Many people say that the time of tanks is over, because now combat drones rule the roost. Is this so and is it fair?
Table of contents
- Arguments - tanks are not needed
- Arguments for tanks
- And in fact
Even after the Karabakh war in the military communitysrachs broke out at all expert levels on the topic "The era of tanks is over." Numerous videos of Bayraktars burning forty-five-ton colossus explain quite intelligibly ... no-no-no, it’s better to be in the infantry. It’s even better, of course, not to go to war at all, but today we are discussing not pacifism, but a more intriguing question - tanks are still a cake, or no longer a cake.
In general, the topic is not new at all, it is already at least 50 years old. During the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the huge losses of both Israelis and Arabs in tanks from rocket weapons already prompted thoughts.
Destroyed Syrian T-62 in Sinai 1973
Tanks are very expensive weapons, they area giant chain of dozens of design bureaus and factories for the production of the boxes themselves, power, chassis, sighting systems, dynamic protection. Finally, the crew itself, which needs to be trained for at least six months, or a three-month intensive, so that you can then send them into battle with a clear conscience.
And it can be burned there in a matter of seconds.yesterday's accountant of the collective farm "The Way of the Prophet" Vahid, and to make it easy to control a rocket after training, God forbid, in a week. And, unlike tanks, the means of their destruction still have room to develop.
Read also
Moreover, today in the war they are actively usedJavelins and Spikes, and, for example, the Americans in the last Abrams stupidly built up the forehead of the tower to keep the Cornet hit. But it is enough to increase the effectiveness of the Kornets by 10-15% and the crew of the Abrams tanks will again not be able to feel calm. But the modernization program for the latest Abrams M1A2 SEP 3 cost billions of dirty green papers just in development. And even more so in production and modernization.
The use of ATGM Spike at the training
In short, let's get to the point:
Arguments - tanks are not needed
It basically comes down to two components -drones and Javelins(and 3rd generation ATGMs in general). The capabilities of modern anti-tank weapons make it possible to destroy tanks quite easily.
Today you do not need to rush under him with a bunchgrenade - operators in a good position quite casually burn the tank thanks to thermal (III generation) or laser (II+ generation) guidance. Moreover, the probability of hitting a car at practical distances is very high - 70-80% of launches, and ATGMs like Javellin or Spike give over 90%.
Read also
At the same time, the preparation of the calculation takes on averageabout 2 months, and the tank crew - about six months. The cost of the Javellin missile (and it is the most expensive), depending on the modification, varies from $150 to $250 thousand, and the cheapest modern tanks, such as the T-90M, cost $4.5 million in exports, later releases of the Abrams have greatly exceeded $7 million, and French Leclercs are already worth $12 million.
Javelin launch by a US National Guard reservist
Minnesota National Guard
The bottom line is a less qualified military mana specialist with cheap weapons, with almost impunity (but more on that later), is able to inflict the heaviest damage to expensive tanks in total. Such damage, which will many times exceed the cost of consumables. And, no matter how cynical it sounds, to exceed the cost of such a fighter himself, as a professional.
The second problem isUAV. And we are not talking about shock, which also have anti-tank weapons, but about reconnaissance, whose efficiency is ultimately higher.
Why?Because with their help, artillery can work very accurately at great depths, find tank columns and shoot them. A few decades ago, howitzer artillery was not considered as a high-precision weapon, especially with the ability to work on ground equipment pointwise.
Hand on heart, tanks have never beeninvulnerable weapons, but nevertheless, confronting them today is much more effective than in the past, when the losses of artillerymen in anti-tank calculations were comparable to infantry. In addition, the economic factor is that modern tanks are more and more expensive and complex weapons, production cycles are very long, and several industries work at once to build one type of tank.
wheeled tank based on the Stryker armored personnel carrier
The economic factor is not the last in the war - morecheap weapons with a short production cycle will always supplant expensive long-term construction in the long run, which is especially noticeable in protracted conflicts. And if a country loses a lot of tanks in local conflicts, it will not want to break its budget and churn them out in huge quantities for a large-scale war.
Conventionally, if you lose a billion dollars worth of tanks, they must cause damage to the enemy,muchexceeding one billion dollars in damage. Otherwise, this weapon is not effective, and you will gradually be forced to abandon it.
Specifically, this is already happening in the army of Belgium,which abandoned heavy tracked vehicles. And [the British army is already halfway there] https://www.ferra.ru/review/techlife/worst-nato-tank.htm) - they are seriously discussing the abandonment of the MBT (main battle tank, that is, any modern one) in favor of a variety of modern infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers and new classes of light armored vehicles.
Read also
Transportation of a tank by a tractor, railway trains are used for long distances
The mass of modern tanks is also growing indimensions, and this complicates their non-tactical mobility, because tanks are transferred to the location of hostilities not under their own power, but most often by rail and less often by aviation. It's expensive and troublesome. The tanks themselves are incredibly voracious for fuel, and this smacks of problems with the delivery of fuel - it is enough to cut off a tank unit from it, and you don’t have to destroy it, because the tankers will soon abandon their equipment.
Arguments for tanks
Spherical reasoning in a vacuum is good, butreal wars are much more difficult. Tanks in the army also have supporters, although, as a rule, they are from tankers. What makes the tank remain relevant weapons, or, as the tankers themselves like to say, irreplaceable?
-
The tank is vulnerable to anti-tank weapons, but they are not the only ones on the battlefield. Specifically, the tank is afraid of anti-tank missiles andBOPS (sub-caliber feathered shells of high penetrating power, which are most often used by tank guns). But the tank is not afraid of small arms, autocannons, grenade launchers, fragmentation damage.
-
The tank remains a mobile vehicle with great own firepower.thanks to guns of caliber 105, 120 and 125 mm.They are complemented by rockets and machine guns of 12.7 and 7.62 mm calibers. Wheeled alternatives with such weapons are not as resistant to autocannon fire and grenade launchers.
Infantry actions supported by tanks (Israel)
- The tank is a powerful psychological tool. Yes, this makes him the main target, but otherwise it undermines the spirit of the enemy (if we are not talking about some hardened warriors) and greatly inspires his own infantry.
But the most important thing is thatprotection of a modern tank is not only passive.
Today, from the impact of missiles with a cumulative(piercing) warhead can be used as pumped variants of dynamic protection (characteristic "cubes" with explosives that form a counter-explosion on impact and neutralize the effect on the main armor). That is, the block does not just hang on the armor, but is capable of being shot towards the threatened object. For example, the dynamic protection of the Russian T-14 Malachite tank.
More reliable (and already proven by combatconditions) method - active protection systems such as Trophy from the Israeli Rafael. This is such a micro-air defense of a tank, capable of calculating a target threatened by a tank in the form of a rocket and working it out on approach with its own rocket. Modern systems of this profile are able to provide protection against any anti-tank systems, be it a Cornet, be it a Javelin.
Cylinder on the "Armata" tower - Russian active protection complex Afganit, in the basic configuration they rely only on T-14
http://divannievoiska.ru
Promising active protection systems will be created with the ability to reflect BOPS. Now they are much more difficult to intercept - very fast.
Active defense complexes are able to extend the life of tanks both on the battlefield and in the system of means of armed struggle. Thus, the tank remains the most important element in ground operations.
Well, do not forget that multispectralcamouflage, thermal insulation coatings and exhaust cooling systems significantly reduce the visibility of tanks in the IR range and make thermal imagers not as effective as they are today. And this will greatly complicate the use of both anti-tank systems with a thermal channel, as well as detection, and adjustment of artillery from drones.
And in fact
Both positions have weighty arguments:
Actions of the T-72 in Syria (ANNA news)
For supporters of the “tanks are everything” theory, their position collapses due to the argument thatso far there really is nothing to replace the tank on the battlefield. Wheeled tanks, usually based on armored personnel carriers,remain the equipment of rapid deployment units, and cannot completely replace the thick-skinned caterpillar monsters due to their great vulnerability - they are still more of a weapon of deep raids than a breakthrough.
Tank advocates rely too much onmodern active protection systems, forgetting that they greatly increase the cost of tanks, are vulnerable to electronic warfare, and many developments are still raw and work like a blunder. Thermal camouflage is cheaper, but they do not radically increase survivability. Tanks remain a heavy burden in terms of logistics and maintenance, so with the current pace of warfare, they are still gradually becoming a burden.
The Americans, by the way, found a way out in light tanks of the MPF class, which we already wrote about.
Read also
A tank weighing 30+ tons remains well protectedfrom autocannons and grenade launchers, while passive opposition to purely anti-tank weapons is not provided for in it, which saves weight and allows the use of less voracious engines. In the future, the MPF will also be equipped with active armor, which can make them not only an alternative to the overweight Abrams and poorly protected cannon Strikers, but also replace both.
The most expensive today (and this is not its only advantage) Leclerc tank (France)
Despite the fact that Russian tanks are noticeablyeasier than NATO, this does not cancel the above problems. Moreover, modern modifications of the T-90M came close to 50 tons, and the T-14 Armata immediately exceeded 50 tons. They still need railroads, repair and recovery depots and daily lines of tankers. So, this problem also concerns the Russian army.
What do you think about the prospects of tanks?