For anyone interested in Tanks.

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M1 & MBT in General
The enemy's big metal boxes on the battlefield in the future will be nothing but big-a$$ targets for US to service, unless they can manage to pre-po them or move them without our observing them.

They will still be mighty handy for US, however. Most the boys getting killed in Iraq in vehicles are in either Hummers or LAV-25s, both of which are vulnerable to RPGs. The Bradleys & esp the Abrams have shown thier worth in protecting their crews from the multitude of RPGs in Iraq--note--in MOUT as well as open field. Heck, most armaments would have trouble dealing with an Abrams. A few vulnerable spots, but you gotta be both well-prepared and have a pot full of luck to pull it off. Bradleys are not as tough a target, but still much more stout than a Hummer or LAV-25.

Question: You have to go from point A to point B throught the Sunni Triangle during a hot period. What ground vehicle would you choose?

There are some items packable by infantry that can ruin an Abrams crew's day. Luckily, most of those we've fought have not been able to use them much or effectively.

Stryker
S-T-R-Y-K-E-R could be defined as a "Shinseki/UN patrol vehicle." Remember the old saying, "Don't bring a knife to a gun fight?" Don't bring a SBCT to a MTW or SASO where the locals are full of p*ss and vinegar.

If the SBCT is used like an armored/mech/armored cav unit vs another motorized unit, expect much carnage--on OUR part. It'll have to be used kinda like old-fashioned hobilar. A Civil War illustration that might be of use would be the way Buford used his cavalry, especially at Gettysburg. JEB Stuart used his cavalry in more the traditional fashion, as mounted attackers & such. Buford essentially had his cavalry act as scouts, and as fast-moving MOUNTED INFANTRY, who were able to move faster than leg infatry and could bring more firepower to the battle (SPencer Carbines & such).

SBCT, with its "Javelin for all infantrymen" (nearly) armament approach could pack a punch, given a decent defensive position, vs an attacking mech/tank/motortized enemy. Woe to the SBCT that stumbles into enemy mech infantry or tanks without proper preparation.

Being able to get a SBCT to the battlefield shortly after the Rangers, 82nd,101st, or 10th would be mighty handy and make it much more likely for the initial light forces to survive until those old, slow, "obsolete," but freakin' tough Abrams and Bradleys got on the scene and were able to hand enemy armor its a$$.

FCS/"New Tank"
It is not a "new tank" any more than tanks & APCs/IFVs & radios were "new horses." Think revolutionary, not evolutionary.
 
IIRC...Japan disarmed itself when it wrote it's constitution after WW2.
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You remember incorrectly. We wrote large parts of Japan's postwar constitution. We gave japanese women equal rights for instance. I believe the self-defense clause was ours as well.
 
And I'm with Jim, I want giant Gundam-style tanks from the Japanese.
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Dude, it's all about the Macross Valkyries. They change from robot and even have a Gerwalk mode.
 
Daniel-

Armor is the tanks reason for being. It protects the crew first and formost, the weapon system secondly. The tank was born of the stalemate of WWI. The tank allowed the crew to close in on enemy postions and reomove the enemy, with limited risk to the crew.

The tank is not just about armor though. It is a trade off of armor. mobility and firepower. Armor without mobility is a fort. Without firepower, a tank lacks usefulness as an offensive weapons system, which it was born to be.

Tanks operate best in awide open spaces, like desert & plains, where they can use fire and manuver against enmey forces. They become liabilitys in urban settings, where movement is confinded and the enemy can lay in wait to attack at close range.

When operating in the open, lets look at the Battle of 73 Easting, possabley the last major tank on tank battle. Eagle troop from the 2nd Squadron of the 2nd Armored Cav Regiment encouterd elements of an Iraqi Republican Guard Briagde on Feb 26 1991, during the last days of Dessert Storm. On that day, Eagle Troop consisted of 10-M1 Abrams tanks, 14-M3 CFV, 2-M106 4.2" mortar carriers, and 2-M577 command tracks. The out come of the battle 30 Iraqi T-72 tanks, 16 BMPs and 39 trucks destroyed, with no US casualties. The fight lasted all of 23 minutes.

In areas where movement is limited and contact distance is measured in meters not kilometers the tank has it's draw backs. The modren MBT is made to engage targets at range with it's main gun. That leaves machineguns to protect it at close range. What is needed for MOUT combat with a MBT, is protection for the MBT. This is almost always Infantry. The combined arms teams on the Briagde level have long been employed, but on the Company/Troop level only the Armored Cav have done so, deploying 2 Tank Platoons with 2 Scout Platoons. They even have thier own organic, be it mortars, Artillery. For the Mechanized Company or say a Combat Company you could put together 2 Tank Ptn and 2 Mech Ptn. That would then allow the Infantry to support the Armor and the Armor to support the Infantry. The idea is not new, but Armor and Infantry have historicly had problems thinking like the other.

The Abrams is getting bad press in Iraq. However I know of only one Abrams tank, which when hit, resulted in the lose of the entire crew. That tank most likely was hit by a ATM. The same weapon hitting a Bradley or M113 chasis would have had similar results. The failure of the Abrams is not by design, but from tactic used by our attacker to strike at the weakest points of any tank, the top and rear. After all the MBT is an offensive weapon, meant to fight going forward into battle. For most of the attacks in Iraq, the machine is wreaked. It can be repaired or salvaged for parts, but the crew survives.

The MBT can be defeated. So can anything on the battle field. Nothing else on the battle field has the survivablity, at least for the crew, as the tank. The fact that this thread start with new tank designs means the tank is not going away anytime soon. The best weapon the Army curently fields to stop a tank, is a tank.
 
Can you say RPG-8? Thats what there using in limited numbers today to zap our M1's. The reactive armor is defeated by the double shape charge carried by the new anti tank RPG 8.
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Can you say, you don't know what you are talking about? ;)

As has been noted, modern MBTs like the M1A2, Leclerc, and Leopard 2 don't have reactive armor. They don't need it, because explosive warheads are just about utterly useless against the Chobham armors (actually, their armor packages are about 2 or 3 generations more advanced than the original Chobham the Brits came up with) that they are equipped with. Staged warheads are no good against it, either; they only help defeat reactive armor.

No RPG can do jack squat against an M1-series tank, no matter how new or cool the RPG is, unless you hit an area that doesn't have significant armor like the roof or exhaust, and ALL tanks are vulnerable in those areas. And last I checked, contrary to rumors no man-portable missile systems are any good against them, either, except for the noted areas with relatively lighter armor.

All tanks for as long as tanks have been made had vulnerable areas that could be penetrated. At the present time, even with advances in anti-tank weapons, the M1 series is the closest to invulnerable a tank has ever been in the history of armored warfare.
 
China is the nation with some scary tanks:
http://www.madogre.com/Interviews/china_Tanks.htm
The Type 98:
China_tank1.JPG

China_tanks2.JPG
 
I was doing some reading, this article was about nuclear weapons and such. The article talked about the various kinds of nuclear weapons and in the part where it talks about neutron bombs, is said that neutron bombs are really made to kill via radiation against armored targets, of which tanks are.

But, in the case of the M1Abrams, with depleted uranium armor, the uranium itself can undergo fast fission with the neutrons given off by the neutron bomb. Doesn't make for a good armor against a neutron bomb. :(

Here is the FAQ
 
Tank against helicopter... bad prescription for the tank.

I think there have been multiple deaths of crew in tanks. The one that stuck in my head was when an M1A Abrams tank fell into a river, and the crew drowned! :(
 
How could they drown? I thought the ventilation system was a closed system?:confused:


Anyway, the M1A2 is susceptible to an RPG, supposing that one could pursuade the RPG gods to guide the fairly inaccurate RPG to the tracks of the tank. But, it is dependent upon those RPG gods, and I hear that they arent too reliable.;)
 
 
Tanks are blind. what they can see is usually very far away.

The close strike team is the largest threat to an MBT which is why they suck in urban environments.

The best solution to the MBT security problem is the Merkava MK IV.

Carry a squad of infantry with each unit and the command track has a Mortar team too.
 
"Can you say, you don't know what you are talking about?" Mr smith please read the article posted by Frohickey on this subject. I don't know much about tanks but I am a rocket Scientist:D Ya know ever since the first guy threw a rock at another, the arms race has been in full swing. One side is always going to find something to out do the other. It had to happen sooner or later. I was in basic @ Ft. Knox when the M1's were being tested, so they've been around at least 20 years.
 
sean, before insulting people, look at those pictures, then come back and tell people that we don't know what we are talking about....



Unless of course you happen to have inside knowledge....
 
"Tanks are blind...which is why they suck in urban environments."
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"Suck" is a relative term. If you mean, "not as effective as in open & rolling terrain but still the best protected vehicle in the urban environment & able to use 12.7mm & 120mm to effect" you would be entirely correct. Got to use them wisely, however. Tank+Infantry+Arty/Mortars are more effective when used in concert than by themselves.

Most newer MBTs coming on line have fwd & rear WFOV driver optics/video/I2/FLIR. The Marines have the DVE (Driver's Viewer Enhancer) which is a FLIR that allows Abrams to keep on rolling, even in weather that allows only a few feet of vision with eyes or I2. Why do you think the Marines went farther/faster on the way to Baghdad? All their combat vehicles had a DVE. Made the Army boys a teensy irate to have to wait in the bad weather while the jarheads made progress. The Army is considering fitting out the Abrams with front/rear DVEs in light of lessons learned and bruised pride. Anyway, fwd/rear driver FLIRs ought to increase survivability in MOUT.

RPG8
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Frankly, I doubt the Russians have developed an RPG-type weapon capable of doing what is pictured in the provoded link. The Russians have an array of heavy ATGMs that might be of use vs an Abrams. The liklihood that one of Russia's latest ATGMs go to Iraq is good. The liklihood that a western ATGM got to Iraq is also good.

I fear those who have declared the tank dead & obsolete are mistaken in their analysis. The main problem is to get it where it is needed in time to be of use.
 
The concept of an airmobile light tank is sound, but the Stryker's a billion-dollar piece of toilet paper:

(1) The Strkyer is not transportable via C-130 except on paper. Only paper-pushers think you can actually fit a 107-inch wide vehicle into a 112-inch wide cargo bay. During the Army's own demonstrations, they had to remove two smoke grenade launchers, all antennas, a left rear bracket that blocked egress over the top of the vehicle, the Remote Weapons System and the third-row wheel's bump-stop in order to fit a prototype Stryker into a C-130; reassembly took seventeen minutes. Furthermore, a basic Stryker weighs 38,000 pounds empty, while the heavy-weapons variants weigh as much as 41,000 pounds empty. This is so close to the C-130's maximum cargo rating of 45,000 pounds that you cannot carry the crew and ammunition along with the vehicle, and the C-130 cannot land on unimproved fields with that heavy a load.

(2) The Stryker i transportable by C-17, but what's the point? A C-17 can carry two fully assembled, combat-loaded Strykers plus crew...but it can also carry three fully assembled, combat loaded Bradleys or even a fully assembled, combat loaded Abrams.

(3) The Stryker's protection is pathetic to the point of worthlessness -- it's only rated for 7.62x39mm rifle fire. That's right, folks, anything more powerful than your bog-standard AK-47 will punch holes in the Army's newest "armored" vehicle. Add-on applique armor upgrades the protection level to 14.5mm heavy machine gun fire (still dies horribly against any form of RPG or rifle grenade), but makes the Stryker too fat and heavy to fit on a C-130 even on paper. They're working on that, to the tune of a few million dollars for the armor project alone.

(4) They couldn't fit the existing 105mm smoothbore cannon from the M-60 and M-1 on the heavy-weapons Stryker as originally intended, so they're developing a new one instead...a new one that can't use any existing 105mm rounds.
 
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