From: nigel@rs733.GSFC.NASA.Gov
Subject: Re: Will Tanks Become Extinct?
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md, USA
	<30JUL199217115723@jane.uh.edu>
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 17:54:22 GMT

In article <30JUL199217115723@jane.uh.edu> chem7l@jane.uh.edu  writes:

   (Gersham William Meharg) writes...

[tanks hold ground... deleted]

Urm...they take ground well...they hold ground okay but infantry works
better from an econimic standpoint.

>That's what the infantry in the APC's I mentioned are for.  The increasing
>power of the armament on APC's makes them potentially good replacements for 
>MBT's, provided something can come in with even heavier firepower very quickly
>when needed. 

No...you can kill APCs with machine guns.  The LAV armor is rated for
7.62mm ball max.  Do you know how many MGs run around out there?
Bradleys are bettered armored but a lot of MGs should be able to puch
through...50 cal certainly does.  Which means that tanks can kill your
APC with the TC machine gun while you must fire your TOW to at best
get a lucky shot in.  It better be lucky since the I-TOW shouldn't go
through the frontal armor.

>>When I say tank I mean any maneuverable, fast, heavily armored and armed
>>vehicle.

>Heavy armor is quickly becoming useless against modern weapons designed to 
>penetrate it.  (I am talking about some time in the future, presumably after
>current weapons technology has reached the third world and better weapons 
>exist for those who can afford it.  Of course, there could be improvements
>in armor technology too, but our ability to destroy tends to increase faster 
>than our ability to prevent destruction.)

Perhaps...perhaps not.  Tanks are better protected today than ever
before.  As time passed the effectiveness of infantry carried weapons
decreased.  The weakest point recently was probably in the Dragon vs
M60.  Assuming a more modern Dragon (HVM for example) could perhaps
give infantry a 3000 meter kill range even vs the M1A1.  On the other
hand it looks more like that the HVM will be a TOW replacement rather
than something infantry lug around by hand.  TOWs are pretty damn big.
The dream of something the size of a RPG-7 killing MBTs is probably
pretty far off.  

>>Different platforms must take an important factor into consider-
>>ation : if you can see it you can kill it. 

>But not if it gets away before you get a shot off.  Computerized anti-aircraft
>(or anti-tank) batteries can make this impossible, but infantry will always
>have a reaction time.  Also, it is possible today for helicopters to fire
>missiles at targets they can't see while other units (infantry, vehicles, etc.)
>paint them with laser designaters.

Figure the cost for putting a shell on target.  The only thing that
currently kill tanks are other high priced weapon systems...systems
with their own set of limitations and weaknesses.  

Look at the kill rates of infantry vs helos in the last major war in
which choppers were used.  We lost thousands of helos in Vietnam and I
sure rather be a tank gunner than a helo door gunner any day of the
week.  Compare against the last war in which tanks were used in
mass...no losses to enemy action.

[tanks harder to find than helos deleted]

JSTARS seem to work okay...

>Actually, it's pretty difficult to see a helicopter from a distance if the 
>ground is wooded or hilly.  Tanks can't move fast enough to keep from being 
>killed once seen, and they can be heard coming before they are in a position
>to fire in wooded or hilly terrain.  Helicopters can move fast enough that you
>often don't hear them until they are on top of you.  Thus, tanks suffer worse 
>from these drawbacks than helicopters.

Urf...JSTARS/AWACS work even better against things with large blades
going spin spin spin refect off of me.  

Most infantry missles are hard to use against tanks moving at high
speed (say 30+ mph).  Hell, with the practice TOW gunners get it's
lucky they hit stationary tanks...

>>Tanks of the future will be faster, more maneuverable, armed with smart 
>>weapons, low profile, and with ECM (active and passive).

>If you consider a helicopter flying nape-of-the-earth to be low profile because
>they can't be seen from very far away (except on exceptionally flat terrain, 
>like a desert without sand dunes or heat waves) then a helicopter is all of 
>these things now.

Ummmm...not from the air...you are asserting that Helos provide the
same amount of firepower on a platform less vulnerable than tanks.
This isn't true.  Lets look at the threats:

Helos:     Helos kill helos too...dogfight attack choppers are starting to show
           but IMHO why not use a normal fighter?  
Aircraft:  Aircaft kill helos easier than aircraft kills tanks.  Most aircraft
           can kill helos but only a few are geared to kill tanks.  Exampled:
           A10s can kill both.  F15s kill aircraft...including helos.  Sending
           a F15 against a tank is a real interesting tactic.  Note:  A6s can
           kill helos too...the kill zone of an iron bomb vs a helo is much
           larger than against a tank.
Infantry:  You can carry far more SAM-7s and Stingers than you can carry
           TOWs or DRAGONS.  Infantry machine guns can shoot helos out of
           the air...while they bounce off tanks.  You can kill a helo with a 
           golden BB...tanks require the golden BBs to be larger meaning you
           see less of them on the battlefield. 
Tanks:     Tanks kill tanks and kinda suck against aircraft...but you can pot 
           shot helos with either the main gun or the .50 cal.  But then again
           the tank doesn't need to worry about ZSU AA guns as much...or SAM
           vehicles.
IFVs:      IFVs probably can mount more SAMs than AT missles.  The IFV main
           gun will shred a helo while it'll annoy a M1.

   >You pointed out that tanks are easy to kill with a hellicopter, sure thats
   >if you dont have air cover protecting your forces. Look at the gulf war, 
   >the Iraqis had no air cover, the Americans were able to take out the tanks
   >no prob.  

   This is part of my point.  The critical factor in future warfare will shift 
   from who has the best armor to who has the best airforce.  I concentrate on
   helicopters replacing tanks because they provide the traditional infantry 
   support better than aircraft because of their ability to hover and to land
   on most terrain.

That has been painfully obvious since WWII...but they provide
different roles.  Air power is a form of artillery.  Arty kills lots
of the bad guys.  Arty does not take ground from the bad guy.
Infantry and tanks do that.  Armor provides the punch on the
assault...something that IFVs cannot do simply because IFVs die from a
wide spectrum of infantry weapons...weapons far more common than
anti-tank weapons.  You can shoot through a M113 with nearly
anything...you can shoot through Bradleys with heavy machine guns.
There are a lot more machine guns than TOWs.  At a guess if you send
the IFVs in you may win the ground but your IFVs are more likely to
have suffered so many casualties that the next assault is impossible
and the next counter-attack likely to cost you the ground you just
took.  Tanks have the armor required to live through the assault.
Which means they're going to be around for the next attack...and
around to protect their thinner skinned brothers while those guys make
sure the enemy infantry doesn't snipe the TCs to death or ambush the
tanks or get close enough to swarm them.

   >Gersham Meharg
   >Simon Fraser Unniversity
   >Vancouver, Canada.

   Jim Corbit 

Nigel
--
Nigel Tzeng
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