What is the strategic use of a Tank?

ibstar

Apart from the obvious things like a highly armoured vehicle, with a canon.
What are the strategic uses of a tank?
Does it cooperate much with the infantry?

cruasder777

ibstar wrote: »

Apart from the obvious things like a highly armoured vehicle, with a canon.
What are the strategic uses of a tank?
Does it cooperate much with the infantry?

To punch through defensive lines. Supported from the air, with artillery, mortars and mechanized infantry.

Different armies have different doctrines, as an example in the British army in an urban warfare theater, dismounted infantry support tanks.

3 or 4 tanks operate with an infantry platoon in fire and movement sections. The HQ section consists of 14 tanks and 4 troop squadrons which are divided up giving more flexibility to the units commander.

Heres a video showing Indian mechanised infantry working alongside armour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1Uqbfh7n_E

Manic Moran

They don't really have a strategic role, they're more operational or tactical.

The general gist is that they provide sustainable, protected firepower wherever they are needed. The combination of of the four is what distinguishes it from pillboxes, helicopters, infantry vehicles, etc. Under American doctrine, the one thing they cannot do is secure or clear terrain. That requires the use of infantry. As a result, tanks and infantry commonly work together, the one complementing the lack of capabilities of the other.

ibstar

cruasder777 wrote: »

To punch through defensive lines. Supported from the air, with artillery, mortars and mechanized infantry.

Different armies have different doctrines, as an example in the British army in an urban warfare theater, dismounted infantry support tanks.

3 or 4 tanks operate with an infantry platoon in fire and movement sections. The HQ section consists of 14 tanks and 4 troop squadrons which are divided up giving more flexibility to the units commander.

Heres a video showing Indian mechanised infantry working alongside armour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1Uqbfh7n_E

Very nice and detailed answer

ibstar

Manic Moran wrote: »

They don't really have a strategic role, they're more operational or tactical.

The general gist is that they provide sustainable, protected firepower wherever they are needed. The combination of of the four is what distinguishes it from pillboxes, helicopters, infantry vehicles, etc. Under American doctrine, the one thing they cannot do is secure or clear terrain. That requires the use of infantry. As a result, tanks and infantry commonly work together, the one complementing the lack of capabilities of the other.

I was some way thinking that as well. Would it be right to think that Tanks prefer Tank vs Infantry engagement than say Tank v Tank?

Jawgap

ibstar wrote: »

Apart from the obvious things like a highly armoured vehicle, with a canon.
What are the strategic uses of a tank?
Does it cooperate much with the infantry?

Yes, they have to co-operate with infantry - as @Manic Moran says they can't hold terrain. The history of WWII is replete with examples of tanks getting hammered and / or attacks stalling because the armour outran the infantry, became isolated and was beaten back.

As for 'strategic use' - it depends on the country and their doctrine. At the outset of WWII the British and French had qualitatively better tanks than the Germans, and had more tanks than the Germans - they saw the tank as effectively an infantry support weapon and so scattered them among the infantry formations.

The German had a different view and saw them as a resource to be concentrated as part of a combined arms attack - to quote Guderian "You hit somebody with your fist and not with your fingers spread.”

Of course, that taken to extremes can also have problems as the Israelis found out during Yom Kippur - their armour doctrine was based on concentration and long range gunnery and it served them extremely well during the Six Day War, but during the defensive part of Yom Kippur they struggled to adapt. The Valley of Tears Battle is as good an example of the defensive use of tanks to save a country as you are likely to find.

IrishTrajan

ibstar wrote: »

Apart from the obvious things like a highly armoured vehicle, with a canon.
What are the strategic uses of a tank?
Does it cooperate much with the infantry?

They are the hard hitting, fast moving element of an army. Example:

One army has tanks and infantry, the other only has infantry. Both have air forces.

Army A deploys tanks with infantry to crush Army B's infantry (Infantry alone won't defeat tanks + infantry, but tanks alone are susceptible to infantry with ATMs).
Army B must deploy aircraft to neutralize Army A's tanks.
Army A deploys fighter aircraft to stop Army B's helicopters.
Army B deploys counter-aircraft to stop Army A's attack aircraft.

The easier way to have negated A's tank bonus would have been for Army B to deploy tanks as well.

That's it, on an incredibly basic level.

Tanks can also provide electronic warfare, command and control, medical evacuation, protection for troop transports, as mechanics' storage for tools should other vehicles break down.

The UK's starstreak missile (for instance) also gives Armoured Forces the ability to protect themselves from air attack, so a fully motorized Brigade (motorized infantry, Main Battle Tanks, and AA defences) can probably do a lot of damage before it is neutralized, especially in rough terrain.

Jawgap

IrishTrajan wrote: »

They are the hard hitting, fast moving element of an army. Example:

One army has tanks and infantry, the other only has infantry. Both have air forces.

Army A deploys tanks with infantry to crush Army B's infantry (Infantry alone won't defeat tanks + infantry, but tanks alone are susceptible to infantry with ATMs).
Army B must deploy aircraft to neutralize Army A's tanks.
Army A deploys fighter aircraft to stop Army B's helicopters.
Army B deploys counter-aircraft to stop Army A's attack aircraft.

The easier way to have negated A's tank bonus would have been for Army B to deploy tanks as well.

That's it, on an incredibly basic level.

Tanks can also provide electronic warfare, command and control, medical evacuation, protection for troop transports, as mechanics' storage for tools should other vehicles break down.

The UK's starstreak missile (for instance) also gives Armoured Forces the ability to protect themselves from air attack, so a fully motorized Brigade (motorized infantry, Main Battle Tanks, and AA defences) can probably do a lot of damage before it is neutralized, especially in rough terrain.

Or Army B's air force just overflies everything and hits the armour where it's weakest - in the logistics!

Tanks are also incredible susceptible to terrain and ground conditions - there's plenty of examples where infantry and terrain combine to frustrate armour - a little over 70 years ago, for example, the Germans were finding that even armour attacking a few tired and inexperienced infantry divisions, without on call air support, could not have it all there own way if they picked the wrong ground to fight over.

IrishTrajan

Jawgap wrote: »

Or Army B's air force just overflies everything and hits the armour where it's weakest - in the logistics!

Tanks are also incredible susceptible to terrain and ground conditions - there's plenty of examples where infantry and terrain combine to frustrate armour - a little over 70 years ago, for example, the Germans were finding that even armour attacking a few tired and inexperienced infantry divisions, without on call air support, could not have it all there own way if they picked the wrong ground to fight over.

I was giving an incredibly basic example, mate.

Like, attacking entrenched infantry or at the cities is incredibly costly and not like to succeed (Operation Citadel, for example).

Jawgap

IrishTrajan wrote: »

I was giving an incredibly basic example, mate.

Like, attacking entrenched infantry or at the cities is incredibly costly and not like to succeed (Operation Citadel, for example).

So was I - logistics are the ball and chain of the tank. That's why armour is vulnerable to attacks on it's logistics chain.

If a tank heavy force has air then it's likely it will use the air to protect its ass - the alternative is to free the air to sweep the opposition's air from the sky, but to do that you have to disperse your depots (for fear one attack would get through and wipe everything out) - dispersed depots mean dispersed armour - so if you want to concentrate your armour, you have have to concentrate your depots which means your air support has to patrol defensively, giving the opposition's air free reign over and immediately behind the battlefront.