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> All nullified when a single drone can take out tanks AND do most of the other things you listed. There is no drone that carries the same level of explosivene

> All nullified when a single drone can take out tanks AND do most of the other things you listed. There is no drone that carries the same level of explosiveness as a singular tank round. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U61Hrn1JZWQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U61Hrn1JZWQ A tank can fire 40 of these at you in something like 5 minutes. I'm not sure what kind of drone-platform exists to deliver 40x 50lb shells to the enemy 3000 meters at 500+ mph like a bunch of CE-rounds being fired from a tank-gun. ------- Drones will change warfare. But drones are *NOT* a tank. They just don't have anything close to the destructive potential You can't just "ignore" enemy concrete walls like a tank can. See this particular timestamp of the video: https://youtu.be/U61Hrn1JZWQ?t=67 https://youtu.be/U61Hrn1JZWQ?t=67 Double-reinforced concrete walls / bunkers stand no chance against a typical tank round. What is a drone supposed to do against that? ------- That above is a CE-round. Tanks can switch-it-up and shoot a SABOT round instead, if they need greater penetrating power (but less explosives): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnWCLJXwtsE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnWCLJXwtsE As you can see, the "tank" is a platform for a tank-commander to sit and think about which round to use for any given situation. The tank isn't "just" a sabot gun or a HE-gun, its *BOTH*, with an intelligent tank-commander choosing their loadout and firepower for every target they come across. If the enemy is hiding behind 4 concrete walls, Sabot round to punch through all of it. If the enemy is just behind one concrete wall (but is very far away, like 3km or longer), HE round. How many concrete walls can one drone get through? https://youtu.be/GnWCLJXwtsE?t=76 https://youtu.be/GnWCLJXwtsE?t=76

lazide 5y ago
I think the person you were replying to is pointing out, no one NEEDS the giant gun when they can buy 20 drones that each can take out what the giant gun can, AND a tank for what a tank costs. The drone can just fly around the concrete wall and blow up the things on the other side, it doesn’t need to go through. Drones aren’t going to change warfare. They already have. The ones who haven’t woken up to that are the charred bodies on the battlefield right now.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  > The drone can just fly around the concrete wall and blow up the things on the other side, it doesn’t need to go through. Ukrainians are sitting inside of bunkers with 8-inch concrete doors and 8-inch thick concrete all around. How exactly are you "flying around" that? Now sure, Russians are absolute crap with tactics and maybe drones are all you need to kill the Russians. But I'm looking at things from the Ukrainian side as well. Ukraine is defending so well that I'm not sure if anything *EXCEPT* a 120mm gun can push into their positions. That's the thing: Ukraine is forcing Russia to advance with tanks. But Ukraine has a solid anti-tank strategy, so we see a lot of dead Russian tanks. But the alternative (ie: assaulting those Ukrainian bunkers with lol no armor) is probably a worse idea! ------- Russian positions are just poorly dug dirt trenches right now. Of course tanks are unnecessary (for now). But if the Russians were actually as good as the Ukrainians (ie: bringing in that thick Concrete to reinforce their positions), then Ukraine would be forced to use tanks. Ukrainian positions in the Donbas region have so much concrete, that they ask for artillery support and shell *themselves*, confident that their bunkers can stand up to the abuse. (Air-burst artillery shot at your own bunkers will never harm the bunker, while unarmored enemies trying to storm the bunker would all die at the front-door.) This kind of defense practically requires a tank: you need the armor to protect yourself from airburst artillery, and you need the 120mm gun to punch through the 8-inches of concrete that the Ukrainians are hiding behind. Except Ukrainians __ALSO__ have anti-tank munitions, and just blow up the tank. Its not exactly easy to figure out how to push into the Ukrainian positions. But the tanks seem necessary (even though they take high casualties). Its not like drones have much armor. Airburst artillery would also destroy drones (airburst artillery covers something like 10,000 sq-meters in shrapnel per shot). Drones running into those positions would also be destroyed by this simple tactic.
  - lazide 5y ago
    A drone shooting a missile at said bunker, or flying up to the bunker and detonating a HEAT warhead it is carrying, or flying a new drone in when the old one gets hit by shrapnel all work great in these examples by the way. Fabricating a kamikaze drone with HEAT warhead on it is a $10k or less affair. Tanks are expensive, heavy sitting ducks. The only reason they haven’t been completely obsoleted is manufacturing drones hasn’t caught up yet. They’re like horses in WW1 being used to charge machine guns in this fight. In most of these cases you don’t even need a drone to do the dirty work though. Just one to find the bunker or whatever and let artillery or a cruise middle do the rest. Those drones can be less than $5k, but they do get more expensive if you want to be able to pilot them from the other side of the planet or whatever.
kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
Mobile artillery with guided shells can perform many of the tasks tanks are used for while at a standoff distance.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  Except tanks do the same thing with unguided shells. So the tank rounds are something like $500 each. In contrast, guided artillery shells are $100,000 or so each. I mean, Tomahawk cruise missiles ($1+ million bucks) probably have more destructive potential and accuracy than anything discussed here. But they're just too expensive to really be used as a bread-and-butter tactic. ------- The artillery game is important for sure. But there's advantages to a direct-fire system that directly engages with the enemy. Besides, artillery + tanks work together as a team, a force multiplier. Tanks can call for artillery support after all. EDIT: Case in point, a tank can approach the front-lines, and use its thermal-imaging / night-vision to be an artillery-spotter from 3+km away from the target. The tank can also survive "closer" to the enemy (danger close, if you will).
  - kens 5y ago
    >So the tank rounds are something like $500 each. I was surprised that the military could get anything for $500, so I looked up tank round prices. They are more like $5000-$10000 (M829A4).
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      > M829A4 That's using depleted uranium though, so I'm not surprised that's an expensive round. I'm looking up the M830 (HEAT), which is "just" explosives (with a bit of electronics), and that's closer to $1000. So my $500 estimate was definitely under the price of USA's ammo... but I'm pretty sure Russian ammo is cheaper.
mumblemumble 5y ago
> There is no drone that carries the same level of explosiveness as a singular tank round. Yes. That seems to be why Ukrainian drones and Javelin missiles are having such an easy go of popping the turrets off of Russian tanks. You need just a small explosion to get thing started, and then the tank's onboard supply of explosives does the rest of the job for you. > A tank can fire 40 of these at you in something like 5 minutes. Once it gets into position. The major limitations of tanks here are that they are direct-fire platforms, and that they are big and noisy and difficult to hide. That's a real problem if you're up against an enemy with modern indirect fire capabilities, or effective anti-tank small arms.
- Sharlin 5y ago
  > You need just a small explosion to get thing started, and then the tank's onboard supply of explosives does the rest of the job for you. As mentioned in the article, the T-72/80/90 are uniquely vulnerable to this failure mode due to their carousel autoloader. Ammo cookoff in any MBT means you and your vehicle probably won't go to battle today, but at least it's not an immediate death sentence in most Western tanks.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    Case in point, here's a M1-Abrams (USA's main-battle-tank) cooking off test. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay7bOG2nD6k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay7bOG2nD6k You can see them purposefully light the tank's ammunition bay on fire. No damage to the internal components or the crew. I'm sure the crew is sweating and feeling "a bit warm", but they'll survive. Its just that Russian tanks are hilariously vulnerable to this problem. ------ Russia's doctrine / theory for their tanks is to make them *smaller* instead. Russian tanks weigh the same but have no compartmentalization. This means that Russian tanks can navigate smaller roads, and also that Russian tanks can hide in ditches (or other terrain) too small for M1 Abrams to hide in. In effect, Russians "accepted" the cook-off problem, but hoped that a competent crew could hide from the enemy better. Hard to say if it works, because it looks like the Russian crews are horribly trained and have low morale in this fight. I think I can agree with the theory, or at least see that there's a beneficial tradeoff here. https://i.redd.it/mtwtamct1t821.jpg https://i.redd.it/mtwtamct1t821.jpg That's a lot smaller for the T72 compared to the M1 Abrams. If the crew could take advantage of the T72's smaller size, the crew very well could be more survivable on the modern battlefield.
_ph_ 5y ago
It will be interesting to see the effect of the Panzerhaubitze 2000 might bring to the battle which should be given to the Ukraine soon. Way more powerful than a MBT and with 10x the range it could be really painful for the Russians, especially when combined with precise reconnaisance (drones, satellite imaginery).

lazide 5y ago

I think the person you were replying to is pointing out, no one NEEDS the giant gun when they can buy 20 drones that each can take out what the giant gun can, AND a tank for what a tank costs. The drone can just fly around the concrete wall and blow up the things on the other side, it doesn’t need to go through. Drones aren’t going to change warfare. They already have. The ones who haven’t woken up to that are the charred bodies on the battlefield right now.

dragontamer 5y ago
> The drone can just fly around the concrete wall and blow up the things on the other side, it doesn’t need to go through. Ukrainians are sitting inside of bunkers with 8-inch concrete doors and 8-inch thick concrete all around. How exactly are you "flying around" that? Now sure, Russians are absolute crap with tactics and maybe drones are all you need to kill the Russians. But I'm looking at things from the Ukrainian side as well. Ukraine is defending so well that I'm not sure if anything *EXCEPT* a 120mm gun can push into their positions. That's the thing: Ukraine is forcing Russia to advance with tanks. But Ukraine has a solid anti-tank strategy, so we see a lot of dead Russian tanks. But the alternative (ie: assaulting those Ukrainian bunkers with lol no armor) is probably a worse idea! ------- Russian positions are just poorly dug dirt trenches right now. Of course tanks are unnecessary (for now). But if the Russians were actually as good as the Ukrainians (ie: bringing in that thick Concrete to reinforce their positions), then Ukraine would be forced to use tanks. Ukrainian positions in the Donbas region have so much concrete, that they ask for artillery support and shell *themselves*, confident that their bunkers can stand up to the abuse. (Air-burst artillery shot at your own bunkers will never harm the bunker, while unarmored enemies trying to storm the bunker would all die at the front-door.) This kind of defense practically requires a tank: you need the armor to protect yourself from airburst artillery, and you need the 120mm gun to punch through the 8-inches of concrete that the Ukrainians are hiding behind. Except Ukrainians __ALSO__ have anti-tank munitions, and just blow up the tank. Its not exactly easy to figure out how to push into the Ukrainian positions. But the tanks seem necessary (even though they take high casualties). Its not like drones have much armor. Airburst artillery would also destroy drones (airburst artillery covers something like 10,000 sq-meters in shrapnel per shot). Drones running into those positions would also be destroyed by this simple tactic.
- lazide 5y ago
  A drone shooting a missile at said bunker, or flying up to the bunker and detonating a HEAT warhead it is carrying, or flying a new drone in when the old one gets hit by shrapnel all work great in these examples by the way. Fabricating a kamikaze drone with HEAT warhead on it is a $10k or less affair. Tanks are expensive, heavy sitting ducks. The only reason they haven’t been completely obsoleted is manufacturing drones hasn’t caught up yet. They’re like horses in WW1 being used to charge machine guns in this fight. In most of these cases you don’t even need a drone to do the dirty work though. Just one to find the bunker or whatever and let artillery or a cruise middle do the rest. Those drones can be less than $5k, but they do get more expensive if you want to be able to pilot them from the other side of the planet or whatever.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago

Mobile artillery with guided shells can perform many of the tasks tanks are used for while at a standoff distance.

dragontamer 5y ago
Except tanks do the same thing with unguided shells. So the tank rounds are something like $500 each. In contrast, guided artillery shells are $100,000 or so each. I mean, Tomahawk cruise missiles ($1+ million bucks) probably have more destructive potential and accuracy than anything discussed here. But they're just too expensive to really be used as a bread-and-butter tactic. ------- The artillery game is important for sure. But there's advantages to a direct-fire system that directly engages with the enemy. Besides, artillery + tanks work together as a team, a force multiplier. Tanks can call for artillery support after all. EDIT: Case in point, a tank can approach the front-lines, and use its thermal-imaging / night-vision to be an artillery-spotter from 3+km away from the target. The tank can also survive "closer" to the enemy (danger close, if you will).
- kens 5y ago
  >So the tank rounds are something like $500 each. I was surprised that the military could get anything for $500, so I looked up tank round prices. They are more like $5000-$10000 (M829A4).
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    > M829A4 That's using depleted uranium though, so I'm not surprised that's an expensive round. I'm looking up the M830 (HEAT), which is "just" explosives (with a bit of electronics), and that's closer to $1000. So my $500 estimate was definitely under the price of USA's ammo... but I'm pretty sure Russian ammo is cheaper.

mumblemumble 5y ago

> There is no drone that carries the same level of explosiveness as a singular tank round. Yes. That seems to be why Ukrainian drones and Javelin missiles are having such an easy go of popping the turrets off of Russian tanks. You need just a small explosion to get thing started, and then the tank's onboard supply of explosives does the rest of the job for you. > A tank can fire 40 of these at you in something like 5 minutes. Once it gets into position. The major limitations of tanks here are that they are direct-fire platforms, and that they are big and noisy and difficult to hide. That's a real problem if you're up against an enemy with modern indirect fire capabilities, or effective anti-tank small arms.

Sharlin 5y ago
> You need just a small explosion to get thing started, and then the tank's onboard supply of explosives does the rest of the job for you. As mentioned in the article, the T-72/80/90 are uniquely vulnerable to this failure mode due to their carousel autoloader. Ammo cookoff in any MBT means you and your vehicle probably won't go to battle today, but at least it's not an immediate death sentence in most Western tanks.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  Case in point, here's a M1-Abrams (USA's main-battle-tank) cooking off test. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay7bOG2nD6k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay7bOG2nD6k You can see them purposefully light the tank's ammunition bay on fire. No damage to the internal components or the crew. I'm sure the crew is sweating and feeling "a bit warm", but they'll survive. Its just that Russian tanks are hilariously vulnerable to this problem. ------ Russia's doctrine / theory for their tanks is to make them *smaller* instead. Russian tanks weigh the same but have no compartmentalization. This means that Russian tanks can navigate smaller roads, and also that Russian tanks can hide in ditches (or other terrain) too small for M1 Abrams to hide in. In effect, Russians "accepted" the cook-off problem, but hoped that a competent crew could hide from the enemy better. Hard to say if it works, because it looks like the Russian crews are horribly trained and have low morale in this fight. I think I can agree with the theory, or at least see that there's a beneficial tradeoff here. https://i.redd.it/mtwtamct1t821.jpg https://i.redd.it/mtwtamct1t821.jpg That's a lot smaller for the T72 compared to the M1 Abrams. If the crew could take advantage of the T72's smaller size, the crew very well could be more survivable on the modern battlefield.

_ph_ 5y ago

It will be interesting to see the effect of the Panzerhaubitze 2000 might bring to the battle which should be given to the Ukraine soon. Way more powerful than a MBT and with 10x the range it could be really painful for the Russians, especially when combined with precise reconnaisance (drones, satellite imaginery).