless boots of soldiers step , you can't conquer.

 

[Reviewbrah]

Reminds me of Milrem Type X concept

Type-X - Milrem

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milremrobotics.com

 

[Turko]

Let Estonians draw while Anglo-saxons unveiling.

 

[Turko]

İt's one of my favorite.
Fires short 30mm

If rheinmetall start considering , tanks might be absolute