Quote:
Originally Posted by bodaggin
Hey I believe a $200 billion wartime military expansion is needed, believe me I'm just getting started.
Here's my problem with some of those items; many shoot UNGUIDED MUNITIONS. Can't win a war by blowing up dirt with a 1% hit rate. Kill percentage, system cost, and cost per shot is absolutely critical. Ukraine is showing us the tank is obsolete. Here's a montage of $20m-30m tanks being wiped by $500 to $2,000 drones. |
Wars are absolutely won with unguided munitions. Most of the casualties so far have been from regular, ole tube artillery, be mortars or howitzers. A shell can cost a couple hundred bucks and when you need massed fires, nothing beats. Drones are good for surgical strikes and when targets are outside of their air defence bubble but are rapidly being blunted by advances in anti-drone tech. Arethey important now? Absolutely. Game changing panacea? Absolutely not. They're simply just another fires tool in a commander's toolbelt when accurate, low massing, low ordinance strikes are needed.
As for tanks, they are not obsolete, the way the Soviets used them is. Sending them off in onesies and twosies as part of a combat recce patrol is obsolete, but a proper attack with coordinated fires, Infantry, AD, etc remains extremely relevant and absolutely required to take and seize ground. Nothing beats the accuracy and firepower and squadron of tanks brings to a local battle and tanks remain the armoured fist of the advance, which is essential for victory. We go to the enemy and punch them in the head, we don't let them come to us.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bodaggin
That's why I believe the lighter JLTV, Roshel, Saber, etc platform is really the future. Enough armor to handle small arms ambushes. But not so much armor that it becomes a law of diminishing returns. Because for a cheap drone, the only difference between taking out a Roshel and an Abrams Tank is about 10lb of C4. To me, it makes more sense to weaponize the lighter platform for lower cost, higher numbers, higher decentralization, and more potency.
One Leopard/Abrams costs $20-30m. For the same amount you get 40-60 lighter armored platforms. Maybe 20-30 after heavy weaponization (frags, drone, winged drone, BGM71, etc). That gives 50km+ of ground range.
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Wheeled light vehicles are fine until the enemy has any sort of direct fire weapon larger than a 7.62 GPMG or the enemy laid an anti personnel minefield or you need anything bigger than a 20mm cannon, etc. A single DShK well sited could shred a troop or more of light wheeled vehicles and completely blunt your advance, hence why tanks and heavy IFVs are necessary for the assault. Nevermind that wheeled vehicles have marginal offload mobility, especially 4 wheeled light PMVs. They have a role in the echelon and in ferrying people around, but they're a death trap on the assault. That's what combined arms is all about, bringing in the necessary bits and bobs to win the fight. Tanks for shock action, Infantry supported by IFVs for taking ground, Artillery for fires, AD for anti drone or anti air, engineers for breaching, etc.
Your thinking that heavy vehicles are obsolete is not a new one, in the early 2000s we believed they no longer had a role to play and could be replaced entirely by LAVs, thus the divestment of the Leo 1s was initiated. Once Afghanistan popped off, local commanders soon realized that a 25mm cannon wasn't enough and the lack of direct fire assets was getting people killed. You see, the 25mm round couldn't penetrate mudwalls around wadis or the walls of the grape huts in Kandahar, which were becoming mini fortresses for anti-armour teams. So we flew over some Leopards which had 105s that made short work of these emplacement and quickly Leo 2s were bought to replace the ancient Leo 1s. Technology in war isn't static yes, but technology alone doesn't win wars.
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