What? if anything, will ever make the tank obsolete?

*goes off on a rant *

 

Calls you all children

 

For those who say the combat helicopter will make the tank obsolete, I rcently read an interesting article which suggested that the combat helicopter itself would do so before the tank would. It i much more vulnerable to the cheapest of AT weapons in the field today than tanks are. Add to that the numerous cheap AA missiles and you have a flying coffin all right. No supreme firepower can help you if you can't see the enmy.

 

If anyone has read 'Red Storm Rising' by Tom Clancy - he came to the same conclusion.

 

When all's said a done a helicopter is vunerable to everything right down to small arms fire. Wasn't there at least one occasion during the Second Gulf War that American Apaches helicopters were driven off by small arms fire? No tank is going to fear AK47 fire.

The best I can come up with as a reason why the MBT might disappear is if it went down the same road as the battleship. One of the big roles of a MTB is to fighter other MTBs. If MBTs end up only being in the hand of countries that can't imagine fighting one another. What the point of buying big expensive equipment you'll never use?

Thats my best thought on the matter without going down either the tree hugger or sci fi routes.

 

And this is basically already so. Or would you still imagine Russia going to war with the US? :lol:

 

China?

 

China vs. the USA is a definite possibility. I have read that we are the main enemy in all Chinese military planning and training. They supposedly also have ICBMs targetted on America.

 

they already have the technology to launch a space ship, so the idea of icbm pointing this way is not really new, but going bqack to the main theme, i can say that the only reson a mbt can be obsolete is if the oil production runs dry, and in doing so the whole ecomomy not just the military, no oil, no gas , no gas no tanks

 

I was going to suggest 'alternative energy' (sensible stuff like hydrogen-powered tanks), but then I had a sudden image of a tank with a big wind-turbine on the rear deck!

 

A war between China and America would be mainly naval and air warfare. I doubt land assets would ever get into it. I sincerely doubt that even the U.S. Marines would survive a landing on the Chinese coast.

A war between Russia and China would be a land engagement and you better believe that tanks would be involved. That would be something to see.

 

Wouldn't either side try an invasion attempt? As China I most certainly would. Coastal defences on the American east coast are non-existent as far as I know, and possible losses because of nuclear counterstikes are entirely swallowed by China's masses. Then the foothold would be secure. Do not underestimate their numbers!

 

Ah, but they have to get there!
America does have a rather powerful navy...

 

I don't know if I call something that travels at 40mph and hit a target 3 miles away on the go with its 120mm gun "obsolete". If there is a fire fight, I rather be inside the "obsolete" tank than inside an "advanced" Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, or a 3rd generation Hummvee for that matter.

 

China's modernisation should not be underestimated.

They have the Type 85, with 125mm gun, and the Type 90, again with 125mm gun.
Both are capable of ~40mph, both are fairly modern designs (Type 85 introduced in late 80s, Type 90 in the early 90s), and the Type 90 has lots of nice features like an Western engine & drive train giving it 25hp per tonne, ERA armour blocks, an auto-loader that fires up to 8 rounds per minute...

They may not be as good as the M1A2, or the Challenger 2 for that matter, but they are not too far off (certainly a stellar improvement on the Type 63!), and I'd bet they are available in far larger numbers...

 

Should a war break out between the 2, the US will have total sea and air supremacy in no time, this would allow the marines to anytime and anywhere along the 2,000 miles plus long eastern China coastlines. While China will be suffocated by American blockade, it can still receiv supply via land from probably India, Russia, or even, gulp, Vietnam. China is used to being isolated for the past 4,000 yeas, also, it is not an Island nation (like England) thus a blockade won't be as damaging as the US navy would hope
Even though it is easy for the marines to establish a beach head, it will be very difficult to sustain and supply a sizable invasion force in China. Afterall, how many troops do you have to commit to conquer a nation of 1.2 billion?? That is a committment that no US president would dare to make.

 

This is a puzzling question.

By all standards, the tank is already obsolete and has been for many years.

The problem is just like the battleships of WW I; the vested interests that commanders and producers have in the product are the result of poor leadership and short sighted generals.

The tank has little place in a truly modern army.


:smok:

 

That's only a theory which so far hasn't been backed up. Its not to say you neccessarily wrong the Gulf wars haven't been good example to judge from. It is the role of Admirals and Generals in peace time to figure out what the next war is going to be like but until proven in combat their only theories.

If we take your battleship example the aircraft carrier wasn't a proven battle winner until 1942. Even then the disappearence of the battleship wasn't entitly due aircraft. It was a number of factors. The same will be true if the tank disappears.

 

The Battleship disappeared because the aircraft carrier offered greater range, versatility and firepower. It was superior in almost every aspect. The same does not hold true for the attack helicopter or the ground attack plane, where the tank still offers substantial advantages in terms of protection, since both types, despite being touted as the weapon that will make tanks obsolete, are highly vulnerable to any sort of air defense. The only reason they were so effective in previous wars because their opposition hardly had any sort of air defense at all.

 

All that the US needs to do is severly damage China's conventional warfare capabilities by bombing airfields, military bases, railways etc. and capture the important administrative centers of China (all of which are incidentally all concentrated in Eastern China) which shouldn't be too hard to achieve since even Taiwan has more thrid-generation combat aircraft than China has. After all, all Hitler had to do was to conquer Western Russia, because Eastern Russia was a fairly desolate and undeveloped place. Its navy is even more hopeless than its air force when compared to what the US possesses. After all, the US need not conquer China completly. It all depends on the object of the war.