For the one thousandth time, Main Battle Tanks are as far from obsolete as you possibly can get.
as an American i am happy they got 49 tanks. i want them to get another 49 asap. and then 49 after that. if Russia want a war, lets give it. lets make Ukraine the Front line defense in Putin’s grab for land.
Define america? I’m here and quite happy with this.
In this case defining america is easy.
A line of supply ships full of 155mm artillery, strykers, bradleys and abrams.
Where is that america?
Work on your reading comprehension and try again.
I can’t wait to see the new obsolete South Korean K3 tank
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/why-us-marines-got-rid-their-tanks-207915
has, near the end, one of the most incompetent pieces of “logic” I’ve ever seen.
"the Russian military has lost 2,200 tanks out of a force that had consisted of 3,500 before the war began.
Based on how the Kremlin’s tanks fared – and how the Western-made MBTs like the Leopard 2 and Challenger 2 failed to be the miracle weapons Kyiv hoped for – it would seem that the Marine Corps made the right move. In a future war, they’ll be able to say they lost no tanks, simply because they had none to lose!
However, tanks continue to see service around the world, including in Ukraine. That’s because while drones have proven successful, it was largely because there haven’t been successful tools to counter them. Tanks have survived even as anti-tank rifles, land mines, bazookas, and RPGs were developed to destroy them.
Tanks will, therefore, continue to have a place on the battlefield."
It isn’t anti-tank-rifles, land-mines, bazookas, or RPG’s that render tanks obsolete: it is Saint Javelin that does.
When a troop-portable missile can take out a tank costing 100x as much, then by deploying tanks you are GIVING the enemy a way to bankrupt you.
Shoot-n-scoot artillery is MUCH cheaper, hits harder, & is harder to eradicate.
That statistic, up-top in the quote: 1,300/3,500 Russian tanks left, SHOULD clue people in about just how ill-suited the things are, to long grinding all-out war-of-attrition, which includes anti-tank missiles & drones destroying them from above.
The whole karate-style high-concentration-strike-on-high-value-target is an efficient way to either be forced into ally-dependency ( both sides are ), XOR to bankruptcy.
The proper method is to remove high-value-targets from one’s army, & make EVERY platoon capable of taking-out significant enemy-means ( MRAP? as much as AFV? ), & getting the capability as distributed as possible.
Thanks to drones saturating the front, there now are no more concentrations-of-force, from what I’ve read.
You create a convoy, & that itself draws fire/drones.
So, everything’s dispersed, now.
Which makes a gang of tanks, clustering to concentrate firepower on an enemy-concentration-of-force … irrelevant.
I’m certain that the USMC blundered when they oriented to island-warfare, but since they’ll be being deployed against Canada soon, enforcing Trump’s annexation ( using Greenland as a base to snuff Canada’s EU-lifeline, which is WHY he “NEEDS” Greenland: his other “justifications” are just red-herrings )…
I’m glad they optimized for the wrong thing.
Same as their “USMC obeys ANY legal order.” law:
Once Trump crosses his tipping-point, uses the Insurrection Act to overthrow the constitution, & “de-naturalizes” all non-Republicans, thereby making them all into “illegals”, which … AUTOMATICALLY obliges that they be ICE’d …
& AUTOMATICALLY guarantees that there won’t be any non-Republican judges to appeal to …
… then “legal order” will include things like “machine-gun & then napalm all those protesters”, & USMC’d then be obliged to do that.
Again: they optimized for the wrong thing, & it’ll cost them their heart/soul.
( this indicates that “we will obey any order which complies with national AND international law” would have been a better cultural-rule:
dictatorship highjacks countries, & having some law outside the country then becomes required, for forces within the country to not be remanufactured into embodying evil. )
IF one doesn’t consider the economics of fielding tanks against troop-deployable missiles, THEN one doesn’t deserve to prevail in war.
Master Sun ( aka Sun Tzu, or the more recent Sunzi ) understood this & told us directly, millenia ago.
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You dropped this:
.mlBased on how the Kremlin’s tanks fared – and how the Western-made MBTs like the Leopard 2 and Challenger 2 failed to be the miracle weapons Kyiv hoped for – it would seem that the Marine Corps made the right move. In a future war, they’ll be able to say they lost no tanks, simply because they had none to lose!
The Marine Corp is optimized for storming beaches and opening theaters for heavy firepower, Main Battle Tanks come way after that especially in the Pacific theater. By the time main battle tanks come into the picture the function of the Marines will be needed elsewhere.
It isn’t anti-tank-rifles, land-mines, bazookas, or RPG’s that render tanks obsolete: it is Saint Javelin that does.
When a troop-portable missile can take out a tank costing 100x as much, then by deploying tanks you are GIVING the enemy a way to bankrupt you.
A tank and an antitank missile are different tools with different jobs, an effective antitank missile changes how tanks are used, it has nothing to do with replacing them.
Armor is for moving troops around while protected, drones/guided missiles make that function MORE valuable to a military not less.
The cost analysis of AT weapons vs tanks completely misses the point of tanks, it is like hyperfocusing on a drill bit on a mining rig and being like “look how obsolete drill bits are they ALWAYS break and they are so expensive compared to the rest of the drill rig”.
Main battle tanks are the spear point of armored maneuever, they come into play at the most intense concentrations of force, just seeing them through the lens of cost misses almost the entire essential dynamic going on here.
When you kick a door down you aren’t generally concerned with the wasting calories, your goal is to decisively smash a breach open through defenses so the next step in a plan can happen AS FAST as possible.
Not that far… Very close to being obsolete, actually. Might still be useful for some time if gets rid of a crew.
You have no clue what you are talking about.
I like how their entire argument is just “nuh-uh”.
I do. And I suppose you have seen a tank only in the picture.
If you have actual military experience your confidence in being wrong is even more funny.
