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Infantry are vulnerable to literally everything, and yet no one besides some dingbats that watched terminator too many times are suggesting the age of infantry

Infantry are vulnerable to literally everything, and yet no one besides some dingbats that watched terminator too many times are suggesting the age of infantry is over. Aircraft are vulnerable to missiles. Is anyone suggesting the age of aircraft are over? Drones, particularly consumer quadcopter adopted out of convenience are vulnerable to missiles, autocannons, and electronic warfare. Does not the very same logic being offered as proof of the end of tanks apply to drones as well? This whole argument is stupid and predicated on a vast misunderstanding of how combined arms operations work. Systems are not discard because they're vulnerable, if they can be employed in a way that min/maxes their impact vs vulnerability. There is nothing new about this conflict as far as tanks and ATGMs. Everything happening here happened in the Yom Kippor war, in Grozny, in Syria, and in Yemen. You just have a bunch of lazy bloggers and journalists making a sensationalized claim to sound like something exciting and dramatic is happening, at the cost of grossly distorting the actual reality. What will change is future tanks will likely prioritize active protection systems and sensors over bulk armor. But the basic concept of combing firepower, mobility, and protection is not going away any time soon. Example, Rheinmetall just announced their new tank prototype this week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTBA5tQsDbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTBA5tQsDbE A couple key features: * an active protection system specifically for top attack munitions like Javelin * a remote weapons station with a machine gun specifically for engaging small low altitude drones like quad copters * flexible manning, including looking at autonomy and remote control * ability to host drones for its own situational awareness * a loitering munition that's being co-designed, launched by the big gun Maybe the era of the T-72 is over. But the people confidently predicting the era of tanks and armored fighting vehicles in general are over, cuz missiles, cuz drones, frankly, have no clue what they're talking about.

hinkley 4y ago
> and yet no one besides some dingbats that watched terminator too many times and missed the moral of the story... > This whole argument is stupid and predicated on a vast misunderstanding of how combined arms operations work. Systems are not discard because they're vulnerable, if they can be employed in a way that min/maxes their impact vs vulnerability. The mythology of the board game Go is that it was invented by a Chinese general in an attempt to teach his son strategy and tactics. In that domain there is a concept called Aji, in which you should not write off pieces on the board that are doomed. The fact that they are still on the board makes them useful, even if they can't possibly be saved, saved only by gross error by the opponent, or saving them is possible but devastating to your overall prospects.
chrisseaton 4y ago
Infantry disperse and hide. Tanks really struggle to do either.
- jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
  Which is why you screen tanks with infantry.
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    Not sure what you think a screen is... but it doesn't hide anything. A screen is about finding, not hiding.
    - jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
      Yes, exactly. The infantry screen the tanks from enemy infantry ATGM groups. Everything that makes enemy infantry with ATGMs more effective tank hunters makes infantry screening the tanks more effective at countering them.
      - chrisseaton 4y ago
        > The infantry screen the tanks from enemy infantry Then you mean the infantry screen the enemy infantry from the tanks. You screen the threat, not what you're protecting.
        jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
        There's no point in screening the threat where there is nothing to be threatened, so in practice screening moves with the formation. But in any case, it seems you just want to double down on that fine hnews tradition of utterly valueless semantic quibbling, which I will not participate in further.
        chrisseaton 4y ago
spacemanmatt 4y ago
> an active protection system specifically for top attack munitions like Javelin Worth noting: The western-made MANPADs are designed to exploit a serious design flaw in Soviet-era tanks. The ammunition is stored in the turret where it is easy to ignite externally. That's why we have so much youtube of Russian tanks blowing their turret sky-high. Long story short, design failure can't be remedied by anything they can put on the top of the tank unless it's another tank.
- jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
  Yeah, that's an issue too, though frankly speaking, partitioned ammo rack and blow out panels be danged, I don't think I'd want to be inside an Abrams that got hit by a Javelin or equivalent.
  - spacemanmatt 4y ago
    Of course not. But getting out and walking away surely beats an explosion than blows the turret off. No one survives that.
- SubjectToChange 4y ago
  MANPADS are anti-air weapons. Also, what western tank doesn't store most of its ammunition in the turret?
  - jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
    On an Abrams the ready to use rounds are stored in a partitioned sort of "duck tail" hanging off the back of the turret, with an armored door separating it from the crew compartment, and blast off panels on top. The specific issue the other comment is referring to is unique to Soviet designed tanks that combined an autoloader with an ammo rack carrousel that's below the crew in the turret. This proved to be a big design flaw, but is not one universal across non Soviet tanks.
- na85 4y ago
  I know it's cool to throw acronyms around but MANPADS stands for MAN-Portable Air Defence Systems. They're for shooting down aircraft. The Javelin and NLAW are not examples of MANPADS.
bergenty 4y ago
Aircraft are fast, have actual deterrents against attacks and can fire from a distance. Tanks need to be close to attack, are slow and completely vulnerable to drone attacks.
- jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
  For ground combat tanks are very comparable. They can have an effect on any target within 2km or more within single seconds of spotting it. Tanks also have deterrents, such as the basics of combined arms tactics, but also smoke screens, etc.
nradov 4y ago
So we might see tank designs sort of repeat the evolution of surface warships. Such ships used to rely on armor for survivability, but the advent of submarines and aircraft (and later guided missiles) made that approach unviable. Now the armor is mostly gone, and instead ships rely on a mix of sensors, active defenses, and mobility to avoid getting hit at all. Of course they're still vulnerable, but nothing else can accomplish the same missions, so there's no other option but to keep building more.
- jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
  I think the comparison is very apt. Practical APS is going to require a full sphere LPI radar of some sort. Given you already have to build that, it's logical to leverage it as a sensor for sensor fusion in general. Same goes with IR, both distributed aperture systems and telescope/periscope. EW equipment is going to require antenna apertures that can cover DC to 6ghz. If you gotta build those might as well aggregate all the needs into a common set of apertures. The logic here is straightforward, and it does directly lead to thinking of future MBTs as like the mini land version of multi role naval frigates, imo.
dgb23 4y ago
> But the basic concept of combing firepower, mobility, and protection is not going away any time soon. This reads like the gist of it. I imagine them getting lighter, heavier, more sophisticated/expensive, cheaper, slower or faster. But the basic archetype seems to be almost timeless as long as there is some utility for armor, mobility and projectile weapons.
- lumost 4y ago
  Is there going to be value in projectile weapons in the future? An autonomous quad copter with a grenade attached seems like a much more dangerous weapon than an automatic rifle. An armored truck may have equivalent ability to defend itself using active systems with much greater mobility and firepower than a tank. A converted autonomous econovan might be even more effective, bypassing the need for defense entirely.
  - mr_toad 4y ago
    > Is there going to be value in projectile weapons in the future They’re cheap. One of the reasons the Russians use so much conventional artillery is that it’s cheaper than missiles or air strikes.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
    The typical generic tank round is 120 mm and around 50 lbs. This is interestingly mostly the result of the intersection of ergonomics (soldier needs to be able to hurk the round around) and metallurgy/engineering of the barrel. Anyhow, that's a whole lot of pain for any vehicle that's not a peer tank, any sniper/hmg/rpg team set up in a strong point, etc, for a very reasonable price. A good tank crew can fire these at a rate of about one every 10 seconds including overlapping recognition of new targets. This is what tanks are built to do, and it's not equivalent to what drones or man portable smart missiles/munitions can do, as interesting and increasingly novel as those latter are.
lmm 4y ago
> Infantry are vulnerable to literally everything, and yet no one besides some dingbats that watched terminator too many times are suggesting the age of infantry is over. Aircraft are vulnerable to missiles. Is anyone suggesting the age of aircraft are over? Drones, particularly consumer quadcopter adopted out of convenience are vulnerable to missiles, autocannons, and electronic warfare. Does not the very same logic being offered as proof of the end of tanks apply to drones as well? Being armoured is the tank's core value proposition in a way that it isn't for those other examples. The thing that a tank can do that a self-propelled gun can't is survive on a battlefield where small arms fire is overwhelmingly common and armour-penetrating munitions aren't. If we get to a point where that situation is no longer relevant, the tank's reason to exist disappears.

hinkley 4y ago

> and yet no one besides some dingbats that watched terminator too many times and missed the moral of the story... > This whole argument is stupid and predicated on a vast misunderstanding of how combined arms operations work. Systems are not discard because they're vulnerable, if they can be employed in a way that min/maxes their impact vs vulnerability. The mythology of the board game Go is that it was invented by a Chinese general in an attempt to teach his son strategy and tactics. In that domain there is a concept called Aji, in which you should not write off pieces on the board that are doomed. The fact that they are still on the board makes them useful, even if they can't possibly be saved, saved only by gross error by the opponent, or saving them is possible but devastating to your overall prospects.

chrisseaton 4y ago

Infantry disperse and hide. Tanks really struggle to do either.

jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
Which is why you screen tanks with infantry.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  Not sure what you think a screen is... but it doesn't hide anything. A screen is about finding, not hiding.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
    Yes, exactly. The infantry screen the tanks from enemy infantry ATGM groups. Everything that makes enemy infantry with ATGMs more effective tank hunters makes infantry screening the tanks more effective at countering them.
    - chrisseaton 4y ago
      > The infantry screen the tanks from enemy infantry Then you mean the infantry screen the enemy infantry from the tanks. You screen the threat, not what you're protecting.
      - jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
        There's no point in screening the threat where there is nothing to be threatened, so in practice screening moves with the formation. But in any case, it seems you just want to double down on that fine hnews tradition of utterly valueless semantic quibbling, which I will not participate in further.
        chrisseaton 4y ago

spacemanmatt 4y ago

> an active protection system specifically for top attack munitions like Javelin Worth noting: The western-made MANPADs are designed to exploit a serious design flaw in Soviet-era tanks. The ammunition is stored in the turret where it is easy to ignite externally. That's why we have so much youtube of Russian tanks blowing their turret sky-high. Long story short, design failure can't be remedied by anything they can put on the top of the tank unless it's another tank.

jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
Yeah, that's an issue too, though frankly speaking, partitioned ammo rack and blow out panels be danged, I don't think I'd want to be inside an Abrams that got hit by a Javelin or equivalent.
- spacemanmatt 4y ago
  Of course not. But getting out and walking away surely beats an explosion than blows the turret off. No one survives that.
SubjectToChange 4y ago
MANPADS are anti-air weapons. Also, what western tank doesn't store most of its ammunition in the turret?
- jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
  On an Abrams the ready to use rounds are stored in a partitioned sort of "duck tail" hanging off the back of the turret, with an armored door separating it from the crew compartment, and blast off panels on top. The specific issue the other comment is referring to is unique to Soviet designed tanks that combined an autoloader with an ammo rack carrousel that's below the crew in the turret. This proved to be a big design flaw, but is not one universal across non Soviet tanks.
na85 4y ago
I know it's cool to throw acronyms around but MANPADS stands for MAN-Portable Air Defence Systems. They're for shooting down aircraft. The Javelin and NLAW are not examples of MANPADS.

bergenty 4y ago

Aircraft are fast, have actual deterrents against attacks and can fire from a distance. Tanks need to be close to attack, are slow and completely vulnerable to drone attacks.

jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
For ground combat tanks are very comparable. They can have an effect on any target within 2km or more within single seconds of spotting it. Tanks also have deterrents, such as the basics of combined arms tactics, but also smoke screens, etc.

nradov 4y ago

So we might see tank designs sort of repeat the evolution of surface warships. Such ships used to rely on armor for survivability, but the advent of submarines and aircraft (and later guided missiles) made that approach unviable. Now the armor is mostly gone, and instead ships rely on a mix of sensors, active defenses, and mobility to avoid getting hit at all. Of course they're still vulnerable, but nothing else can accomplish the same missions, so there's no other option but to keep building more.

jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
I think the comparison is very apt. Practical APS is going to require a full sphere LPI radar of some sort. Given you already have to build that, it's logical to leverage it as a sensor for sensor fusion in general. Same goes with IR, both distributed aperture systems and telescope/periscope. EW equipment is going to require antenna apertures that can cover DC to 6ghz. If you gotta build those might as well aggregate all the needs into a common set of apertures. The logic here is straightforward, and it does directly lead to thinking of future MBTs as like the mini land version of multi role naval frigates, imo.

dgb23 4y ago

> But the basic concept of combing firepower, mobility, and protection is not going away any time soon. This reads like the gist of it. I imagine them getting lighter, heavier, more sophisticated/expensive, cheaper, slower or faster. But the basic archetype seems to be almost timeless as long as there is some utility for armor, mobility and projectile weapons.

lumost 4y ago
Is there going to be value in projectile weapons in the future? An autonomous quad copter with a grenade attached seems like a much more dangerous weapon than an automatic rifle. An armored truck may have equivalent ability to defend itself using active systems with much greater mobility and firepower than a tank. A converted autonomous econovan might be even more effective, bypassing the need for defense entirely.
- mr_toad 4y ago
  > Is there going to be value in projectile weapons in the future They’re cheap. One of the reasons the Russians use so much conventional artillery is that it’s cheaper than missiles or air strikes.
- jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
  The typical generic tank round is 120 mm and around 50 lbs. This is interestingly mostly the result of the intersection of ergonomics (soldier needs to be able to hurk the round around) and metallurgy/engineering of the barrel. Anyhow, that's a whole lot of pain for any vehicle that's not a peer tank, any sniper/hmg/rpg team set up in a strong point, etc, for a very reasonable price. A good tank crew can fire these at a rate of about one every 10 seconds including overlapping recognition of new targets. This is what tanks are built to do, and it's not equivalent to what drones or man portable smart missiles/munitions can do, as interesting and increasingly novel as those latter are.

lmm 4y ago

> Infantry are vulnerable to literally everything, and yet no one besides some dingbats that watched terminator too many times are suggesting the age of infantry is over. Aircraft are vulnerable to missiles. Is anyone suggesting the age of aircraft are over? Drones, particularly consumer quadcopter adopted out of convenience are vulnerable to missiles, autocannons, and electronic warfare. Does not the very same logic being offered as proof of the end of tanks apply to drones as well? Being armoured is the tank's core value proposition in a way that it isn't for those other examples. The thing that a tank can do that a self-propelled gun can't is survive on a battlefield where small arms fire is overwhelmingly common and armour-penetrating munitions aren't. If we get to a point where that situation is no longer relevant, the tank's reason to exist disappears.