Please use this thread to continue discussing the war in Ukraine.
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Original thread:
A strongly worded letter?
Hopefully titanium pellets and warheads to foreheads
Live conference now
but take another "$10 million " machine the Tank, its become more vulnerable to a bigger variety of cheap weapons. The commentary in 22 and 23 was that NATO had better tanks than the Russians not that tanks would be less significant as they used to be. Might be an issue for Israel too if they went into South Lebanon
NATO does have better tanks than Russia, significantly better in most cases. Some people took that to mean that Western tanks are invincible, which they are not.
There's an arms race between tanks vs e.g. drones at the moment, currently drones are mostly coming out ahead, but it's dynamic. Some of the new measures being developed for newer tanks are pretty impressive and could re-swing that balance the other way in future. Hard to tell at this stage.
Sabotage?
Western tanks are better, witness Ukrainians capturing more in a week and half than Russians in a year and a half and still growing the area a month later
edit: NL just ordered more
Anyone with an interest in Ukraine I advise to watch peteralexievich on TikTok.
He’s an American in Odessa who speaks 100% the truth and debunks all Russian propaganda.
He does a live show each night from 10am and answers questions.
So a few days after Ukraine told US officials about targets they wanted to used ATACMS on in Russia, Russia moves 95% of its planes beyond the 300km those missiles can reach.
Something stinks again in the White House.
That has very little to do with the quality of the tanks and nearly everything to do with the area having next to no defence. Similar to when Russia invaded Crimea or invaded southeast Ukraine at the start of the war. The quality of their tanks didn't matter as much as just having any tank was sufficient.
What we think of this?
I'm still not seeing how that example is any different to the pending 'crisis of the tank' in 1973. Or 1948. Or 1918. Or any other time someone realised that tanks can be killed by things much cheaper and more common than them. It's a topic which comes up repeatedly in every domain, from 'expensive battleships being killed by torpedo boats' to 'space planes being killed by lasers'. The additional mechanism of threat doesn't really change the overall situation of the threat itself in the first place.
A nation of Cletus's (Cleti?). ''Hey kids, I founds some good roadkill…we're eatin' tonight''
Really? You see no difference whatsoever?
In 2022 I think I was the first here to comment that Russian tank columns were getting smashed up in the Vuhledar offensive. Early drone footage was decisive in stopping that attack.
In late Summer of 2023, we watched the same thing in reverse. Ukrainian tank columns were smashed up by Russians only hundreds of metres from their starting points when they went on the offensive.
Here we are in 2024, slow moving tanks from all sides are still being spotted by the ever present drones in the air and smashed up early doors.
Could you explain what either Ukraine or Russia should be doing better?
I think they'll just end up fitting that British laser to them and then it's back to tank warfare.
I think what he means is that the death, the end of the tank or tanks are now obsolete has been proclaimed several times before quite literally as far back as just after WWI. Usually these claims coincide with a new weapons system or technology that is a threat to the tank, like guided missiles used by infantry or helicopters. But over time adaptions where made to counter these new threats and the very same will likely happen again to counter drones.
Incidentally I can't recall any Ukrainian tank columns that where destroyed by drones. I can recall one really well known case of a Ukrainian tank column being destroyed shortly after the start of Ukrainian's 2023 offensive but that was destroyed by a Russian helicopter attacking it from beyond a range they could return fire, using its own onboard equipment. That's not to say Russian drones haven't destroyed Ukrainian individual tanks, just not columns as Ukrainian doesn't tend to use mass columns of tanks much.
There is also the question of if there is a role on the battlefield, can another weapons system replace the tank and get a better outcome.
For example if you wanted to assault an enemy strong point across relatively open terrain. Its a well fortified position with pill boxes and bunkers. The enemy located there has small arms weapons, as well as portable anti air and anti tank missile, they are supported by drones and can call in artillery. The area the enemy fortification falls into is also protected by long range anti aircraft missiles.
You assault with a tank. The tank is under threat from the shoulder mounted anti tank missiles, drones with anti tank capability and artillery called in via drones, but the tank is protected from small arms and from near artillery missiles and shrapnel from artillery.
Swap out the tank with with an armoured or infantry fighting vehicle, You face largely the same threats and have most of the advantages that a tank has though near misses from artillery may be more problematic. You are however significantly down on firepower to assault the target.
Swap the tank out for an aircraft or helicopter and your protected from small arms and artillery, but you deal with whatever air defences are in the area, plus drones now increasingly are becoming a threat to helicopters. An aircraft or helicopter is also a much more expensive weapons system and its pilots much harder to train and replace.
Swap out the tank with an infantry assault and now literally everything kills the infantry, plus the assault will be slower and have even less firepower.
Point is that even if the threat level against the tank has risen, there is still a role on the battlefield for the tank that no other weapons system can do better. Which is why the tank isn't going anywhere.
The lessons of this war war so far episode discussed earlier in thread and recorded shortly before Kursk
goes into discussion as to why tanks are not completely irrelevant to modern warfare and why drones are not the be all they being hyped up
One of the points was if tanks were completely useless then why are Russians continuing to use them and adding sheds on top (to much amusement of tank guy talking) either there is some value or Russians truly are stupid
A few weeks later Kursk happened
@Manic Moran made good points, tanks are just one of the tools in an arsenal of modern militaries working in conjunction with other tech where everything supports everything else, for example during Kursk Ukrainians used drones to provide EW and counter Russian drones while tanks captured the ground
IMHO it’s not tanks that are dead but stupid Russian tactics leading to 600,000 dead and institutional inability to learn from mistakes as the top priority for Russian commanders is staying alive in the Putin zoo, waging war with disposable meat bags is tertiary
im just looking at the obvious , between attack drones and drone surveillance the game has changed, strategies taken for granted 20 or 30 years ago are now past their sell by date
down the road it will be AI against AI but it seems like coming to the end of the age where one standing army crosses a border to go after another standing army
Tanks seems to be the rearguard, while infantry controlled drone warfare clears the way in a much more precise than manned aircraft did in the past.
The Russians still hold to tanks as the border makers, but drones have trumped them. Likewise advancing Ukranian tanks are vulnerable without drones spotting for them.
you still need boots on the ground to claim and hold the ground, those troops one would suppose would want as much armour around them as possible
Landing a drone on a building and planting a flag won’t do it
Take Taiwan, let’s say China sends swarms of drones and bombs the place to stoneage with missiles and blocks access with navy and airforce
They still won’t “own it” unless manage to land millions of troops
I wouldn't read into too much about the war in Ukraine has changed modern warfare. FPV drones and artillery are playing a key role, but that's mainly because neither side has air supremacy. I can't see a situation if NATO was defending against a competent Russia that NATO would resort to trench warfare and lobbing millions of shells etc..
At the start when Israel was about to launch the ground offensive into Gaza, people assumed the same drone warfare would hinder Israel and their tanks. Israel has shown when you have air supremacy, artillery is not as crucial.
I doubt for instance Afghanistan could be rerun now , IEDs and aks are old hat so I think there will indeed be less "boots on the ground" which on average would be a good thing
This “are tanks dead?” debate pops up often. If you asked a soldier in Ukraine if they would rather advance in a tank or an un armoured vehicle, they will likely pick a tank. Drones have made them more vulnerable, but they still offer protection from traditional forms of attack.
Bullets didn’t make soldiers obsolete even though they are vulnerable to them.
Back to current affairs, good news all around
@thatsdaft thanks. You've lifted my mood big time with that news. Hopefully this is the start of a momentum swing. If Ukraine can stop the advances for the next month Russia will have the mud season to contend with.
Go on Romania! Russian missiles will be zig zagging their way even more around Ukraine now.
Sorry if this was already posted.
Seems Ukrainians developed some sort of large quadcopter than can go quite high up and hunt expensive Russian surveillance drones, this is new, only recently on podcasts was mentioned Ukrainians don’t have cheap ways of taking these down and they fly kilometres behind lines
The Ukrainians have lost a fair few Abraams and the modern Leopard 2Ax variants, although often with the crew saved (likely due to the Russians specifically throwing the kitchen sink at them)
But have only been observed to lose three Leopard 1A5's - looks like it's a fairly solid older tank. The more the merrier.
I’ve heard that the Russians bend over backwards trying (and mostly failing) to get at the Challengers too. They are obsessed with the Brits, and by association, their tanks.
ontop of 350 million US just announced
Canada is doing this
looks like they are handing over their whole arsenal of these rockets they were gonna decommission
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRV7
I guess in a few months we will see fleets of single launch drones launching these air to ground missiles
