Canada's tanks

[KevinB]

Regardless of the number of tanks mobilized isn't likely that there will be more ground to cover than there are tanks to cover it? And that there will be open flanks?

Keep in mind that generally no Western Army acts alone.

The there are slightly more than 2000 NATO 4 Tank Troop/Platoons last time I looked at the numbers of Armor available (9,000 plus MBT's).

The Estonia, Lavia. Lithuania border with Russia and Belarus is approximately 1,000km
The Polish border with Belarus is ~310km
Then the FInland/Norwegian boarder with Russia is another ~1,400km - but most of that isn't tank country -

 

[PrairieFella]

Talk to the Taliban, the Viet Cong, heck, even the Ukrainians. They started out training with wooden rifles and preparing Molotov cocktails.

The Russians could bring more tanks to the fight than the Americans. And look where we are today.

Kuwait, half the size of Luhansk Oblast engaged two or three Corps and a bunch of air forces for
the best part of a year.

Russian tactics of driving in straight lines playing bumper tanks is why their tank attacks fail often. Penny packeting out tanks the soviet way also contributes to this as you cannot achieve the massing and shock action for successful attacks.

 

[Kirkhill]

Russian tactics of driving in straight lines playing bumper tanks is why their tank attacks fail often. Penny packeting out tanks the soviet way also contributes to this as you cannot achieve the massing and shock action for successful attacks.

You are both still arguing for concentration and concentration necessarily means focusing effort on one patch of land. This means that the rest of the land is uncovered.

It assumes that you can find and dominate the singular and unique schwerpunkt that will cause a house of cards to fall.

Dividing the world up into countries and assuming that political borders result in secure flanks works in a relatively stable political environment. It can even work in a campaign in a geographically proscribed theatre like NW Europe between June 6 1944 and May 8 1945 (11 months of engagement). Or Italy, July 9 1943 to May 2 1945, (21 months). Ukraine has already gone on for 45 months and over an area twice the size of Italy with a frontline 5 times the size.

You might be able to replicate the 1860 and 1900 attacks on Peking with a Baghdad style thunder run but I doubt you would get that far or that it would resolve any conflicts.

And I doubt if you would be able to replace the tanks lost in any time soon.

 

[PrairieFella]

You are both still arguing for concentration and concentration necessarily means focusing effort on one patch of land. This means that the rest of the land is uncovered.

It assumes that you can find and dominate the singular and unique schwerpunkt that will cause a house of cards to fall.

Dividing the world up into countries and assuming that political borders result in secure flanks works in a relatively stable political environment. It can even work in a campaign in a geographically proscribed theatre like NW Europe between June 6 1944 and May 8 1945 (11 months of engagement). Or Italy, July 9 1943 to May 2 1945, (21 months). Ukraine has already gone on for 45 months and over an area twice the size of Italy with a frontline 5 times the size.

You might be able to replicate the 1860 and 1900 attacks on Peking with a Baghdad style thunder run but I doubt you would get that far or that it would resolve any conflicts.

And I doubt if you would be able to replace the tanks lost in any time soon.

I dont think you understand the principles of armour and how its an force multiplier on the battlefield.

 

[Kirkhill]

Which battlefield? Which singular, in place and time, battlefield?

Why do you think we are being outflanked by hybrid warfare? By economic warfare? By political warfare? And by non-tank technologies?

Our enemies are not meeting us on the ground on which we want to be met. They are doing the other thing...whatever that may be.

Tanks have their place. Just as Hobart's Funnies had their place and left an enduring legacy. But in a dispersed, netted, multi-nodal environment you are going to find it increasingly difficult to find lynch-pin targets against which to concentrate.

I don't think the enemy is going to create useful targets by massing effectors or allow you the opportunity to mass your own.

Now, massing effects on targets of opportunity, that is likely to be something else again.

 

[FJAG]

. . . But in a dispersed, netted, multi-nodal environment you are going to find it increasingly difficult to find lynch-pin targets against which to concentrate.

I don't think the enemy is going to create useful targets by massing effectors or allow you the opportunity to mass your own.

I don't think that massing against a mass is the idea, anyway. The idea is to mass where they aren't; punch through; throw their lines of communications into chaos; and collapse their defence. I can't think of anything better than tanks and IFVs properly supported by fires and air defence for the job.

Now, massing effects on targets of opportunity, that is likely to be something else again.

I'm a great fan of massing effects on targets. Such effects, however, are, for the most part, transient. Even heavily degraded and neutralized targets regenerate and regain effectiveness if given enough time to heal.

 

[Kirkhill]

I don't think that massing against a mass is the idea, anyway. The idea is to mass where they aren't; punch through; throw their lines of communications into chaos; and collapse their defence. I can't think of anything better than tanks and IFVs properly supported by fires and air defence for the job.

I'm a great fan of massing effects on targets. Such effects, however, are, for the most part, transient. Even heavily degraded and neutralized targets regenerate and regain effectiveness if given enough time to heal.

I agree that the best force for breaching is a heavy force.

My problem is that nobody can afford to be heavy everywhere. Reagan bankrupted the Soviet Union by encoursging them to try. And the cumulative results of their efforts have been swept away in less than four years in Ukraine.

China has a fleet of 6800 tanks.
The US fleet is reported at around 4650.

In both cases around half are in reserve storage with some vintages predating the 1980s in China. In the US the oldest are Reagan era Abrams.

Russia has lost north of 4000 tanks in Ukraine and has emptied their warehouses.

How many more tank heavy campaigns are likely to be fought?

And even if the tanks are held as a rainy day fund isn't conflict likely to continue?

I know We/US/NATO would do things differently than the Russians and we may even had a better outcome. But given the increasing cost of armour and the decreasing cost of "arrows" I still think a plan is needed for all those places and times where tanks are not going to be available.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Plus new tank design will have to protect from all round threats and not mainly frontal aspect kinetic penetrators. Since anything over 55tons is getting problematic, it means less frontal armour. By ditching the loader you can reduced the armoured volume (allowing better armour distribution), but lose out on SA and increase task load. That might cancel out improvements in SA by cameras, etc.

 

[Kirkhill]

Plus new tank design will have to protect from all round threats and not mainly frontal aspect kinetic penetrators. Since anything over 55tons is getting problematic, it means less frontal armour. By ditching the loader you can reduced the armoured volume (allowing better armour distribution), but lose out on SA and increase task load. That might cancel out improvements in SA by cameras, etc.

Unless you start relying more on AI.
Let the weapons free when circumstances permit.
Net the troop tightly so that, for example, one person could manage the air battle, one the near battle, one the distant battle and one maintains SA on the rear and flanks.