How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[chrisl]

6 hours ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Its not a bother at all really! I'll do my best to explain at least my take on things. Dont treat it as gospel by any means. 

Your question is a good one that I suppose is rooted in historical doctrine. Broadly Yes, tanks are there for direct firepower. What makes them especially good at that compared to other platforms is varied. We have seen a lot of militaries try and squeeze that firepower onto a smaller frame / chassis, but then you sacrifice on protection and suffer accordingly. 

Artillery can reach out further, but is subject to other elements working with it to achieve that effect. There is also the issue of dispersion as range grows and time on target, which can result in misses. Even accurate western systems take at least a few rounds on average to hit a target, and they are reliant on having a drone in the air to correct it. (This could be something that becomes far harder in the future if drone based interception becomes a thing, which to some degree we are already seeing in Ukraine)

What tanks deliver in turn is direct firepower that they are able to leverage themselves quickly and near instantly onto target without much external assistance. (Though they do benefit from drone spotting too for overall situation awareness) Tanks have the optics / thermals to do this at quite some range which is partly why they are so dangerous on the direct line of fire front. Western tanks in particular were designed with this in mind, having been made for the purpose of approaching a position in hull down in order to lay waste to vast amounts of soviet hardware advancing towards them before reversing back to avoid counter fire. 

As mentioned before, there are possible changes to be made with tank design to better optimise them for the role in question, I personally do not see that requirement of direct firepower going away for the future, though its a good question if tanks might remain the best way to deliver it. I personally think there is plenty of potential for them to do so, which is supported overall by the decisions of countries of late in tank procurement. 

 

I can put optics and electronics on an artillery shell that will guide it to a laser designated target, with a UAV providing the laser designation.  That doesn't even take any new technology.  One shot, one hit.  Maybe fire 2 for simultaneous ToT if you really want it dead.

Tanks need those fancy optics to see through smoke at ~5 km, but they can't see over the horizon.  If they're getting spotted at 40 km and met by FPVs at 15 km, those optics do nothing. 

[chrisl]

5 hours ago, zinz said:

Now to the last point of a tank. Mobility. It's in this role we don't have any successor or alternatives currently for the tank.  In the end I think driving over land is way too slow in comparison to how fast information and strikes move. That's why offensive maneuver is dead on the current battlefield. 

It has mobility only for the gun and the crew to operate the gun and drive it around.  An M1 carries ~40 rounds.  You can probably get the same or better effective mobility of firepower with 40 FPVs that each cost about the same as one of those tank rounds, especially if you can run them in shifts and always keep half of them airborne in the combat area.  And the tank can only fire one at a time, but with enough drivers you can run all the FPVs in parallel.

IFVs at least function as survivable battle taxis that reduce the hike to the area the infantry are going to try to occupy.

[The_Capt]

Probably the single most significant signal on the future of armor is the fact that it no longer shapes battle. Tanks/mech were the core of land warfare in creating tempo, momentum and consequences.  In Ukraine this is no longer the case - this much is pretty undeniable.  Even if we see a finale of a massive mech manoeuvre today, the vast majority of this war has not been shaped by mechanized forces.

Right now drones, precision fires and ISR are shaping the battlefield, while infantry still define the lines on the ground. The sword and shield have been replaced by swarms of hornets and lightening bolts.

Now what will be interesting to watch is metrics.  When we see threats in terms of their unmanned systems capacity and not numbers of tanks/AFVs we will know the world has finally turned.

[acrashb]

15 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

 while tanks can hang back in keyholed positions providing long range fire support, terrain permitting.

That's my whole thesis: the concept of operations for armour is broken.  What does a keyhole mean with drones, top-attack Fire&Forget ATGMs, anti-armour precision artillery munitions (or real-time adjusted conventional artillery), and plentiful mines (likely placed in the keyhole location)?  Even getting to the "keyhole" means surviving all of that over kilometers of fully-illuminated travel.

So MBTs are dead.

[The_Capt]

9 minutes ago, acrashb said:

That's my whole thesis: the concept of operations for armour is broken.  What does a keyhole mean with drones, top-attack Fire&Forget ATGMs, anti-armour precision artillery munitions (or real-time adjusted conventional artillery), and plentiful mines (likely placed in the keyhole location)?  Even getting to the "keyhole" means surviving all of that over kilometers of fully-illuminated travel.

So MBTs are dead.

The only practical use that I have seen suggested is pretty much how the tanks are being used now - largely indirect fire support.  A tank is a platform from which to launch weapons systems.  It gun can lob shells very far, over the horizon.  It can also fire NLOS missiles.  So as a mobile intermediate fires platform - say 10-15kms the tank may have a role.  But that role will continue to get squeezed as unmanned ranges increase.

I strongly believe we are entering into a Firepower age - a time when firepower is manoeuvre. The tanks ability to move and survive while delivering long range fires has potential for their recycled use in the next 10 years.  Also in extremis, like a bayonet, if one finds yourself in a DF fight where you need one, it is available.

The main problem the pro-tank camp is having is that they are not really trying to solve for the future of land warfare, they are trying to solve for the future viability of the tank.  This is wrong headed.

[billbindc]

Following the general trend on here in terms of broken offense, tanks, etc...leads to a question I've been considering. If offense is really broken then are not the risks to Ukraine of a ceasefire on current lines much lower? We hear, every time this comes up..."Ukraine can't have the war end here because Russia will just reload and try again". That's likely true but isn't the converse also true that Ukraine will do the same and given the inherent advantages of defense be able to do so far more effectively, all things being equal, than Russia will? Note that obviously, this thought experiment would require a peace in which Ukraine is not forestalled from buying arms, reviving its economy, etc. 

I would be interested to hear what you folks think. 

[The_Capt]

9 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Following the general trend on here in terms of broken offense, tanks, etc...leads to a question I've been considering. If offense is really broken then are not the risks to Ukraine of a ceasefire on current lines much lower? We hear, every time this comes up..."Ukraine can't have the war end here because Russia will just reload and try again". That's likely true but isn't the converse also true that Ukraine will do the same and given the inherent advantages of defense be able to do so far more effectively, all things being equal, than Russia will? Note that obviously, this thought experiment would require a peace in which Ukraine is not forestalled from buying arms, reviving its economy, etc. 

I would be interested to hear what you folks think. 

The risks are not tactical, nor even operational based on what we are seeing.  The UA, rearmed and ready could essentially deny the rest of Ukraine better than they are doing now.  While Russia has to try and rebuild a force that can break that denial...under sanctions...with a bestie like NK.

Strategically and politically, however, this another issue.  Russia can still wage terror long range strike attacks, cyber attacks and conduct subversive buggary with abandon.  Now we have a good example in South Korea of a nation that can survive and thrive under this threat, but Ukraine might not be so lucky.  Ukraine needs to 1) get all its refugees back home, 2) rebuild into a western facing economically stable independent state, and 3) achieve security guarantees for its future integrity, which will likely be entry into NATO.  Russian strategic freedom of action will harm just about everyone of those objectives.  It attacks the center of gravity for Ukraine in this whole thing - Ukraine as a safe place to be. 

I am not sure what the answer is to be honest.  A forever war does nothing for this situation either.  Ukraine is not likely to be able to evolve militarily to solve for land warfare any time soon. So unless Russia (or Ukraine) basically collapses, we are looking at a static situation on the ground. This is a war of exhaustion by this point.  We really do not want either side to collapse - a Russian soft contained implosion is acceptable but hard to engineer.

So here we are.  I suspect that a Korean peninsula-like solution is the best viable course a this point in the war.

[danfrodo]

Turns out there's actually a real war going on, not a theoretical one.  And in the real war there's some small but interesting UKR offensive operations.  Not war-changing, ~1km advances, but indicates that UKR isn't stretched so thin by RU's Kharkiv attack they have denuded all other sectors.  Also, we are seeing how RU's suicidal tactics are actually having a cost as UKR can counterattack the weakened units and make some small gains.  Video below is about UKR small advances in Kremmina direction, but we're seeing similar thing in the two little bulges north of Kharkiv.  

I think Putin has been thinking "so what if I burn up a thousand meat-truppen a day?  UKR won't be able to do anything about it anyway."  We see a some little signs that RU's slaughter might actually lead to UKR gains for a change.  I keep hoping that somewhere along the front that the meat-truppen decide to not be meat and mutiny, violently, due to the pressure, but nothing substantial yet.  Instead they send videos to Putin et al like a bunch of idiot sheep, thinking there's someone in power who cares.

 

 

[danfrodo]

43 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

The risks are not tactical, nor even operational based on what we are seeing.  The UA, rearmed and ready could essentially deny the rest of Ukraine better than they are doing now.  While Russia has to try and rebuild a force that can break that denial...under sanctions...with a bestie like NK.

Strategically and politically, however, this another issue.  Russia can still wage terror long range strike attacks, cyber attacks and conduct subversive buggary with abandon.  Now we have a good example in South Korea of a nation that can survive and thrive under this threat, but Ukraine might not be so lucky.  Ukraine needs to 1) get all its refugees back home, 2) rebuild into a western facing economically stable independent state, and 3) achieve security guarantees for its future integrity, which will likely be entry into NATO.  Russian strategic freedom of action will harm just about everyone of those objectives.  It attacks the center of gravity for Ukraine in this whole thing - Ukraine as a safe place to be. 

I am not sure what the answer is to be honest.  A forever war does nothing for this situation either.  Ukraine is not likely to be able to evolve militarily to solve for land warfare any time soon. So unless Russia (or Ukraine) basically collapses, we are looking at a static situation on the ground. This is a war of exhaustion by this point.  We really do not want either side to collapse - a Russian soft contained implosion is acceptable but hard to engineer.

So here we are.  I suspect that a Korean peninsula-like solution is the best viable course a this point in the war.

Sadly, I agree with this.  It's hard to see how UKR get a complete 'win' w/o some level of RU military or political collapse. 

Meanwhile, maybe the "tank is dead/not dead" endless posts will tire out at some point?  I am pro-tank this week, because I am fighting in 1944 on the Cotentin via CMBN-BP2, where tanks most certainly do matter.

In 2024, I just can't see how big, expensive, MBTs make much sense given the rapid evolution of drone warfare.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

19 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

The difference is that IFV/APCs provide a service that nothing else can provide whereas tanks are largely redundant (redundancy isn't a bad thing).  This means there is value in trying to solve for the IFV/APC rather than for the tank.

I would quibble with redundant, and would say not required anymore. Tanks are for heavy direct fire. Nobody needs direct fire nowadays,when you have equally effective indirect,guided, long range fire. Whereas transporting infantry under armour still remains a valid task, if you can pull it off.

[Probus]

Can someone please tell me if botnik means fake? I had a video to post but it was labelled botnik.

[cesmonkey]

52 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

Turns out there's actually a real war going on, not a theoretical one.  And in the real war there's some small but interesting UKR offensive operations.  Not war-changing, ~1km advances, but indicates that UKR isn't stretched so thin by RU's Kharkiv attack they have denuded all other sectors.  Also, we are seeing how RU's suicidal tactics are actually having a cost as UKR can counterattack the weakened units and make some small gains.  Video below is about UKR small advances in Kremmina direction, but we're seeing similar thing in the two little bulges north of Kharkiv.  

I think Putin has been thinking "so what if I burn up a thousand meat-truppen a day?  UKR won't be able to do anything about it anyway."  We see a some little signs that RU's slaughter might actually lead to UKR gains for a change.  I keep hoping that somewhere along the front that the meat-truppen decide to not be meat and mutiny, violently, due to the pressure, but nothing substantial yet.  Instead they send videos to Putin et al like a bunch of idiot sheep, thinking there's someone in power who cares.

 

 

I will insert some quotes below on what Mashovets is saying about this:

https://t.me/zvizdecmanhustu/2003
 

Quote

 But, as for me, such an aspiration of the enemy to “attack here, and have time to attack there…” can play a very cruel joke on him – because it is possible, both NOT to attack there and not to have time here. For one banal reason – the command of the GV “Center” of the enemy, despite any sound and sober thoughts, without making attempts to concentrate on any one task, continues to “have a desire” to attack SIMULTANEOUSLY both there and here. In fact, voluntarily limiting itself in forces and means in the chosen directions (since their set is initially limited).

https://t.me/zvizdecmanhustu/2006

Quote

As I predicted, after a series of successful counterattacks of Ukrainian troops in the southern part of the zone of action of the enemy group of forces "West", that is, in the Limanskoe (for us this is Kremenskoe) direction, its command nevertheless transferred its efforts somewhat to the north - to the northern part of the bridgehead of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the river. Chorny Zherebets ...

The enemy, after a number of unsuccessful attempts to restore the situation in the direction of the villages of Terny and Yampolevka, transferred its main efforts from the zone of action of its 25th combined arms army (CA) to the zone of action of its 20th CA. Specifically - in the direction of Ploshchanka - Makeyevka (zone of the enemy's 3rd motorized rifle division \ motorized rifle division).

As a result, he managed to enter the eastern outskirts of Makeyevka and consolidate there (the area of the local school), and also take control of the crossroads leading to Grekovka and Nevskoye.

Quote

In general, we must proceed from the fact that the enemy has the ability to periodically create a significant superiority in forces and assets in individual areas and directions in this direction, despite the fact that it suffered significant losses in previous (spring) battles. The two combined arms armies (20th and 25th) operating in this direction include 3 full-fledged motorized rifle divisions (3rd, 67th and 144th) and 3 separate brigades, one of which is a tank brigade (164th, 169th separate motorized rifle brigade and 11th separate brigade).

It is very difficult for the Ukrainian Armed Forces to hold the very extended front along the Cherny Zherebets River in such conditions. Especially when the enemy has a clear advantage in artillery and air support...

 

Edited Thursday at 04:09 PM by cesmonkey

[Carolus]

Some news from the information front.

Nothing too surprising for anyone in this thread, but still good to see that this is increasingly being investigated, by journalists but also slowly by Western authorities.

The economic front (sanctions) and the astro-turfed neo-fascist populism are important, strategic aspects of this global conflict. In both regards, Western governments still have a lot of potential for self-improvement and resilience.

 

 

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

The main problem the pro-tank camp is having is that they are not really trying to solve for the future of land warfare, they are trying to solve for the future viability of the tank.  This is wrong headed.

This is an excellent way to frame this discussion.  The TankIsDead™ side is going into great detail as to why the traditional role of the tank, the role that was (in the past) worth investing heavily in, is no longer relevant to the battlefield of today, not to mention the battlefield of tomorrow.  The resources that used to go into the tank are wasted and instead should be invested into things that have been proven to still be valuable to warfare.  Some of those tings are relatively new (FPV UAS and UGV in particular), some are older (GMLRS, smart artillery rounds, smart glide bombs, etc), and some that don't yet exist (mine dog robots, self deploying mines, etc.).  Some of these are vastly less expensive than maintaining tanks, others are probably in the same ballpark.

On the other side, TheTankIsAlive™ argument, is putting forward a combination of factually flawed statements ("nothing can replace the tank") and sentiment which never ages well ("it's always been, so it shall always be").  There is an acknowledgement that the tank, as it is today, is in deep trouble.  Instead, Wunderwaffen are promoted as being the solution for keeping the tank on the battlefield.

The thing that supporters of TheTankIsAlive™ group fails to do is explain why anybody should reinvest in MBTs.  Even smaller and lighter ones that still could be classified as a MBT.  Or more accurately, nobody can lay out a case for retaining the MBT that can stand up to scrutiny from the TankIsDead™ arguments that even if one could fix its known deficiencies that it won't be worth the cost.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

4 minutes ago, Carolus said:

Some news from the information front.

Nothing too surprising for anyone in this thread, but still good to see that this is increasingly being investigated, by journalists but also slowly by Western authorities.

The economic front (sanctions) and the astro-turfed neo-fascist populism are important, strategic aspects of this global conflict. In both regards, Western governments still have a lot of potential for self-improvement and resilience.

 

 

I have been wondering for some time now if Russia will find itself in a position where it decides it has nothing to lose by dropping all pretenses of being a civilized nation.  The slaughter of expat Russians at the very start of the war was tolerated by the West because they were Russian.  It should not have been tolerated, but it is what it is.

So what happens if Russia decides that the odd fire in a military facility, roughing up someone, disruptive protests, bribing politicians, etc. isn't enough?  What if they decide to go full on terrorist state?  They certainly have the resources and know-how.

What do they have to fear from it?  Especially with the political defeats in France and the trend in US politics?  It does seem that at a minimum Russia will become more aggressive with its special services abroad.  At a minimum the Kremlin ratcheting up actions within Ukraine seems to be something we can count on.

Steve

[Maciej Zwolinski]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

I strongly believe we are entering into a Firepower age - a time when firepower is manoeuvre. The tanks ability to move and survive while delivering long range fires has potential for their recycled use in the next 10 years.  Also in extremis, like a bayonet, if one finds yourself in a DF fight where you need one, it is available.

The question is how to transition from manoeuvre by firepower to occupation by boots on target. Artillery conquers, infantry occupies, but at what speed. So far, the Ukrainians walk exactly like Nivelle's soldiers. 

Theoretically, if firepower eliminates 100% of threats within range, the occupiers-in-spe could use all means of transportation, including rollerblades or cute ponies. But 100% kill rate is of course not practical, given in particular the very generous range in which such threats can lurk and still be effective.  What in theory should be sought, is the equilibrium at which the attacker can attrit the enemy enough and/or protect his troops sufficiently to be able to advance against reduced opposition (i,.e. after the initial breach) without suffering undue casualties at a reasonable speed  - (guessing) 20+km a day. Theoretically, this could be obtained through many means or combination thereof, such as advances in attack capability, improved survivability of the attacking force, electronic warfare, increasing the acceptable casualty threshold (e.g. basing the attacking force on hordes of expendable UGVs) , swathing the attacking units in clouds of multispectral blocking smoke, etc. That is the theory, and in all fairness, pretty obvious one. In practice, however,  nothing remotely resembling a successful solution of that problem has been proposed AFAIK.

PS. I would be particularly happy if multispectral smoke became part of the solution. Then we could say that the tactics have evolved from "bite and hold" to "two up, bags of smoke" and the WWI reenactment would be perfect.

[ArmouredTopHat]

46 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

On the other side, TheTankIsAlive™ argument, is putting forward a combination of factually flawed statements ("nothing can replace the tank") and sentiment which never ages well ("it's always been, so it shall always be").  There is an acknowledgement that the tank, as it is today, is in deep trouble.  Instead, Wunderwaffen are promoted as being the solution for keeping the tank on the battlefield.

I personally think that the tank is potentially replaceable, just that currently there isn't really something that can do so right now, for reasons I have explained earlier. Clearly the majority here think the tank is dead, that is fine and everyone is more than titled to their opinion of such. I dont mind playing devils advocate in that regard.

My counter point would be the points made previously, that and the continued investment into tanks by numerous countries. This all just rings eerily familiar with previous 'tank is dead' arguments and those did not exactly turn out to run their course. Time will tell and the battlefield and its equipment will continue to evolve. 

While its undeniable that FPVs play a major role in loss rates currently, I do find the fact that the majority of hits to vehicles are usually damage and not acute kills quite interesting. These snap shots of data also indicate the majority of FPV strikes are on abandoned vehicles, ie something else has knocked out the vehicle. 

We covered this before but the major undeniable advantage of drone / FPV has been the denial and destruction of armour that would otherwise be recovered. Though it looks like increasingly FPVs are now responsible for the majority of both kills and mission kills. This still could be survivorship bias at work but its clear they are doing some serious heavy lifting now. Bear in mind this is due to a pretty herculean effort on Ukraine's part, their production numbers are truly impressive at this point, though its hard to determine who exactly has more FPVs as both sides go between saying they are outnumbered by drones to outnumbering. I suppose its a factor of concentration. 

I just find it a little premature and odd to single out a particular weapon system and decry its obsolete based on the tactical usage from one country in one conflict (even if it is a pretty damn big one), especially when said conflict is evolving constantly. We are seeing snippets of drone counter UAS already, what happens when a battlespace is filled with drone interceptors that are denying both ISR and FPV strikes? We already know that a lot of FPVs miss for varying reasons, pretty wide range of hit %s based on who you ask. Things could very much change in ways we do not expect. Ukraine certainly seems to be pretty quick when adopting and using their drone arsenal. For all we know this could be a 'happy time' where FPV drones are enjoying an environment that might become much more constrained in the future.  

What is undeniable to me is that Ukraine have a very unique reason to go so hard into FPV drones, they lack the traditional parities in artillery, tanks and vehicles in general and so have levelled the playing field against a force that has pretty heavy advantages in the aforementioned areas. The cautionary note I point out is simply that what works for one country might not work for another when it comes to defence needs. This -could- mean that everyone needs to change radically, as seems to be the prevailing argument here. It could also mean a potentially more hybridised approach as I feel, with overhauls made to current and future vehicles to reflect the new environment and to try and maintain the possibility of mechanised warfare whilst also acknowledging the key role drone munitions now have on the battlefield, which clearly seems to be what NATO at least wants to go for overall. 

To surmise, I am not trying to decry what some people are suggesting here, I find people are making very good points that have certainly made me think things over. I am simply pointing out that everyone has not quite dropped all their vehicle priorities and gone into drones......yet. If countries start dropping tank numbers or tanks entirely then I would be happy to concede that it is indeed 'dead'. Given tanks are actively proliferating right now at least when it comes to NATO, I am not so certain. 
 

 

Edited Thursday at 05:21 PM by ArmouredTopHat

[Battlefront.com]

28 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

I personally think that the tank is potentially replaceable, just that currently there isn't really something that can do so right now, for reasons I have explained earlier.

Right, and all of your points were challenged and, in my view, heavily trounced.  The tank provides nothing that can't be achieved by other means.  Further, the thousands of dead tanks on the battlefield show that whatever good the tank can still perform, it comes at a massive cost.  To paraphrase a classic US TV commercial, "how many tanks does it take to take a single trench?  One... two... three.  Three"

The point of that quip is that the tanks in the war today are doing very little of what they were intended to do and they are struggling to achieve even that.

36 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

My counter point would be the points made previously, that and the continued investment into tanks by numerous countries.

This is about as bad of an argument as you can make.  We have spent literally pages of text explaining to you, and anybody else who is reading this, the realities of the military industrial complex and why it's first order of business is to "protect the business model".

Of course the private enterprises that stand to lose billions of annual revenue are saying there's no substitute for the tank.  Of course the uniformed personnel who have spent their entire careers with a tank centric mindset are not easily brought to admit that none of that is relevant any more.  Of course the politicians who have invested heavily in something that is not almost useless are reluctant to admit that they need to chuck sunk costs aside.

In fact, the more the established industrial, military, and political establishment tries to convince us the TankIsAlive™ simply because, the more convinced I am that TheTankIsDead™.

I've been through this before when we started bringing CM Shock Force out into the world.  We built the game around the Stryker program which, at the time, was still fielding just two test variants in small quantities.  The pro-tracked armored people had no convincing arguments against the wheeled armored arguments.  All of their predictions of failure proved to be, as we suspected they would be, unfounded.  While many of the finer points of the Stryker program didn't turn out as successful as advertised, it was closer to reality than the arguments against it.

Steve

[ArmouredTopHat]

24 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

This is about as bad of an argument as you can make.  We have spent literally pages of text explaining to you, and anybody else who is reading this, the realities of the military industrial complex and why it's first order of business is to "protect the business model".

If you think its entirely down to a consistent effort from numerous defence industries and nations to preserve a status quo that are all in on it despite many being adversaries then at that point I have to wonder if you believe in conspiracy theories. 

Of course you think my arguments were trounced, you are arguing against them! That's not a refuting point at all. You could at the very least respect or concede I am making points at least valid enough to be used by the worlds militaries in this regard.  

I would view the decision from Lithuania to invest into tanks as one example here. The Baltics are pretty up there when it comes to innovation and support for Ukraine, their entire force structure was built around light infantry and surviving until the rest of NATO turns up to help them. They have been pretty big on the drone scene as well. The fact that Lithuania have now decided they need more hitting power despite their limited budgets tells me a lot about how important they view having tanks / armoured platforms. They would not be making such a hefty investment otherwise. 

How about Poland, who has decided that it wants to extensively expand its tank fleet and build towards a Polish version of a K2?

Finland has some pretty extreme terrain, yet continue to wield an armoured force that is pretty large for its size and budget. Are they wrong too?

Have China, Iran or Russia declared tanks to be useless despite their drone programs? Why is China actively seeking to increase its numbers of tanks and vehicles in general?

What about Ukraine? You would think the nation leading this FPV revolution would be happy to consign their tanks to the scrap heap if they are so useless and said FPVS can supposedly do their job. Yet they go to the trouble of making their own tanks, constantly ask for vehicles from NATO and actively repair and refurbish the ones they have. This is hardly supportive of the notion the tank has no purpose on the battlefield. They have more reason than anyone to be extremely careful about how they spend their resources, yet they choose to ensure they have tanks in the field. 

Its been two years of 'the tank is dead', you would expect to at least see some shift at this point. I think people here including you might be undervaluing vehicle based firepower a lot. Is your counter point against this simply that everyone is wrong?

 

Edited Thursday at 06:20 PM by ArmouredTopHat

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

The question is how to transition from manoeuvre by firepower to occupation by boots on target. Artillery conquers, infantry occupies, but at what speed. So far, the Ukrainians walk exactly like Nivelle's soldiers. 

Theoretically, if firepower eliminates 100% of threats within range, the occupiers-in-spe could use all means of transportation, including rollerblades or cute ponies. But 100% kill rate is of course not practical, given in particular the very generous range in which such threats can lurk and still be effective.  What in theory should be sought, is the equilibrium at which the attacker can attrit the enemy enough and/or protect his troops sufficiently to be able to advance against reduced opposition (i,.e. after the initial breach) without suffering undue casualties at a reasonable speed  - (guessing) 20+km a day. Theoretically, this could be obtained through many means or combination thereof, such as advances in attack capability, improved survivability of the attacking force, electronic warfare, increasing the acceptable casualty threshold (e.g. basing the attacking force on hordes of expendable UGVs) , swathing the attacking units in clouds of multispectral blocking smoke, etc. That is the theory, and in all fairness, pretty obvious one. In practice, however,  nothing remotely resembling a successful solution of that problem has been proposed AFAIK.

PS. I would be particularly happy if multispectral smoke became part of the solution. Then we could say that the tactics have evolved from "bite and hold" to "two up, bags of smoke" and the WWI reenactment would be perfect.

This is a very good point and question.  There is a missing piece here on infantry mobility.  The whole gig up near Kharkiv was just weird.  The RA had the drop on the UA…so they walked in?  Why did we not see an entire mechanized brigade punch through up there if it was so thin?  By this point in the war the idea that the RA is still baffled by combined arms is not supported by all the video evidence we saw over the winter.  So they know how to do it and they have the vehicles, we know this because they were getting dozens killed daily down south.  But they chose to walk for the most part.

They were able to take ground but at walking speed and were stalled and stopped once the UA swung fires.  So infantry, even paired with unmanned will very likely remain then backbone of a land warfare framework.  They will define “what is ours”.  Problem is how to move them without being picked up by ISR and hit by all those fires.  This is a big problem.  Hell we even spitballed jet packs.  AFVs are still big hot metal boxes. Lighter stuff like buggies and quads have limited carry and little protection. So we do not have a vehicle right now that is fit for this environment and can move infantry across the battlefield safely.

This is probably why this thing has looked like WW1 since Fall of ‘22.  Some sort of powered battle suit would be great but we simply do not have viable energy densities for that sort of thing.  E-bikes?

[billbindc]

22 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

This is a very good point and question.  There is a missing piece here on infantry mobility.  The whole gig up near Kharkiv was just weird.  The RA had the drop on the UA…so they walked in?  Why did we not see an entire mechanized brigade punch through up there if it was so thin?  By this point in the war the idea that the RA is still baffled by combined arms is not supported by all the video evidence we saw over the winter.  So they know how to do it and they have the vehicles, we know this because they were getting dozens killed daily down south.  But they chose to walk for the most part.

They were able to take ground but at walking speed and were stalled and stopped once the UA swung fires.  So infantry, even paired with unmanned will very likely remain then backbone of a land warfare framework.  They will define “what is ours”.  Problem is how to move them without being picked up by ISR and hit by all those fires.  This is a big problem.  Hell we even spitballed jet packs.  AFVs are still big hot metal boxes. Lighter stuff like buggies and quads have limited carry and little protection. So we do not have a vehicle right now that is fit for this environment and can move infantry across the battlefield safely.

This is probably why this thing has looked like WW1 since Fall of ‘22.  Some sort of powered battle suit would be great but we simply do not have viable energy densities for that sort of thing.  E-bikes?

Stealth seems like a likelier option than a powered battle suit...and really a necessary concomitant. If Watling it to be believed, as time goes on signals discipline will need to include not just IR and EM but also sound, etc. Think the movie Quiet Place but with smarms of smart drones instead of beatable-by-one-smart-trick alien attack dogs. 

[ArmouredTopHat]

44 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

E-bikes?

Nearly all the footage of bikes I have seen from the Russians has them dying in piles, its clearly an improvisation due to lack of actual vehicles and I cant imagine its much fun for the infantry in question. 

[dan/california]

31 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Stealth seems like a likelier option than a powered battle suit...and really a necessary concomitant. If Watling it to be believed, as time goes on signals discipline will need to include not just IR and EM but also sound, etc. Think the movie Quiet Place but with smarms of smart drones instead of beatable-by-one-smart-trick alien attack dogs. 

Hey JonS rained all over my parade for saying that two thousand pages ago....

 

[ArmouredTopHat]

Ouch

[A Canadian Cat]

22 hours ago, The_Capt said:

22 hours ago, Grey_Fox said:

You linked a wikipedia article of all things.

You want more than wiki deep, you pay for it.

Or look a the references on the wiki article. Honestly I know people deride Wikipedia but some of their work is top notch. At the very least look at the reference list and read some of that content too.

Back in my engineering research days (no Wikipedia man) papers and articles in journals were nice and all but their reference section - that's where the gold is man. Once you find a couple of interesting articles and then dig up their 15-20 references and read them and read 15-20 more papers that you find referenced in those then you are cooking with gas. You can learn a lot.

So, if I hit a wiki page with little or no references yeah I'm worried but if there are lots of references then I have more reading to do and that's where the real value is. It doesn't take long to realize that the vast majority of well referenced wiki articles are actually quite good summaries of the topic.

Oh and reading like that digging into the references to journals and primary sources - that *is* doing your learning. (I will not use the phrase "do your own research" because that actually should mean conducting your own experiments and surveys and that's not something that should be expected of non experts)