Anti-Tank Platoon or Anti-Tank Battery? - 24 Vertical Launch JAGMs on a WAPC

[Kirkhill]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1966973914304966875

JAGM has a 16 km range, is fire and forget with a MMW seeker and a warhead effective against tanks, aircraft, ships and structures......

Who wants it?

 

[Kirkhill]

A companion piece, also from Rheinmetall: the Skyknight from the UAE's Halcon.

A 35 kg missile (about half the weight of a Sidewinder and twice that of the Mistral, RBS-70 and Starstreak. It has a range of 10 km.

It is vertically launched from a sea can with an ISO-20 holding 60 in ready to launch attitude. It can launch individual missiles, groups, ripples or a single salvo.

Skyknight (missile) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Kirkhill]

Consider a tactical package with a single sensor vehicle, a Skyknight vehicle and a pair of JAGM/Brimstone vehicles, perhaps a command vehicle, a security det vehicle and a rover, all sporting C-UAS RWS systems for local defence. All mounted on wheeled APC/PMV.

1x 19 km radar
48x 16 km SSMs
60x 10 km SAMs

7 vehicles
~ 22 personnel

Add in the requisite sUAS systems.

I suggest that for the navy such a grouping would be a light coast patrol vessel employed to control the littoral when backed by heavier forces.

I also suggest that a hundred such groups would deny a lot of terrain to incursive forces. I further suggest that even with lots of artillery the assaulting force would have great difficulty in disrupting all the roads in the network over which such a force would travel.

Keep your tracks for the schwerpunkt.

And for those places where there are no roads (and by amazing coincidence, no people).

....

PS a C-UAS RWS would have a 30mm M230LF. The unit would have 7 of them for all aspect point/local defence.

 

[HavokFour]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1966973914304966875

JAGM has a 16 km range, is fire and forget with a MMW seeker and a warhead effective against tanks, aircraft, ships and structures......

Who wants it?

Been slowly reading up on it, such a fascinating evolution of the tank destroyer. Pair it with drones for spotting and targeting and it may prove to be an absolute menace to anything it faces on the battlefield.

 

[Furniture]

Been slowly reading up on it, such a fascinating evolution of the tank destroyer. Pair it with drones for spotting and targeting and it may prove to be an absolute menace to anything it faces on the battlefield.

It reminds me of a BattleTech SRM launcher.


It's cool to see MechWarrior/BattleTech getting closer to reality.

 

[Underway]

It reminds me of a BattleTech SRM launcher.
View attachment 95776

It's cool to see MechWarrior/BattleTech getting closer to reality.

China's looks cooler. This is their anti drone system.

 

[IKnowNothing]

Who wants it?

I'm just an idiot civilian, but too me that's determined by dispersion and doctrine. My thinking, in laymans terms:


Assuming a 90 degree arc of responsibility, your single vehicle can provide coverage for 22.6km of front.
Assuming you want it to be able to hit targets at some sort of standoff distance in front of the supported troops (let's say 4k) across the entire arc, step that in and you've got your supported troops with frontage of 17km.

To my uninformed sense that seems like an arty weapon held at Bde at minimum.


I don't agree that the launchers themselves would be able to deny territory. But could a battery (or even a detachment)go a long way to helping a LAV + Medium Cavalry Capability equipped CMBG be able to be more effective in a widely dispersed screen/guard?

 

[Kirkhill]

I'm just an idiot civilian, but too me that's determined by dispersion and doctrine. My thinking, in laymans terms:


Assuming a 90 degree arc of responsibility, your single vehicle can provide coverage for 22.6km of front.
Assuming you want it to be able to hit targets at some sort of standoff distance in front of the supported troops (let's say 4k) across the entire arc, step that in and you've got your supported troops with frontage of 17km.

To my uninformed sense that seems like an arty weapon held at Bde at minimum.


I don't agree that the launchers themselves would be able to deny territory. But could a battery (or even a detachment)go a long way to helping a LAV + Medium Cavalry Capability equipped CMBG be able to be more effective in a widely dispersed screen/guard?

I think you and I are heading the same place.

I could see a roaming package, such as that I described, and one of many, keeping the opposing force at bay, both on the ground and in the air, screening in other words, and assist in creating the space for battalions and brigades to manoeuvre.

So a Div Commander's direct command of the Regiment.

...

WRT denying territory....if you box the enemy into a kill zone does that not deny it that territory?

 

[Colin Parkinson]

A new version of the US Tank Destroyer battalion doctrine.

 

[KevinB]

All very vulnerable to enemy artillery.

A new version of the US Tank Destroyer battalion doctrine.

Those went away for a reason…

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Boiled down, the doctrine was massed fires onto the armoured thrust. This basically replicates that using a smaller formation.

 

[Kirkhill]

All very vulnerable to enemy artillery.


Those went away for a reason…

The old tank destroyers used to use tank guns to engage tanks with similar guns, The only means they had available to create a tactical advantage was to create a local mass by means of deception, camouflage and masking terrain. Ultimately though they had to congregate, to concentrate, and as soon as they engaged they were unmasked and became as vulnerable as any other artillery unit.

These modern systems outrange their targets by factors of 5 or so. They can simultaneously launch a single stonk equivalent to a battery firing four rounds. They can fire from dispersed positions. They are constantly on the move. They can launch attacks from multiple vectors either simultaneously or in staggered sequence. They can engage in depth and respond to the covering fire.

Then is not now.

 

[FJAG]

Those went away for a reason…

Yes. The armored officers that run the armoured corps didn't like the fact that tank destroyers had a higher kill ratio.

The M18 was the most effective U.S. tank destroyer of World War II. It had a higher kill-to-loss ratio than any other tank or tank destroyer fielded by U.S. forces in World War II.

Post-war Army historians roundly lashed them for these shortcomings. Yet here’s the funny thing. Operational records show that the tank-destroyers actually rocked.

Active, self-propelled tank-destroyer battalions were judged to have killed 34 tanks each on average, and about half as many guns and pillboxes. Some units, such as the 601st, reported more than 100 enemy tanks destroyed. This led to an average kill ratio of two or three enemy tanks destroyed for every tank-destroyer lost.

The ultra-lightly-armored M18, with its unexceptional gun, had the best ratio of kills to losses for any vehicle type in the Army!

Why? Ultimately, it may come down to how tank-destroyers were employed, even though it was not the manner intended by Army strategists. While Sherman tank units sometimes embarked on risky assaults and unsupported rapid advances, tank-destroyers usually deployed in support of combined arms task forces with infantry.

This cooperation with friendly forces meant they showed just where they needed to be, spotted the enemy first and got off the first shot. And being the first to shoot usually determined the outcome of armored engagements in World War II, regardless of the quality of the vehicles involved. the-u-s-armys-tank-destroyers-weren-t-the-failure-history-has-made-them-out-to-be

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The US rightly determined that the success of the Panzer divisions was mass, maneuver and coordinated fire. Facing them would be dug in infantry with AT guns dispersed across the front. If enough mass hit one point of the line, it would quickly overwhelm the defenders meagre AT capability at that point.
The TD battalions was their solution to the problem, the UK never went that way, but did mass AT guns at key points, freeing up their tanks to counter with movement.

I see the system @Kirkhill posted as the modern equivalent of massed AT firepower that can move quickly to counter a armoured thrust and is not tied to any one point in the frontline.

 

[KevinB]

The US rightly determined that the success of the Panzer divisions was mass, maneuver and coordinated fire. Facing them would be dug in infantry with AT guns dispersed across the front. If enough mass hit one point of the line, it would quickly overwhelm the defenders meagre AT capability at that point.
The TD battalions was their solution to the problem, the UK never went that way, but did mass AT guns at key points, freeing up their tanks to counter with movement.

I see the system @Kirkhill posted as the modern equivalent of massed AT firepower that can move quickly to counter a armoured thrust and is not tied to any one point in the frontline.

ATGM's have better warheads and ranges. The Modern AT Gun is a missile, be it man pack, or mounted.

The old tank destroyers used to use tank guns to engage tanks with similar guns, The only means they had available to create a tactical advantage was to create a local mass by means of deception, camouflage and masking terrain. Ultimately though they had to congregate, to concentrate, and as soon as they engaged they were unmasked and became as vulnerable as any other artillery unit.

These modern systems outrange their targets by factors of 5 or so. They can simultaneously launch a single stonk equivalent to a battery firing four rounds. They can fire from dispersed positions. They are constantly on the move. They can launch attacks from multiple vectors either simultaneously or in staggered sequence. They can engage in depth and respond to the covering fire.

Then is not now.

Except unless you have sensor overmatch and an ability to mask your own forces - you need some degree of armor and protection systems - or significant stand off from the enemy detection range.

We live in a world of space based real time video and targeting, as well as various ISR and Strike capabilities using fibre optic line, unless you have counter satellite capabilities to blind or otherwise nullify those, and the FO systems , you can't bet on being able to outrange the enemy, nor stealth.

 

[FJAG]

the UK never went that way, but did mass AT guns at key points, freeing up their tanks to counter with movement.

Canadian anti-tank regiments during WW2 went TD from time-to-time. 6 and 7 AT Regt RCA (which were the corps AT regiments) were at times in TDs.

Interestingly at the start of WW2, Canada had 0 AT batteries. By the end of WW2, Canada had 7 AT regts (28 AT batteries) with one in each division and one additional with each corps in Europe alone. By 1959 the army was back to 0 AT batteries (OTOH, we had 15 AD regt's (9 medium, 6 light))

Sometimes its sad to see the cycles. They speak volumes.

 

[Kirkhill]

ATGM's have better warheads and ranges. The Modern AT Gun is a missile, be it man pack, or mounted.


Except unless you have sensor overmatch and an ability to mask your own forces - you need some degree of armor and protection systems - or significant stand off from the enemy detection range.

We live in a world of space based real time video and targeting, as well as various ISR and Strike capabilities using fibre optic line, unless you have counter satellite capabilities to blind or otherwise nullify those, and the FO systems , you can't bet on being able to outrange the enemy, nor stealth.

You can't bet on being able to pile on enough armour plate either.

Everything is a gamble.

You like to talk about onions and layers.

Everything is a matter reducing the odds along with some skill and some insight.

The Ukrainians didn't survive 4 years by having more of the best kit.

And your mob can't take the credit you like to take given the on and off support of both administrations.

There is a lot of made luck.

 

[Kirkhill]

DSEI 2025: Rheinmetall and Lockheed Martin present Fuchs JAGM tank destroyer

Rheinmetall and Lockheed Martin presented the Fuchs JAGM tank destroyer at the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) 2025 exhibition held in London from 9...

www.janes.com

Further to...

Extensive target set in the article.

 

[ueo]

All very vulnerable to enemy artillery.


Those went away for a reason…

Which was?

 

[KevinB]

Yes. The armored officers that run the armoured corps didn't like the fact that tank destroyers had a higher kill ratio.

I'd suggest part of that is that Tank Destroyers were used more defensively - where their armor wasn't exposure like it would have been on the assault. The second part was the M-18 Hellcat had a 76mm gun, which is hardly a slouch when the vast majority of Shermans still had the 75mm, and so the Hellcat could engage German late war tanks like the Tiger and Panthers and get frontal penetration, while the 75mm Shermans where forced to get flank or rear shots to penetrate. When the Shermans got the 76mm there was little advantage to the M-18, other than greater mobility (which the supporting units could not keep up with).

You can't bet on being able to pile on enough armour plate either.

I would agree with that, but my main issue with the Fuchs setup is that it is simply a 1980's German Recce vehicle made larger and more awkward. I've seen wheeled vehicles struggle immensely operationally that I believe that tracked systems are the best option for combat mobility.

Everything is a gamble.

But you don't put money on losing odds.

You like to talk about onions and layers.

Everything is a matter reducing the odds along with some skill and some insight.

100%, which is why I see this being a much better option in a tracked family - like a AMPV.

The Ukrainians didn't survive 4 years by having more of the best kit.

And your mob can't take the credit you like to take given the on and off support of both administrations.

There is a lot of made luck.

Skill makes it's own luck
You cannot count on the enemy being utter incompetent, so your force structures should be sound.
It isn't that I disagree with the concept, but the base vehicle I have a lot of issue with.

Which was?

The TD generally had a better gun than the tanks of the same era. The M-18 was a Sherman chassis with less armor, chosing firepower and mobility over protection on the armored pyramid. When the greater mobility wasn't able to be used, and the Medium tank had the same firepower, it made sense to opt for protection.