Is bigger better?

[spacewolflord]

This is about those armor and armed carrying things we call lovingly tanks.
With modern warfare moving in to the cities and other built up areas is the M1A2 like Tank (http://www.army-technology.com/projects/abrams/) an assect or liability?
Or is a smaller, as in theGerman Wiesel (http://www.aeronautics.ru/archive/armored_vehicles/germany/gallery_002/wiesel/pages/p0064835.htm) the better way to go for tank development?
I understand the big boys will never go away but should there be more focus on a smaller unit with fighting moving away from areas where Main Line Battle Tanks are kings?

[ceejayoz]

The Abrams etc. have their place, but they're certainly not great for urban combat. The US has the Bradley and the Stryker vehicles nowadays, and I think they've a new significantly better Humvee coming down the pipeline.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

tanks are pretty much for nation on nation only.

but their huge logistic requirements make them a pain to attack with

so yeah they're kind of outdated.

i would be more of a fan of the stryker if it was armored well enough to take an RPG hit...

did you know, the company that makes the best armored humvees can't expand any more but won't give up its exclusive contract? :rolleyes:

[Tiresias]

Of course bigger is better, it's one more step on the route TO GIANT STOMPY LASER FIRING ROBOTS!

[Caesar]

I think we need to invest in Apocalypse tanks. Now those are hot. Dual 120mm cannons and laser guided missiles. Makes for a pretty damned tough bitch to go toe to toe with. I'd like to see Joe Turban's RPG knock that out.

In reality, I think helicopter gunships are the way to go. They're more mobile, provide good cover to groud troops and can fulfill many other roles. Something like the Mi-24 Hind would be great. Just more manueverable. I'd feel pretty safe flying in one of those. Damned things are like flying tanks.

Now, the German tank looks spiffy, but how is that going to work against Polish cavalry?

[Ammon Ra]

smaller vehicles are definatly better suited for urban combat,while the bigger & heavier tanks are better suited "outdoors", so to speak. Although getting some heavy firepower in urban areas would eventually be needed, so would you let the larger tanks in??

[ColonelBorissov]

THe thing is, a heli can't hold ground like a tank can. Troops on teh ground are vital in war, and for them, heavy cover is necessary. Personally, I prefer the thought of a 69 ton steel fortress rolling alongside rather than a heli in the rear. What the tank is not good for is counter-insurgency. The best way to deal with that is good intel and men in jeeps. A tank is too big for urban warfare. The Bradley and the Warrior are decent alternatives, but when fighting the way they are in Iraq, it isn't the armour that is the problem, it's the fact that anyone could have a weapon.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

edit: Removed post because I could not find the source

[Tiresias]

I still think giant stompy robots are the answer...

[hiddensmoke]

good luck trying to balance that giant robot. the only reason that things like that arent really in devolpment is because its a bitch to balance those two legs with the rest of the body and weapons

[Tiresias]

Why can't they be tripods? or quadrapeds? Or Quintrapeds(if that;s the word...)

[hiddensmoke]

hmmm get somethin like war of the worlds that would be awsome. a tank is alway vunrable in urban combat no matter how big. any vehicle at all in a urban area is vunrable. tanks and vehicles are made for open terran. Thats why we had mass carpet bombing to make that urban city into a flat terran :bandit:

[A176]

anything big is a waste of resources and logistics simply because modern weapons can make pudding of mostly anything now.

[hiddensmoke]

yea thats true but those modern weapons happen to be on the usa side :P plus you cant fire a missle in a city hoping not to hit innocencent people and just terrost. you need something solid there. you dont take territory with bombs or planes it has to be infantry and tanks a clear fact. if you did win with bombs and planes then england would of lost ww2 to germany in the early days of the battle for england. plus nukes cant be used. the next country to use a nuke is the enemy of every country out there currently.

[Paladin]

Helicopters are expensive and fragile.

Personally I've always felt the hole in modern military forces was the lack of a small, heavy armored infantry support vehicle. Something tasked with heavy support for infantry rather than hunting other armor.

[hiddensmoke]

hmm but now infantry are not like it was in the old days they can fight hard against dedicated infantry tanks and most likely win because even the terrost troops kno how to hide from a tank. plus a dedicated anti tank tank is equiped with the ability to fight infantry like the machine guns and a explosive rounds.

[Bonnet]

Paladin has it percisely.

Also, tanks are still needed in modern combat because they can stop RPG's, the source of most of the US's insurgent troubles. But really, a IFV armored like a m1a2 is the answer.

[hiddensmoke]

well getting all the countries to abandon tank fighting tanks would be immpossible. if this country has tanks that could kill the other guys tanks easily. hell if the usa had abandoned the abrams we would have got wooped by iraqs tanks. theres a reason why the abrams has the name silent death

[Tronno]

It seems to me that current trends do not involve changing unit size, but rather, achieving the accuracy and range necessary to completely disconnect the combatants from the battlefield. If the US Army could strike any target with pinpoint accuracy and minimal collateral from orbit, they'd probably just recall the troops and pour some bubbly.

Heavy military units are designed to project that kind of firepower. Small units are designed to make up for their inherent inaccuracy. They complement each other - that's the way I see it.

[ceejayoz]

hiddensmoke, the problem is, the Iraqi insurgency isn't using tanks. They're using $20 worth of explosives to take out multi-million dollar battle tanks.

As for the old Republican Guard's tanks, they didn't play much of a factor in Gulf War II. The First Gulf War, certainly, but even a force of Bradleys and Strykers likely could have taken them out, especially given the air support. The US beat the Iraqi tanks mostly on superior range, more so than armour.

[hiddensmoke]

turth but we would have caught more hell from the iraq tanks. and yes the insurgents are using cheap bombs. didnt i say that tanks arnt for this situation taht no vehicle except for infantry and those that fly are for this job?

[Dimension]

Helicopters are expensive and fragile.

Personally I've always felt the hole in modern military forces was the lack of a small, heavy armored infantry support vehicle. Something tasked with heavy support for infantry rather than hunting other armor.

What I was thinking. In a 10 man group with a Machine Gun (MG3 in my case), 70-90% of the group's firepower is due to the Machine Gun. A kind of highly mobile armored carrier for such a heavy weapon would go a long way to make the group more deadly.

For some reason the picture of an armored segway keeps popping up in my head.

[hiddensmoke]

well theres motorcycles wiht a car on the side of it. those can work but can take a hit for beans

[Tails]

If the US Army could strike any target with pinpoint accuracy and minimal collateral from orbit, they'd probably just recall the troops and pour some bubbly.
Well, the U.S. "precision bombing" hasn't proved to be very precise. Even so, urban warfare can't be fought from orbit, because you can't occupy a territory with satellites.

[hiddensmoke]

exactly the only thing that can occupy are the guys on the ground tanks and infantry thats it. a airplane cant occupy territory but it can assist in occuping same with a helicopter.

[Mrcrabby]

what need is mechs. they would be perfect for urban warfare but that wont happen unless we find a way around the whole wieght/balance issue

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Ceejay's right. The US beat iraqi armor in gulf war I through lame-ass counters, not by engaging mano y mano.

Dimension: Lack of firepower isn't really the problem...

[hiddensmoke]

actually your wrong the usa didnt just beat them thru planes. one of the biggest tank battles occured during it and the US didnt lose a tank the abrams just better in all fields especially at night. and its extremely silent good for suprize attacks.

[Handarazuur]

Kodos: It looks like the Earthlings won.

Kang: Did they? Right now they have a board with a nail in it. But they won't stop there. Soon they will make bigger boards with bigger nails until they make a board with a nail in it so big it will destroy them all!

It's a bit like Homeworld 2, when you think about it. Each unit can be countered, and it's finding the right mix of units that lets you win.

-Hand

[General Nuke Em]

In Desert Storm, US air campaign destroyed perhaps 40% of Iraqi main battle tanks in the Kuwait Theater of Operations over a period of 6 weeks. In four days the other 60% was either destroyed or sent fleeing by ground forces.

Tank battles at places like Medina Ridge, 73 Easting, and the Rumallah oil field all showed clear US armored superiority, especially at 73 Easting where a single cavalry troop of 9 M1A1's and a dozen Bradley cavalry vehicles, plus some soft skinned support vehicles, hit an Iraqi brigade (around a hundred armored vehicles in total), chewed them up, and spit them out. The M1A1 outclassed anything the Iraqis could throw at us in all categories.

There were several instances where some of our Bradley-only units took had to fight Iraqi tanks in Desert Storm. The results weren't so pretty. We gave as much punishment as we took, but that's not the objective. The objective is to completely overwhelm them. That's where our lumbering 70 ton main battle tanks that consume 6 gallons per mile come in. Certainly, we could have a kinder, gentler, and cheaper military, but that only results in more dead bodies at the end.

Until we solve the problem of fuel consumption, tanks aren't going to get bigger. They're only going to get smaller, but have equivalent or superior firepower through emerging technologies such as directed energy weapons, railguns, "booster guns" (like a conventional cannon but using a liquid explosive), etc.

[hiddensmoke]

well hydrogen fuel cells look promising for fuel to replace oil (i personally think there the greatest thing sence sliced bread). the only thing that comes out of the pipe on the other end is drinkable water, altho it taste like a car but its drinkable :hat: .

also those nine tanks actaully stumbled into the iraqies at nihgt. the iraqies didnt even kno they were there (thats how the name silent death came from) also a m1a1 fires like a normal cannon loaded from a guy but the soviet tanks the iraqies used used auto loaders that waited 10 seconds till it could reload. enough time for around 3 to 5 rounds from a experiance m1a1 crew. also the iraqie tanks were old and the barrels had outlived themselves and most rounds fell short (the barrels need to be replaced after like 20 rounds i think while the m1a1 needs to be replaced after 100 rounds.) plus we used better ammo and better trained crews. basicly we beat there tanks in all ways possible.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Well I don't claim to be an expert on the Gulf War, but IIRC that was at least partially because the Iraqis tanks were dug in, which is a bad idea when you're outranged...

[hiddensmoke]

yes but the m1a1 was untested in real combat no one kne at the time if it was a good tank some thought it was worse the then soviet t-72s but it proved to be the best damn tank out there. also there were only around 1000 m1a1s while there were tens of thousands of t-72s. we thought it was going to be another veitnam honestly. but whatta kno we won after 4 days of ground warfare :santa:

[Feil]

If my tank can shoot a shell through your tank's armor at longer range than your tank can shoot a shell through my tank's armor, I live, and you die. A tank the size of an Abrams or Challenger can have a more deflective profile, mount more armor, and has a much nicer gun, while still being not a whole lot easier to hit than a slightly smaller tank. So yes, bigger is better.

Unless you want to drive it out of an airplane, in which case it helps to fit in the airplane...

[hiddensmoke]

yep the m1a1 can shoot farther then any other main battle tank and its fit with night vision and did i mention its silent :p also it has a low profile making it hard to hit and hard to see. it has to be big tho to fit everything into its low profile so yes bigger is better for fitting amazing ass wooping features in. :devil:

[General Nuke Em]

Smoke, stop jerking off to the Abrams. The M1A1 is a good, solid tank and arguably the best around (save the M1A2), but every western main battle tank and a lot of threat ones also have nigh vision these days, along with a low profile. Tanks powered by gas turbine engines are relatively quieter than those powered by a conventional diesel, but its by no means silent. About all it did was spook some Canadians on a training exercise (sorry Uber).

[hiddensmoke]

:moose: sorry i just love me tank. and i kno personally that thing is silent.

[General Nuke Em]

Define silent please. My definition is "hearing a pin drop". I assume yours is "not noticing it when artillery shells are going off next to you"?

[n0z3k1ll3r]

Iraqi problems with their armour stemmed to a large degree from a complete lack of standardisation. They had a huge variety of different weapons, including I believe a few M1A1 tanks. But the lack of a single weapon to train with, manufacture replacement for, etc, leads to a really inefficient military. Theres a reason why WW2 armoured warfare went from having huge hordes of different tanks to being essentially based around the T34, Panzer IV, and Sherman, with relatively minor variants. It just worked a lot better.

[General Nuke Em]

Iraq never had M1A1 tanks, no. But they did have British Chieftans and old M60 tanks.

While Iraq's armored force was indeed a rag tag band of export Soviet equipment (not the greatest stuff to begin with...), the Republican Guard was vastly overhyped in the media with their T-72's and spiffy uniforms. And they did manage to fight the Iranians to a standstill, however much of an accomplishment that is...

[hiddensmoke]

yea, the iraqies didnt replace the barrels after theyd been fired to much thats the main reason why the tank battles were so one sided the enemy shells just fell short.

oh and silent. the m1a1 is a hybred vehicle it can switch between differant motors thus silent. it uses electric i think now im not sure and then switches to deisal for uphill or rough terran.

[General Nuke Em]

WTF? The M1 Abrams is not a hybrid vehicle, unless every credible source on the internet, television, and military literature is wrong. Its only source of propulsion is a 1500 horsepower gas turbine engine.

[hiddensmoke]

hmm maybe i was think of m1a2 or somethin, i just remember reading up about some kind of hybred engine maybe it got scraped. psh dont matter the thing picked up the name silent death for a reason :twisted:

[n0z3k1ll3r]

Hey, slightly OT, but is there some sort of law that all British tanks have to have names starting with C? Challenger, Crusader, Cruiser, Cromwell, Churchill, Chieftan... Only exception I can think of off the top of my head is the Matilda, and that's a bit older than the above.

[General Nuke Em]

Funny, you're right. But you left out the Centurion. ;)

Another exception - the Valentine tank.

[hiddensmoke]

yae thats kind of wierd... well the US military calls all fighters F and all bombers B maybe its something similar, or the brits just like the letter C

[TheDeadlyShoe]

it appears to date to WWII, but I can't find a reason from googling, except that it's a 'code name'.

I did find that 'Chieftain' is an English term for masturbation. :sci:

Edit:

Okay, what I can find is that the C tanks are "Cruiser" or Medium tanks.

[n0z3k1ll3r]

The F and B are designations, not names. F means Fighter, A is Attack, and B means Bomber. Buggered if I know what Attack actually means, was my understanding most US planes seem pretty good at attacking things.

And yes, forgot the Valentine and Centurion. Also the WW1 tanks, but I don't really count them here. And the Valentine is pretty much a smaller Matilda, so maybe it's something to do with that?

EDIT: Possibly denotes a "Cruiser" tank? Following WW2 I guess that infantry tanks got abandoned and all tanks were therefore Cruisers. Only problem there is that the Churchill is very much an infantry tank.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Yeah pretty much what Noze said.

edit:

Here's something:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-1161,00.html

[hiddensmoke]

well if you make something to fight it better be good at attacking :bandit: . Well the brits happen to have tanks with a similar first letter to avoid confusion on the field maybe

example if you hear a c in the start its british and nothing else... maybe.

[General Nuke Em]

Attack meaning Ground Attack, noz...

Well if you at the post-WWII tanks they're named after generic heroic stuff that might denote the cruiser designation...to quote you, "buggered if I know." :)

[hiddensmoke]

whatever the reason for the name the tanks names are definatly unique and undoubtably. British.

[n0z3k1ll3r]

Ok, cool. Been wondering about that for some time now. Anyway, does someone with more knowledge of modern armour than me want to do a comparison between the British Challenger 2 (that's their current one isn't it?) and the M1A1?

EDIT: GNE, how does Attack differentiate from Bomber then?

[hiddensmoke]

i dont kno, i kno the qualities of the m1a1 but i kno next to nothing of brit tanks :dolt:

edit- attack like a a-10 warthog and a bomber like the b-52
attack is like a fighter-bomber

[TheDeadlyShoe]

If I had to guess, in the end the C-thing is just an unofficial tradition.

[General Nuke Em]

Noz, that's a really hard comparison to make. The tanks are almost identical in terms of speed, armor (based off whats publicly known, anyway), and firepower. Some people talk about the M1 design's shot trap at the turret ring, among other things but that enters the realm of minutia. About all I can say is that Brits prefer the Chally 2 and Yanks prefer the M1A2.

[them apples]

actually your wrong the usa didnt just beat them thru planes. one of the biggest tank battles occured during it and the US didnt lose a tank the abrams just better in all fields especially at night. and its extremely silent good for suprize attacks.

Its armor is 'chobham' and layered with some type of hardened uranium(not dangerous uranium)The british designed it.
The t-72 cant even graze this type of armor from the font or sides,but the cannon on the abrams aparently can fire through 2-3 meter thick sandbags and still penetrate the t-72 hull even from the front.

At the time(vietnam) the T-72 tank was probably much better than anything the states had(pattons),but its past its prime now.Most of the optical/laser gunsites on them are broken and cant be fixed accept by the russians who built them.This makes it really hard to fire an accurate shell.

EDIT:this isnt the best tank though,other NATO countries such as france have even more advanced tanks(leLerc)which can fire at longer ranges and have better accuracy.
Japan aparently has some really good tanks also.

[hiddensmoke]

most likely, but there are some nice tanks out there tho :P the germans got some nice ones and so do the sweds.

exactly the t-72 is past but its better then alot of the things the middle east was using at the time iraq bought them.

[n0z3k1ll3r]

What about the latest Russian tank the T-90 if I'm right? I only know my WW2 armour really.

[hiddensmoke]

i dont think that one is very common at all and thus expensive or the russians are still holding on to it.

edit- i looked it up and its the modern russian main battle tank and not sellable yet like the t-72 was when it was replaced as the main battle tank by the t-90

[them apples]

I bet china has something up its sleeve,they already have some really nice looking small arms(advanced assault rifles)I dont see why they wouldnt design some uber tank to match the abrams.

[n0z3k1ll3r]

Or try to anyway. They haven't had the practice yet to match the US methinks.

[General Nuke Em]

They're touting their Type 98 tank as an Abrams killer, but I don't buy it.

[n0z3k1ll3r]

I wouldn't either. It might come close, but I doubt it'll match or exceed the Abrams at this stage.

[them apples]

they claim they have the best nuclear guided missle also.

[The_Assimilator]

Is bigger better? It all depends on context. Generally, a bigger tank means more armour and more firepower, which means better offensive and defensive capability.

But generally, tanks aren't meant for city fighting. A tank (in the true sense of the word; I'm not talking about APCs) is designed for use in large open spaces - plains and deserts - where its main gun can come to bear on targets from almost any direction. Also, such environments allow tanks to dig in and present a smaller profile for the enemy to shoot at, while losing no firepower.

Road-bound vehicles just aren't suited for urban combat. Urban environments mean buildings; buildings are easy for people with RPGs to hide in, and difficult for vehicles at street level to combat. It's a totally different environment, which requires smaller, lighter, faster vehicles with less firepower but more troop-carrying capacity. Because in a city, it's the infantry that win the battle, not the vehicles; vehicles provide transport and cover, and hold critical points, but they can't get into buildings to ferret out anyone hiding within.

I believe that the future for combat on open terrain is still with tanks, but as for urban combat, robots are the answer. Automatons such as the "York units" from Stephen Coonts' book Hong Kong are agile, durable, and can carry much more firepower than a human Marine. And of course, they're expendable.

[n0z3k1ll3r]

Yeah, but Robots are always the answer. That's just one of life's givens.

[Moe]

Size doesn't matter. It's how you use it.

[Aussiemoo]

C for Cavalry perhaps?

[n0z3k1ll3r]

Cavalry was the French designation I think, not the English one (which was Cruiser).

[Gyokuran]

what need is mechs. they would be perfect for urban warfare but that wont happen unless we find a way around the whole wieght/balance issue

Mechs are incredibly impractical and you will never see them used in military or civilian use.

[n0z3k1ll3r]

Use nonlethal gas to incapacitate the defenders, then move in and capture them before they regain control of their functions.

[FatalTheRabbit]

If it were that easy it would already be being done.

[hiddensmoke]

mechs will never work

robots thats a long way off from now and it will be increasingly hard to program.

big tanks are needed to fight the open and overpower the enemy, while smaller lighter vehicles can hold a city.

[Nurizeko]

Or is a smaller, as in theGerman Wiesel the better way to go for tank development?

Who knew germans had such a sense of humour. :lol:

[Question]

Warlord titans > all.

There is definate signs the US military is going for a light vehicle to replace the abrams as its standard armoured vehicle.The general idea is heavy armor isnt needed if you can attack and withdraw before the enemy can hit you, and you can avoid scenarios that favour heavy MBTs.

Its debatable whether it will be effective enough though.

[Cable]

Size doesn't matter. It's how you use it.

Only people with... *shuts up* xD

Screw urban combat... air superiority FTW!

Seriously though... wouldn't it be a hell of a lot easier if say, the city / outspot you want is under siege, you set a up a decently sized battery of MRLS or other multiple rocket launch systems and batter the hell out of them [Read: Soften them up, dimish morale as well], then after a few weeks of bombardment and A-10's making mince-meant out of the place you just roll in with Bradley's and troops.

The only problems I can forsee with this is you might actually want to take and hold the city in which you don't really want to blow it to hell. That and there will undoubtably be survivors in the city so ambushes are likely... but then again if you didn't send any armoured vehicles in, just well armed troops with a couple of extra anti-tank weapons it shouldn't be that hard.

I'll let the professionals in the field tear this apart... I'm merely a fan of military-ness...

-Adam

[hiddensmoke]

well adam what you say sounds good on paper and aperantly on the net, but in fact a bombardment for months kills very little. the first minutes of a bombardment kill the most after the first minutes tho the enemy is hidden and is next to immpossible to kill. they tried month long bombardments in ww1 but they soon discovered it just told the enemy whrere they would attack, it just doesnt work to try and bomb them for months it just waste ammo and thus money.

[The_Assimilator]

Bombarding an urban settlement is pointless, because most such settlements that are worthy of bombardment (read: large settlements) almost invariably have some sort of reinforced underground structures (like railway stations). And besides, in war the objective is to strike as quickly as possible and capture as many resources as possible. Bombing/shelling the hell out of a city, while an excellent way to damage morale, is time-consuming and in the end, non-productive. Far better to strike fast and surprise the enemy, than try to bomb them to death.

Also, I don't see why people keep knocking 'Mechs. They're like tanks with built-in anti-air support. So far they might be mere science fiction, but as one great man put it: "What the human mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve".

Oh and BTW, the very famous British tank in WW2 was named the Sherman. No 'C' there.

[Question]

Erm wasnt the shermans the american tanks that had REALLY lousy armor?

[Starfisher]

Walking anime robots are infeasible for various physical reasons, and would be far more expensive than a tank for no gain in survivability. Probably a loss, really.

Tanks are not going to undergo any major revolutions in the near future. They're getting all sorts of tweaks designed to make them survive unconventional warfare, but they're aren't going to grow legs any time soon. Maybe if DARPA and the various other exoskeleton researches can solve the agility/power problems they've been plagued with, we'll see a true revolution in infantry tactics. But I'm not holding my breath.

[Cable]

Does anyone know why we havent seen the introduction of double-barrelled tank turrets? I'm sure having two 120mm cannons would be awesome... but then again, it should only take one shot to decimate a tank, so having two barrels really wouldn't make sense...

-Adam

[n0z3k1ll3r]

If it were that easy it would already be being done.Unfortunately no. Nonlethal gas is classed as an MDW of all things, being technically a chemical weapon...

UN really needs to edit that bit.

[Question]

Most modern vehicles have NBC equipment as standard as well.

Double barreled turrets are heavy and there is no point.If one shot doesnt penetrate the front armor of a tank 2 shots is not going to do unless they hit the exact same spot(or thereabouts).This isnt a case of damage vs hp.

[n0z3k1ll3r]

Multibarreled turrets are pointless on tanks. For the same weight you can get one much bigger gun. Multiple barrels only work on a scale where going much larger doesn't help compared to the number of shells put in the air (hence why battleships used them)

[Cable]

Ack, owned.

-Adam

[Akranadas]

Flame tanks are the way to go in urban warfare,

[Cmdr Fox Davion]

I like uban combat mecha, tanks are old skool, but we have of yet to build walking tanks in real life... so alas I keep dreaming.

[Cable]

I think the Geneva Convention might have something to say about that...

Flamethrowers can't decimate buildings though... besides, a lucky shot from a hardass with a .50 rifle and mr. flame tank and surrounding troops are gonna become barbequed..

-Adam

[Akranadas]

and so will be mr .50 rifle, and why would you send troops in with a flame tank?

[Cable]

I was thinking more along the lines of Mr .50 being a fair distance away...

As to anwser your question, you wouldn't send in a light armoured vehicle like the Bradley in on its own without troop support. Would you?

Infantry own the urban warfare combat scene... vehicles are far too cumbersome.

Sekkrit ninjas for teh_win!

-Adam

[Stealthlazer]

I don't think that tanks with big guns are better. What do big guns take out? Big vehicles. And if your enemy has no big vehicles? Umm....

However, small, agile tanks with effective anti-infantry guns are useful in any environment, urban, desert, tundra....

V. Useful. Then just hand your infantry an anti-vehicle weapon and sit back to watch the pretty explosions.

Or, even better make your infantry walking tanks. Yeah kinda termie-like though that'll be a while off. However, no reason that giving them some mechanized armour and a big gun and sending them to fight is a bad thing. No good for stealth, but if you need to clear out a city or fortress, they're a hell of a lot better than big tanks or light infantry.

[Cable]

However, small, agile tanks with effective anti-infantry guns are useful in any environment, urban, desert, tundra....

V. Useful. Then just hand your infantry an anti-vehicle weapon and sit back to watch the pretty explosions.

Those two statements contradict each other:

While your speeding in with your small agile anti-infantry vehicles whats to stop the enemy pulling out a LAW80 and blowing the shit out of you?

And big guns aren't just suited for blowing up big things. Take this simple analogy:

A Deagle, now thats a big, if cumbersome weapon. This baby will put a hole in your daddy 8 inches wide. They're made for big game sport like elk and bears... but they're pretty good at going through cars as well. And people, which are softer targets. Well, the car isn't but hey...

-Adam

[Stealthlazer]

Firstly let's make this clear. I am no military or gun freak. Therefore I have no idea what the LAW80 is.

However if it's some kind of anti tank weapon carried by infantry then well, it's a smal, extremely fast and agile tank that would have a decent chance of avoiding it.

On to the 'big gun'. Just cos it goes through a car does NOT mean it's going anywhere near through a tank. And what the hell, a simple rifle goes through a human easy as well. It's potential will have been wasted is what I mean.

[Rodimus]

Bigger is not better. Why not fight smarter, with technology when it's available to you? Why not take humans out of the equation on the battlefield (at least for forces advanced enough to do so) and install them in control centers. We've seen success with the predator and that it's a workable way to go. Also, it's much easier to protect the electronics in a drone than humans in a tank (even against the "over-hyped" EMP). I wouldn't be surprised if you see more remote-controlled rolling, floating, flying vehicles in the near future.

For those who say, "No people? Won't work in urban settings. Who's going to flush out buildings?" I say, for one, robotic motility is ever progressing, and you can have small robots that will clear buildings and that can send/receive from a larger mobile unit. And another, the Israelis, I hear, are developing a visualization technique that can see through the walls of buildings at up to 20 meters, something like ultra-radar. Now it will take a while to shrink and make this technology cost effective, but imagine a drone with this super-radar and 50 cal sniper rifle that can shoot through soft walls. Now imagine a battle group of these things sweeping the city in a creeping line through parallel streets until all insurgents are dead or have nowhere else to hide.

For the future engagements there would probably be a command station a few hundred miles away sending signals to some kind of receiver above the battle, like a mid altitude blimp or network of blimps, that would then relay commands and visuals between the drones and the command station. I could envision a treaded drone with a Dragon anti-tank weapon, an anti-personnel machine gun and a .50 BMG sniper rifle being a much more effective and versatile ground presence vehicle than an M1. These would be the forward punch and then hunker down for urban engagements, sending in attached drone units or doing a snipe and crawl. Scouting is done via flying units, of course, predator for long range, blimps for mid-range, and small flapping units (imagine a fly with a tiny camera attached that sends its signal to a receiver on the treaded drone) for short range/urban reconnaissance.

Only problem is, what happens when two forces of equal technological advancement come up against each other and all they fight with is drones. I say hold a big, expensive championship and give the winner a video card.

[ceejayoz]

Month long bombardments generally result in big civilian casualties and very few enemy casualties, too.

US military doctrine is evolving to hit fast, hit hard, get out fast, and it seems to be a good one in general.

[Paladin]

Large long range weapons are only useful in open ground.

[Grognan]

Powered armor (that can stand small arms) would be the end-all in close quarters urban warfare.
Mechanized units are more useful in a war against a nation where both sides have targets and location that they MUST defend. Same goes with artillery. That's the problem with trying to fight terrorism right now, they aren't defending an nation or wearing a uniform. Thus it becomes much more difficult to fight an enemy that doesn't abide by any rules or treaties.
However these drones look like the beginning of a new tactical doctrince concerning urban warfare.

[hiddensmoke]

yes drones would be good but getting one that can work out every situation like a human would take a while, plus sometimes u just need humans on the ground, a drone cant negoicate with people only take them out.

[deathwings]

Helicopters arent the way to go in urban warfare,take 50 guys,arm them with ak-47 rifles,RPG's and they will bring down/damage any helicopter that comes for them
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030325-apache01.htm (article about helicopters being vulnerable to ground fire)

[hiddensmoke]

yes thats true but a helicopter needs support from the ground as ground needs support from the heli.

[Gyokuran]

The role of a helicopter is not to need support from the ground, its to provide close air support for ground troops.

Rodimus: The achilles heel of remote control military units is that the transmission can be jammed or even hijacked. Would you want your entire tank brigade to suddenly no longer work? Would you like another country to crack the security systems and take control of them? Any robotic unit needs to be self sufficient, and technology wont be at that point for the foreseeable future.

[hiddensmoke]

yes thats all true but isnt it true that the ground needs to help support the heli by keeping rpg units away, thus keeping there air support alive with them.

[Hello_Moto]

OMG those german weasel tanks on the 1st page have an uncanny resemblance to the light tanks of the Green Earth Army of Advance Wars fame!!!!

[Moe]

An RPG is a rocket-propelled grenade (as the name indicates), i.e. an unguided antitank missile. A helo assault would be done during the night, with IR sensors, using Hellfires against SAM emplacements and then following up with small unguided rockets and chin turrets. Anyone standing around with an RPG would have no target to shoot at, and even if he did he would most likely miss the dodging helo, since the RPG lacks any form of guidance after launch.

[Benjamin]

I heard black guys have the bigger tanks

[deathwings]

At night,sure the rpg shooters would have nothing to shoot at,but they wouldnt show themselfs at night,they would stay indoors and let the gunships circle harmless over their heads
gunships cant level entire cities to kill 50 guys with ak's because of civilian casualties

And ofcourse,the SA-7 strella/grail isnt bothered by night. and there are quite a lot of them in insurgent hands

[Nurizeko]

Hypno cows with C4 tied to them, no weapon conceived on the earth can withstand their awsome awsomeness.