Good video. However, whilst you do acknowledge that there is a doctrinal reason why tanks are going to stay around, I feel you hand-wave away just how important that doctrinal reason is, and even the economic viability of an expensive, survivable system capable of dealing much greater death and destruction much faster, and in both offense and defense. I sense a response video coming on my channel next week to give that tanker's perspective. Not necessarily to counter anything you said, I disagree with little, but to provide that little extra food for thought to re-balance things.
Please don't take it as a handwave, just deference on the point to those who can speak more confidently on it. As I see it, Army argues this is something they need in order to do a job, the spreadsheet warriors then get on with making sure industry and budget can deliver that (or as close to that as reasonably possible), preferably without blowing out the budget. I like to think that civie analysts can take it as far as "hey guys, do these numbers and indicators give you pause? Are we on the right track here?" But they can't go as far as saying "trash your armour, and no, we have no idea what you should do instead, deal with it". I can confidently, intellectually get as far as "smacking around poorly utilised legacy systems is easier than ever" but I can't get to "so this is a better system for supporting the infantry, do this instead." So please take it not so much as a handwave so much as an active invitation for input.
Fair enough. Out of interest, are you familiar with "DOTMLPF"? (Or whatever the Aussie equivalent is?) (Edit. Turns out the closest Aussie equivalent is "Fundamental Inputs to Capability")
@@swj719 How did you find out about that? Rule 1 of Department of Transportation My Little Pony Fans is that you don't talk about Department of Transportation My Little Pony Fans....
@@TheChieftainsHatch While I think everyone tends to use their own acronyms, the core ideas are reasonably transferable (or at least I'd hope so). As a sidenote, your talk on US WWII AFV development at the New York Military Affairs Symposium back in 2017 has to be one of my most watched YT videos, as are the recent series on doctrinal development. Thanks for everything you do. Edit: DOTMLPF is a lot less of a mouthful than whatever you'd end up with if you tried to make something out of "Organisation, Command & Management, Personnel, Collective Training, Major Systems, Facilities and Training Areas, Supplies, Support, and Industries."
Based on your video view counts, the internet likes your military analysis more than game commentary. I've only seen your Ukraine videos and they're good enough that I'd expect you to blow up if you stick with it. You're one of the best I watch, more thorough than any others.
I mean, porque no los dos? If he enjoys the video game content he should do both so that he can do a mix. Really enjoy the military videos though so would def be happy if he continues
@@Shadow25720 LOL what power of Russian logistics? They can't manufacture any of the parts they need. They're desperately trying to buy night vision sensors from France. They can't get any semiconductor chips for the electronics. Nobody will sell them anything. Their economy is in tatters and they're bogged down and losing in an ill-advised war of their own making where they've lost 30% of the forces they committed and have been forced to pull troops protecting their borders to desperately try and reinforce. In 2 or 3 years there won't be a Russia left to receive the T-14s at this rate. What a joke.
Finally, someone actually using logic when publicly talking about modern warfare. I like that you present the ambiguity and shades of gray that are missing in most outlets that claim either side of an argument as if there's no doubt or conditions
When I was in the army 35 years ago, we referred to the armored personnel carriers as "group coffins". Knowing what I did about the anti-tank weapons that we had, even back then, I was terrified with the prospect of being inside of one. We had 81mm rockets that could make a roast dinner out of the occupants of these vehicles. I assumed an enemy would have something similar.
I see this issue in the very same way. Missile-armed infantry is more agile and effective than tanks and from the number of tanks being destroyed in Ukraine these days, this is clearly the case. Tanks are basically just mobile artillery these days and their time in military history is ending, thanks to light, portable, and relatively inexpensive shoulder-launched anti-armor missiles. It has been said that all wars are economic in nature. If so, then much lower cost but effective weapons will dominate the battlefields now and even more so in the future.
You can buy 150 javelin for the price of 1 main battle tank ( us, fr , german or uk)... with a miss rate of 50% you can roast 75 tanks. What MBT can hope to destroy 75 armor before dying ?
Drones are even cheaper than ATGM's and require little training to operate. There will b a role for some sort of armored mobile artillery for the foreseeable future but MBT's r expensive to produce, to train, to fuel and to maintain. Seems the cost-benefit ratio just isn't there. Probably why the USMC doesn't field them anymore.
Sincere compliments on this comprehensive and balanced video! As a once ATGW operator (armored infantry) who used to operate in close coordination with MBTs and a military analyst later on, you have taken into account most relevant factors. One small factor I'd like to highlight here that is somewhat overlooked is the apparent absence of Russian (armored) recce in their - obviously failing - combined arms approach. Most western forces that deploy MBTs have recce forces scan ahead for possible threats that use long range/high resolution sensors and which cooperate closely with artillery, air support and infantry. Their data usually contributes to how tanks, infantry and fire/air support is deployed ahead of contact with enemy forces. Today (armored) recce forces also deploy drones and deploy dismounted troops to scan for hostile infantry and sometimes can operate as or with Joint Terminal Air Controllers (JTAC) or Fire Support Teams (FST) to coordinate fire control. All of that seems lacking in the Russian approach. And that tells more than anything else I suppose that the Russian ground forces are ill prepared for whatever engagement they end up in. The mud for example seems to have them surprised completely, when most recce troops could have conveyed information on the terrain conditions well in advance. This all shows one thing more than anything else to me. The Russian military leadership is there only to satisfy the need for the Kremlin to have obedient subordinates, not effective ones.
I have heard reports that the Russian Air Units are afraid of and do not trust their own ADA! And that Ground/Air Communication is almost nonexistent .....
@@swj719 True. But then deconfliction (which units are exactly where?) becomes of paramount importance. Another aspect that the Russian forces seem to have no clue of. Having said that, deconfliction - even with the best procedures and training in place - is a b@tch regardless during actual combat. Fratricide sadly occurs to often.
I believe that tanks will always have a place on the battlefield. The problem with Russia is that they keep playing rock-paper-scissors and always select rock. ATGMs are vulnerable to infantry and quick responding mortars. A column of tanks driving down the road into enemy territory without infantry or scouting elements has almost always been a bad idea.
@@spencerstevens2175 And this is why we see countries like the USA have such success with tanks. The US has exceptional combined arms doctrine and has air supremacy as a primary goal in any fight. Which allows ground attack assets to be in the air over the armor on overwatch duties. As well as good infantry dismount tactics from APCs and IFVs. But that requires extensive logistics capacity suited to global power projection, I don't think Russia has that full logistics integration into all methods of power projection.
Great video! My two cents worth (as an ex-mechanized infantry soldier) is the critical role of the environment. As you mentioned, built-up areas are no-go zones for tanks, even with infantry support. The infantry will just spend most of their effort in protecting the enticing target that is the tank, while the tank is not able to offer much value in return. Tanks do better in open country and fighting at longer ranges. In short, tanks belong in the countryside and not in the city. Unfortunately for the Russians, the Ukrainian countryside is also proving inhospitable to their tanks, and a major underestimated factor is the mud. From first-hand experience I can tell you that operating in heavy sticky mud is a nightmare for armored vehicles. I've trained in those conditions and had days when I spent two hours actually training and ten hours extracting vehicles from mud. Look at the sheer numbers of abandoned Russian tanks that were captured by the Ukrainians. Yes, some of the Russian crews abandoned their vehicles because of mechanical breakdowns and lack of fuel, but I would bet that simply getting stuck in mud is also a major reason. The mud is also acting as an area denial weapon to the Russian armor, much like a minefield would. The mud forces the Russian vehicles to use the roads, which makes them much easier targets for Ukrainian hit-and-run ambushes. Almost every video I've seen of Russian tanks getting destroyed had the tanks on a road, not spread out in an open field. I cannot over-emphasize how important this factor is. Ambushing a tank driving across a wide-open countryside is far more difficult that ambushing one that you know has to come down a certain road. One of the lessons drilled into mechanized infantry is to avoid roads whenever possible. Always travel unpredictably across open country if you can. My prediction is that if this conflict continues for long enough for the ground to dry up, then the Russian tanks will perform better (assuming there are any left by then). The tanks will become much more difficult to take out once they can travel cross-country rather than use roads.
What would be the point of using the tanks in the countryside though? Ukraine won't engage them with their own tanks, it would be suicide and they can just continue to use drones and rocket launchers. They can move them more safely perhaps but they can't use them to project power into dense urban areas. Am I wrong or is even using tanks in this type of war just not useful?
@@branteus In this scenario you would use the tanks to dominate the countryside and encircle the cities. Tanks would also be needed for taking out enemy armor and fortified positions in the countryside. The actual city fighting would be done with dismounted infantry backed by their own mechanized vehicles and artillery support from batteries a safe distance outside the city. The tanks would definitely still be needed for this kind of war.
@@branteus Tanks can engage from miles away. Antitank weapons that can be carried by a person/pair have ranges of ~1/4 mile. Drones change things, definitely, but they aren't everywhere. It would also force the Ukrainians to defend against armor from all sides instead of just down major highways.
I think "Assuming there are any left" is going to be the key factor, not just for the tanks but for supply and personnel. Battle groups are effectively useless offensively with as little as 10% casualties and while proposed rates are impossible to verify I suspect the logistical train is approaching something like 25% and passable roads evaporate with each ambush and IED. It will be at least late May before the north is not boggy enough to neutralize tanks but even in the south where ground is better tanks are still taking losses. Of course the other issues still cripple the offensive; morale, training, equipment, money, etc. etc. If you can't even issue your troops effective nav equipment they will be hopeless at fighting an offensive war.
@@marcusmoonstein242 But wouldn't these tanks need supply convoys (that I assume would not have the same off road capabilities of tanks, and thus could be easily targeted) to refuel and rearm?
I think the way to frame it is "tanks are in need of a recontextualization". The B-52's original role no longer exists, and they'd last about 30 seconds in that role, but they're very effective at lobbing large numbers of standoff weapons. Something similar will have to happen with the MBT. My personal take is that situational awareness will be the main future thrust. Having drone feeds data linked into tanks could prevent a large number of these sorts of attacks while giving them a huge advantage in tank on tank fighting.
Definitely. Ignoring the mud Ukraine should be the absolute perfect situation for tanks to take over the battlefield just like it did in the same area in WW2. Even in their ideal infantry support role now, what advantage does it have over a heavily equipped IFV? Better armour that still gets shredded anyway. Tanks need to justify their expense, surely, armies don't want to just get rid of them like Belgium did so they need to integrate with increasingly relevant aspects like electronic warfare better than they currently do. The problem is if they just negate other tanks, everything else is doing that already.
@@Spaced92 Heavy IFVs generally have lower caliber guns and a shorter firing range compared to a heavy MBT. They are also less capable of negotiating difficult terrain compared to a modern MBT. And heavy armor still does count against most weapons that doesn't impact perfectly on the turret or side of the tank. But an IFV will bring supporting infantry, which is crucial for the survival of the tank in forests, as well as urban and hilly terrain.
When my father was tankist in Czechoslovak army in 80s, they believed that tanks are outdated already in that time. They were learning that if they see radar of Apache heli over trees, they should leave tank and run as far as possible because they can't do anything with that. 🙂 We are small nation and surviving of crew is priority, but on other hand, due to political situation, we had to use soviet tanks which really didn't (and still don't) guarantee you that you survive, there was enough tanks, but not enough experienced crews, so just leave the tank was not a big deal I guess. I think this was unofficial strategy, my father said that there were 2 types of military leaders - type 1 was commie who knew nothing about military but he was good member of party, and second was real military leader who didn't care about politics much, these 2 types of officers were very often in conflict and were saying things which are going directly against each other. 🙂 Type one was saying propagandistic shits about how they are the best and immortal and second type told you that you will survive 5 minutes in tank battle, that was really positive motivation. 🙂
@@epicurusurist9017 When my father was ending military service, they were retraining him to medic reservist, because it was time when they lowered amount of tanks and they didn't need him later. He was really glad that he didn't have to enter that steel coffin called T-55A again. We had thousands of tanks during communism time, can you imagine it for such a small country? Now we have 30 operable modernised tanks and another 100 outdated T-72 and few others conserved, it's ridiculous imagination that we had like 5000 tanks back in the day. 🙂
5 minutes? The political military leader won't last 5 seconds in a real firefight against actually experienced and trained veterans. Also another aspect to look at. Putin was trained as a spy, and agent, not an elite soldier who can take on a battalion of enemy soldiers.
Ondrej... People just love "bling". (I do myself, in my backpack...) ...Even if it is on the opposite side: The last time I was at a normal Home Guard exercise, I had to listen to to how stupid it was to guard a stationary object. "Because the Russians woul 'just' send in a cruise missile!" -- A cruise missile flying 2000 km ...or across Sweden ...or from a submarine??? For a target that was vulnerable to any caffe latte drinking political hothead with a cheap hammer? --- People are just blinded by "bling" sometimes.
@@MultiZirkon People here believed that both sides will nuke us in case of war NATO vs Warsaw Pact. 🙂 That's why Soviets needed sattelite states, they needed bumper zone and keep nuclear wasteland far from their land.
I’ve never seen your gaming videos, but I’ve gotten addicted to these analyses. You have a fresh perspective on the pre-conflict logistics and supply chain issues that I’ve seen very little of in other content that covers this war, and you explain it incredibly well. Which is crazy because these are essentially “just” recorded PowerPoint decks - no fancy graphics, no music, no animations. It just goes to show you how the quality of the content itself can drive interest compared to slick production values. I don’t know if you would ever be interested in doing these types of analyses for past conflicts, but I bet you would get a lot of interest in them. One of my favorite aspects of American Civil War history is understanding how Ulysses Grant‘s expertise as a quartermaster played directly into his successful strategies against Confederate forces. I’d love to see your take on historical conflicts.
@@AR-GuidesAndMore - The interesting bit is that the presentation of @PerunAu is so clear and structured that those great visuals aren't necessary. I'm regularly listening to Perun videos as podcasts while driving or working, because they are such great enterteachment. There's something so nice about the Perun format that I think it could reach out enormously into mainstream if it was used for other topics.
What about how they thought they wouldn’t need long Johns and gloves for fighting in the freezing cold? Or I guess they didn’t bring winter gear because they weren’t expecting a fight
It's not that they don't have logistics, they do (though at times it looks like it is dated to ca. 1943). It's that they rely upon their rail network for logistics. they have a force of 20k troops just devoted to operating and defending this network. It is a very efficient system if they are invaded, whereby they can easily rush supplies and equipment to a hub and defend that land not far from the hub. The whole system breaks down when they try to project their power. The rail hubs end at their borders. As a result they have difficulties projecting power much beyond the 150km mark from their nearest rail hub. Of course, they also operate on the push model of logistics. This means that the supplies that troops get are known ahead of time, but that also results in logistic driving strategy. They prioritize missiles and ammo over fuel and food. It is obvious how that kind of system will easily breakdown in an offensive invasion but Russia hasn't needed to do large scale offensive wars in a long time.
@Alpha_Wave That is very true. They don't have massive dedicated LHA/LHDs, they don't have a large number of oversea bases that can refuel their fleet. This means that they can't establish a fleet train. And that means that they don't think about projecting logistics, only dumping logistics.
Another note. The premise that ‘old cheap tanks’ can flip the economics on using Javeline is laughable, because old tanks are very vulnerable to the old trusty RPG-7. There is a reason nobody uses these old tanks anymore except in very poor third world countries. Heck, even modern tanks are vulnerable to RPG rockets. In Ukraine for example they target tank tracks with RPGs. Yes, it requires good hit, but a tank with broken tracks becomes very vulnerable and often abandoned by crew.
Let us also consider the fact that russia doesn't defend its tanks with adaquate screening troops. Tanks have always been very vulnerable to infantry. The role of a tank is to assist the infantry, not replace it as russia has
@@goldenhate6649 seems that Russian generals must have presumed that a show of massed armor would be enough to get a "cheap" victory. They were very wrong and in being wrong, they created a HUGE morale problem when their troops started getting incinerated by the dozens. Now they are stuck in a nasty bloody fight.
I read about a challenger or abrams tank that got stuck in a ditch in Iraq and took like 60-80 hits from rpg 7s and survived. Both tanks however have been penetrated/destroyed by the rpg 29. The moral of the story is that modern tanks can withstand old anti tank rockets
Combined arms means that without infantry every tank is vulnerable. Tanks are still viable in my humble opinion but must be deployed with accompanying infantry to have any chance. But on saying that it was shown in WW2 that with enough mortars the infantry defenders could strip away enough infantry support to render the tanks vulnerable again. The USA army at one point in time thought that the "Stryker" type wheeled armoured vehicles could replace tanks but have since reconsidered that line of thought. There's no simple answer but a tank attack with trained accompanying "Panzer Grenadeers" is the best tactic the Russians could employ but its the human factor of who wants to win the most I believe.
ATGM's, especially the Javelin and NLAW, have changed things but this particular war just seems to be the reality of facing a defense in-depth which is always going to be a costly affair.
Every since the earliest days of the "Tank" there have been weapons for killing them that could be transported and used by either 1 soldier, or a 2 soldier team. Survival of MBTs and all other forms of armored combat vehicles on a modern conventional battlefield depends upon the coordinated effort of a "Combined Arms Combat Team" that utilizes Aviation assets (both fixed wing and rotary), Artillery, Reconnaissance elements, and of extreme importance, almost as much as Aviation assets (in some cases more) is the need for a proper balance of Mechanized Infanyry traveling with the MBTs in vehicles that can not only keep up with the MBTs but also have a level of survivability that allows them to transition through the MBTs when needed for engaging dismounted enemy Infantry with their own dismounted Infantry. Commanders of Armored and Mechanized forces must follow certain guidelines about movement of these units like not moving them during daylight unless you have Air Superiority ( without it you cannot reliably keep Close Air Support on station ready to react as needed) and the terrain that MBTs can be used in. Every since WW1 we've known tanks don't do well in deep muddy fields, densely populated urban areas, steep mountains or very heavily wooded areas. They should not travel down roads in convoys to avoid muddy fields and heavily wooded areas, especially not if those roads traverse unsecured areas or if you don't have effective Close AR Support or effective and rapid Counterbattery Artillery fires. Modern tanks come with smoke generators, multiple smoke grenade launching systems, and are capable of relatively fast speeds, but where do we see most of the tanks being destroyed in Ukraine? Static positions, convoys on roads, urban areas, or in assaults against dug in Ukrainian defensive positions that the Russians know exactly where they are, they know that they are full of Infantry dismounts with tons of ATGMs and yet we don't see dismounted Infantry assaulting those positions under covering Artillery or Close Air Support with their IFVs moving close by giving supporting fires with their auto cannons and coaxial machine guns. We see tanks killed after sitting in the same poorly camouflaged positions for days ( evidenced by the tables, chairs and other "hooch" setups soldiers create anytime we sit in one place over 24 hours). We see them destroyed or captured where they ran out of fuel or where their crew abandoned them. We see them killed when being committed into battle in a piecemeal fashion (and once again without effective Close Air Support or Artillery Support/effective Counterbattery Support. By the 2nd time tanks were used on the battlefield in WWI these lessons were being learned, it's almost like a lot of Russian Officers/Commanders never really spent much time reading the history of Armored Warfare. Combine that with, from all appearances a significant portion of Russian soldiers not wanting to be there, and apparently poorly trained, undisciplined, and unmotivated (by looking at uniforms and gear, watching how they handle their weapons ( poor muzzle discipline and a lot of unaimed spray and pray shooting) and the fact that so many vehicles, and so much equipment and ammunition being abandoned in completely usable condition with little to no attempt to prevent the Ukrainian forces from being able to use it tells us a lot about the Russian military that has entered Ukraine. I'm sure there are some really good quality Russian units involved in this war, and I'd bet we just aren't hearing much about them. Probably because they still have most of their MBTs, IFVs, and other vehicles and equipment in their possession and in working order because those leading these units actually spent their training time awake, alert, and sober.
Well presented. I’m an old M1A1 tanker in the US Army. Before 911 we spent all our time training in combined arms to fight the Russian hoard. Most of the time in MOPP 2 or MOPP 4. I agree older tanks are a waste of resources. Modern tanks with well trained crews, active protection systems and a clear well executed combined arm doctrine can still decide a battle.
t-series tanks including the T-90 are utterly obsolete. the gap is the same as the difference from an A7V to a Panther and its showing. when you are that much of a target being a generation behind is suicide.
As a 19K, our weaknesses are well known. It's worth noting the anti-warhead defensive systems are not rapid-fire and usually not very good at defending against multiple attacks. They're designed to defeat the golden BB, not beat off a concerted push. Further, anti-tank weapons don't have to blow the turret off or destroy the interior to mission-kill a tank. Simply knocking the sprockets or road wheels off, or breaking the track itself (seen that a few times in some of the city fighting) means the tank cannot move. And tanks that cannot move are short-lived unless your units are advancing past the casualties. The biggest thing I've seen the defenders doing in Ukraine that's working so well is getting in multiple attacks on a single target. One video I saw showed no less than five different hits on the same tank, with the left track coming off on the fourth hit, resulting in a mobility kill. As mentioned in the video, unsupported vehicles (armor or not) are easy pickings for infantry, especially when they have ready access to modern anti-materiel weapons. But how else is an army that is badly coordinated and badly supplied supposed to take ground? Poor coordination in the laager means not all tanks end up fully fueled before the road march. Poor coordination on the march means armor sometimes outruns the infantry vehicles, with expected results. Poor training in reaction to contact means you end up with a bunch of tanks stuck in the ditch or in a muddy field like I saw in one video. Poor morale means almost nothing works the way commanders think things are going to work, so the least little bloody nose and the formation breaks down resulting in far too many avoidable casualties. On top of that we have the staggering intelligence failures of Russia in estimating what they were going up against -- Ukrainians ain't a bunch of mountain goat-herds with a few RPGs and AKs, and they should have known better, especially after the Donetsk fighting. It's almost like the Russian command staff has been training to try and win the next Afghanistan, and this is not that. My worry is not whether tanks are going to become obsolete -- it's what Putin and his ego will do when he thinks he is cornered and about to lose to an outnumbered and outgunned foe. He cannot afford to have all his other thinly-contained satrapies decide the Kremlin has become weak and decide to secede, costing them more strategic assets.
yeah I think this is bit of an edge case in terms of armor everything the Russians did in building their tactical formations exacerbates poor coordination. the BTG is the formation I would adopt if I knew all my mid grade officers were the reincarnation of Napoleon other wise I have questions about a major's qualifications to integrate that many arms with a junior staff
I remember reading beyond 3-4 defeats the shrapnel statistically will have knocked out the defensive systems. Even if you needed to fire 4 hellfire’s off to take out one MBT, the cost is still vastly less than that tank.
Would something like a 50 cal with AP rounds (especially tungsten) be able to damage a tank track enough to disable it? I'd suspect a 50 cal to be worthless against a modern tank but I've seen some of the tracks used on them and I'm sure 50 cal rounds could certainly severe the bolts & connecting bars that keep the track together. I'm sure it's usually take multiple hits in the same area, but I would think it would be possible. The larger the caliber, the higher chance of disabling the track I would think.
@@kde5fan737 Technically, yes, eventually, but the whole time you're trying to mission-kill the tank by pecking away at it, that tank and all his buddies and (hopefully) his infantry support will be trying to suppress and kill YOU. A machine gun big enough to damage a tank will be throwing up a pretty large dust cloud of its own, along with a lot of noise and muzzle flash that says HEY YOU GUYS, SHOOT ME PLEASE. This is one reason man-portable SAMs and ATGMs are effective in broken terrain or city environments: you can pop out, fire, and retreat to cover pretty easily. Tank crews if trained properly will pull up, fire, and then retreat back behind whatever cover they have if they are aware of anti-tank threats in the area. Assuming you have any cover available. If you're trying to move fast and capture ground, you usually don't have time to dig revetments, even if you have the combat engineers around to do it. The diagram posted in the video where it shows the rock/paper/scissors diagram is a good one to start with. Take that and now imagine the effective ranges of the weapons involved. Then consider how visible the enemy you're fighting is i.e. does he have cover and/or concealment too? Then consider how fast each of those systems can be employed and how exposed you have to be to employ them. It's enough to make your head hurt.
Great video! As a naval officer, the concept of relying on mobility and active protection over armor is an interesting one…it basically encapsulates the philosophy of warship design since the advent of anti-ship missiles.
Yes, I see land warfare evolving much the same way navel warfare has. The tank is equivilent to a battleship (heck they called the tank the land-battleship when it was in development) and they rely almost exclusivly on direct fire guns and thick armor to defeat peer platforms. When battleships became obsolete we still retained cruisers and destroyers which gradually merged in size and role to systems which carried a large variety of weapon systems and many people just term them all as 'surface combatants' now. In the same manor I see our modern IFV's with their combination of infantry, misiles and auto-cannons will become the dominant platform on land. Drones will also get incorporated likely with each IFV having a little helo-pad on the back for the launch and recovery of it's own recon drones just as warships launch helecopters.
I have seen several videos depicting Ukrainian troops in action. With the exception of the squad machine gunner, every troop had some kind of anti armor capability. You might not completely kill a tank with one shot, but damage adds up. If you just slow a tank down, it's less capable of offensive action and can be taken out later. Combine that, with the effect of the rasputitsa, the tanks will not be as effective as they could be until the mud solidifies.
"Killing a truck worth it, let alone a tank" Indeed: don't under-rate trucks. If a row of fifty trucks have all of the food and fuel that the invaders can lay hands on for two hundred miles, then they're more valuable than twice the number of tanks. "But if you're on a budget, do those legacy tanks provide you value?" Alas, probably yes: wars tend to be fought against civilians.
Unless you have all your units near rail depots or a plentiful supply of transport helicopters with secure landing zones, trucks are the way to go. In mountains and jungles I would suggest mule trains if you can find a plentiful source of mules and the personnel to support them. But this isn't Burma during the second world war, is it? :)
I have really appreciated these videos on this topic. So many videos seem to be way too enthusiastic about killing and how "cool" weapons are. This is the kind of thing I can learn from and have an interesting discussion with people after. Thank you for doing these.
These weapons are cool haha. Acknowledge it or not, the majority of people who get into military kit and equipment as hobbyists are on some level driven by the cool factor.
To plus on this, I appreciate recognising the limits of your ability to commentate on these topics - too many folks have gone down the speculative rabbit hole and not made it out the other side
@@johncampbell2979 You're a snob, Campbell! I invite you to turn your nose down every once in a while, the whole world can see right into your nostrils.
Combined arms has always been the way to go. Our resident you tube tanker put out a video today too, where he comes to a lot of the exact same conclusions.
Pretty much this. Well trained infantry working in close coordination with tanks neutralize most ATGMs because they can't get close enough without tangling with enemy soldiers.
This video was superbly researched and reasoned By someone who is not a tank expert by any means. The evidence is overwhelming against tanks in an era of smart and affordable light weight antitank weapons. It’s a no-brainer.
@@Caseytify Yes, but . . . The range, accuracy, and concealibility of the newest ATGMs indicates to me that you want your tanks operating further back during an advance, with troops out ahead, already dismounted. A spearhead with mechanized infantry could run into a lot of trouble unless you’re using your tanks as old WWII style Infrantry Tanks (think Matildas and Churchills), unless the terrain is as smooth as a cue ball.
After watching and reading some comments I'd just like to point out a couple of interesting tidbits. In my country "armour" has largely been replaced by two vehicles, (1) a 155mm self propelled howitzer with an on road top speed of 90kmh and a maximum firing range of +70kms, and (2) a recon/anti tank vehicle with a 76mm AT gun, top speed of 120kmh on and 60kmh offroad. Both of these use large wheels instead of tracks. The idea behind them were to maximize mobility, i.e. they were specifically designed to get to and between conflict zones themselves, not via trains or other means, are specifically protected against landmines (and I presume therefore IEDs) and in the case of (2) doctrine dictated that they would be used as static AT weapons once at a conflict zone. (There were also versions built with 105mm NATO barrels, AA types and SAM types)
There is still the problem of holding terrain if you're the attacker. For that you need people protecting what you have taken. Artillery can't do that. Light vehicles with AT guns can't do that either. An attacker also needs other systems than the ones you hold up as examples. Russia wants Ukraine so it must send tanks to capture it and troops to support the tanks. Once it is captured the tanks support the troops.
@@tacticalosintcombatfootage2022 Looking at ambushes I would say that Russian armored infantry knows when to follow but not when to lead. So they'll keep risking and losing tanks unnecessarily.
Perun, I am so incredibly happy to have come across your content. Some of, if not the most well put together presentations on the Ukraine war and modern conflict. Keep at it. Never heard of you through gaming but I hope you'll continue being thorough and not succumb to trying to pump content out seeing how successful these videos seem to be. Ace job, keep at it.
Even in WW2 it was understood that tanks could not operate effectively without air and infantry support. Russia has neglected this. There will always be utility in a self-propelled gun with immunity to small arms and autocannons, and resistance to artillery. The problem is that countries like Russia keep using them comically badly.
tanks is ment to fight other tanks in open areas. not for fight people hiding in Urban area with javelin rocket. russis didnot anticipate ukraine was going to get 30 billion in military aid.
The difference between now and WW2 is that infantry cannot protect vehicles from ATGMs that are fired from more than 200 meters away, let alone kilometres aways. And what's new in this conflict is the not only the mass deployment of weapons that have this long range capability, but are also portable. Not to mention the heavy use of cheap expendable undetectable drones that guide arty strikes accurately.
@@JAnx01 Nailed it! In WW2 dismounted troops could clear the way in front of tanks of defenders with short range anti-tank Panzerfaust. The infantry could sometimes over run German 88mm artillery positions before the tanks came in range. To make that happen with modern ATGM's mean that the infantry has to be so far ahead of the tanks, that the mission of the tanks (to be the iron fist that shocks defending infantry) is completely failed.
I really like your analysis. As a former tank soldier in the Australian Army (1988 - 1996), I have long been waiting for the development of specialised armoured vehicles designed specifically around countermeasures for anti tank weapons, perhaps, even to the point of not having any main armour, much as the tracked AA guns of the Cold War period. Ideally, these would be sprinkled at the troop, or squadron level. So there would be one of these dedicated vehicles for every three to 12 standard tanks. However, I do fear that the "queen of the battlefield" is currently failing in its primary role, namely penetration and exploitation of enemy defensive lines. Edit: I would also point out that I was trained to successfully use a Carl Gustav 84mm Anti-Tank recoilless rifle in the space of two days. I will admit that I was in the top 5-10 percent of my regiment, with regard to small arms fire, having learnt how to shoot, prior to joining the Army. (Even during my time with the Navy Cadets, as a teenager with TS Melbourne", I was one of the few who obtained the marksman badge - which was a hugely watered down version of the real thing. But hey, we were kids, so lacked both the time and experience to even consider any of us even remotely close to a regular soldier with the marksmanship badge, let alone even the worst soldier from any Australian infantry regiment.) Out of my squadron, we only had enough Gustav rounds for two soldiers to fire real round, as opposed to .22 calibre sub rounds, which adequately mimicked the flight path of the of real weapon. And I hit my tank sized target at a range of about 300 - 400 metres, with both the practice and later on with the live round. But my tank sized target was a stationary steel water tank, so If they'd been moving I almost certainly wouldn't have hit with either shot. What takes time, however, is teaching the bush skills that an infantry man requires in order to conduct fire and movement. All Australian soldiers are also trained in infantry minor tactics' it is literally (Seriously, if we handed out medals like the US do, we'd all be stooped to the left with the weight, because the Aussie soldier is trained on a wider variety of weapon systems and able to easily transition our modes of war, knowing our soldiers already have the basics a significant part of ALL NCO training, where there is a generic leadership course, as well as another course that is directly related to your job. By way of example, all Australian Corporals are trained to lead a section in the field, irrespective of whether their day job is counting blankets. By the end of my service, I had not only fired the Tank main gun, but been trained and fired the following weapon: The SLR rifle, of the Vietnam era, he 30 and 50 calibre machine guns, the 40 mm "wombat gun", or percussion grenade launcher, the M60 machine gun, the MG3 the F1 submachine gun, the 9mm Browning pistol. Probably missed the point, but you get what I mean. I recall having a conversation with an American Private, who couldn't believe that I was not only trained in multiple tank crew positions, but could also drive an army truck and was a fully qualified "B" vehicle (land Rover) and a few other things. He just knew infantry minor tactics and if another job needed to be done, his unit had people to do that job. So, yes, you can easily train soldiers to use the weapons. But against a well trained force, that knows how to engage in fire and movement, I'd expect less success. For whatever stupid reason, Russia attacked Ukraine at exactly the wrong time of the year. Everybody knows that during spring and autumn the plains of Ukraine turn into mud. FFS, this was what saved Moscow during the 1942. Tanks do best on open terrain, where they can easily move, shoot and scoot and engage in other traditional tank tactics. I once had my entire troop of tanks (3 at the time) bogged in the same swamy area on Puckapunyal range. We subtlety contacted the spanners to come and get us out and that cost us several slabs of beer. But our Squadron OC didn't fine out, so all was good! :-) Had the Russians invaded during either the height of winter, or in May, once the ground has dried out, it would have allowed tanks to do what they do best, namely engage in overwhelming manuver warfare across a wide front (as opposed to a single road with its "40 mile convoy"), where if you advance at pace, you'll easily overrun the infantry on the ground. Infantry can't move as fast as armour, so if you can gain the mobility advantage and the tanks can very quickly close the distance between infantry ATGMs and the extreme target range of those systems. A Modern Tanks Thermal vision can easily see the heat radiating off a recently used weapon, so hiding would be hard. I can tell you from personal experience, being charged by a tank, as an infantryman, is a terrifying experience. When on exercise, we would do demo runs against infantry positions and while we knew that a tank can go from full speed to a dead stop within its own length, assuming dry ground. On one exercise in the Northern Territory, we "charged" a group of infantry attempting to infiltrate our defences. One of our tanks charged towards them at full speed and halted about 20 metres from there. The tank driver had night vision gear, so could easily see the infantry. The infantry didn't, so all they heard was the very loud noise of a 36 litre diesel engine as it approached them, followed by the emergence the tanks headlight at about 50 feet (because the drive didn't want to run them over). Simply on the basis of that charge, the section of infantry became combat ineffective. By the time that I rocked over in the troop leader's vehicle, the section commander was engaged in a highly heated argument about how dangerous the charge was. His troops were medevac'd an even the next day, some members were reported to be displaying what we'd now call "Combat Stress Reaction". Given just how badly one solder responded, I wouldn't be surprised if he went on to develop PTSD over the event. So tanks, when deployed properly have an incredible shock value that simply should not be under-estimated. In Australia, we went from over 100 leopard tank variants, to only 56 and our supposition was that the halving of the numbers was largely for us to retain "armoured capability", so that if we ever got into a shooting war, we'd still have a well trained cadre of troops upon which to build a larger tanks force. Basically, 1st Armoured Regiment would have largely merged with the School of Armour to train thousands of new troops on how to not get themselves killed in batle. Tanks without infantry support is Modern Combat is pure silliness and opens you up to being taken out by a single Molotov Coctail on the engine deck. We've known that since WW1, but someone has to learn it about every generation, or so. Long term, I see tanks becoming much, much heavier as these missiles become more accurate and dangerous. This extra weight will allow for more robust passive armour, at the cost of mobility. But this has been a back and forth for years. The Leopard 1 that I crewed, was designed at a time when the even an unguided HEAT round was king of the battlefield and been able to get out of the line of sight of these lumbering beasts was vital. The best defence against such a weapon is mobility, so the tank sacrificed armour, for mobility. This kind of "arms race" has been going on for years, but given the slowness of the missile, if we were attacked in a hull up, or turret down position, we could easily break line of sight, rendering the missile pointless. Problem is that these days they chase you down. As an aside, by the early 1990s Australian tanks, no longer carried HEAT rounds, because APDS and HESH were an easier combination and greatly streamlined our logistics. So as with all warfare, I see an evolution (much like the T-14 Amarta), that prioritises crew survivability, but in which tanks are no longer the speedy, 42 ton, wonders of my day, but rather slower (although not lumbering) behemoths that are built specifically to overcome the threat of missile, because of their better armour and active protection systems. We've seen a lot of what I expect with the Abrahms tank, which is about ten tons heavier, in today's modern variant, than it was during the initial release. I don't expect tanks to start carrying ATGMs themselves (although Russian designs can), but wouldn't be surprised to see the Australian Army (for example) finally begin to include larger artillery pieces for infantry suppression roles, being that the biggest danger to enemy artillery is often a good, old fashioned dash of artillery, which is guaranteed to leave the survivors less capable fighters and your mobile forces a much greater sense of success. The idiocy of the Russians bot using their artillery to support their combat troops astounds me. WTF are they thinking, when they take a valuable combat resource out of the line, so it can waste its rounds against civilian (AKA : militarily useless) targets? Idiocy. As I said, I am an old school tank soldier. I haven't even stepped inside an Australian Abrams, so much of what I've said is probably hugely out of date, but I handle criticism well and would love for anyone to tell me if I'm on the right track, or simply a tank soldier out of time and out of his depth. :-)
My training is very similar. Trained in all infantry weapons, SLR, SMG, GPMG, Browning 9mm,LMG(7.62 Bren)M79,L96 then Charlie G and Law 66. Later SA 80 etc...We also did artic warfare etc. I trained as a driver on the 432, then Scimitar. All crew could do each others job. In terms of tactics you do the NCO cadre followed by junior Brecon then senior Brecon. All this in the roll of infantry. To be good at any role you have to specialise at it. All this wide ranging training was good but to become good you have to specialise. We did different rolls in 2 year stretches. You were just becoming good at it when you moved onto something else. We became good at close recce with the scimitar, I had the chance to observe a medium recce regiment, I think the Blues and Royals. They were superb because that is all they did. We learnt so much from them. We also realised it is a job that needs to be dedicated to full time. Wide ranging training is not always good. Also whatever you learn has to be relearnt and often.
Killing civilians in siege is pointless. Shelled buildings are excellent cover for ambush and you don't have feed dead civilians. You could let all the civilians go and shell the city or build strong lines around the city and the defenders will attack you when the run out of food and water.
I'm not a military expert by any means, but; isn't it fair to say that ATGMs are a defensive weapon essentially? And that to capture territory on the offense, you will still need heavily armed and armoured vehicles? Dismounted infantry as main offensive arm without armour support would still be horribly vulnerable to all forms of fire, no? Therefore some form of tank will still be necessary for the offensive.
yes, but what we're talking about here is Ukraines ability specifically and any small country facing a larger foe generally, to use these weapons in defence. That's all.
Infantry ATGMs are essentially a replacement for WW2 antitank guns, which are primarily defensive weapons. Offensive weapons are able to move fast, and infantry on foot are not fast.
What you are actually saying is that defence has now grown strong relative to the offensive - maneouvre warfare is now extremely expensive. Like how the machine gun and barbed wire did in 1914-18 MANPADs, ATGMs and drones will create slugfests.
@@kenoliver8913 eh, defense has had the advantage for a while. As you note, since 1918 at least. And the Russians are ignoring a good 80 years of history in how they are fighting.
You hit the nail on the head. The way to win war is combined arms warfare. It doesn't matter if its 1942 or 2022, the side that has their different units effectively communicate and work together tend to win. Tanks + infantry + air strikes + artillery + drones + logistics + intelligence + proper training + competent leadership = winning.
If this is the case, which it seems to be, it also helps to explain why the Russians have performed so poorly: they have struggled to conduct themselves in this sophisticated way.
Until Rods From God wipes your Army and Navy out. And you have no idea where it’s coming from. Putin, meet US Space Force. We don’t need boots on the ground to annihilate Russian armor.
@@InshushaGroupie Because that type of sophistication takes money, a career military force, said force knowing that their survival relies on being effective, and leadership which is willing to trust units to at least do their jobs. Funnily enough, that describes a competent westernized army. Maybe not as much on the money side, but more on the "being good at your job" side. The thing is, I don't realistically think anyone expects a military coup in most western nations. One of the reasons is because there's far less personal power in being a general or admiral than in countries where that is a concern. The priorities from the top to the bottom are different.
One disclaimer and one post-recording thought on this one: Disclaimer first: I get "Skiff" and "Sagger" mixed up at one point in this recording when talking about the Stugna vs the much older Malyutka ATGMs. I also make typos that got missed. Second just a closing thought on why I'm not prepared to outright call time on the tank: The invention of gunpowder weapons didn't immediately kill the previously dominant knights and armoured cavalry of the European battlefields. At first, they thickened their armour to resist early projectiles, then when that was no longer possible they began to reduce their armour and change their role. Heavy cavalry remained, albeit with a different look and new tactics, for centuries to come. Until armies are confident that they can do without the role filled by the tank, I believe it's far more likely that tanks and their associated tactics evolve rather than go extinct in the near term. As to what that evolution is likely to look like, I'd rather leave to the experts with experience in the field. All I can say is that powers observing the Ukraine conflict are likely to ask questions about whether or not they really get value out of older and more vulnerable vehicles, and whether they can get more bang for their buck from mobile ATGMs and shoulder fired ordinance.
yes this is the end of the tank and armor. ukraine has shown armor cannot take a city. and the miniaturization and lethality and fire power of a small infantry carried weapon is an astounding 90 percent with javalins, nlaws, stingers. why would anyone bother spending 8-9 million or more to manufacture a tank now after what we have seen in ukraine. compare that to ww2 where the lethality of bazookas was only 60-70 percent. only idiot advisors in the military will be making tanks now for a nation.
The Russians are failing massively because of lack of combined arms, lack of communication/cooperation and choosing to attack right at the start of the mud season, limiting your vehicles to the asphalt roads. Non-supported tanks were punished already in WW2 in 1940-1941, with anti-tank guns. You don't need bazookas and late WW2 era to learn these lessons about combined arms warfare. Actually, you don't even modern industrial warfare to learn the lessons of combined arms warfare. That the Russians are failing so horribly means we cannot draw any conclusions about the value of the tank in adequate combined arms warfare. We can only confirm what the Germans already knew in 1940: tanks need infantry support (combined arms) to be successful.
small corection , from end of february until 20th of march it wasnt that muddy as you might think , this year march was cold in ukraine, reaching -18 at night and -10 during day
I have the sensation that the so called "operation" is a failed maskirovska, they just used the army to draw the western attention and made an "all in" with the attack on the Kiev airport to take the Govt and cut the head, but they failed and now they have to use the poor russian gopniks as cannon fodder :(
Considering this was one of the longest pieces of research I have watched this year , it was extremely well researched and most of all, very interesting . One,of those books you can’t put down. So to speak. And, in my case 4/22 no adverts. I am now tempted to watch the reservists one which I had originally decided could , in no way, be interesting, I also look forward to working through the remainder.. Many thanks and keep up the good work.
It seems to me that the crew space and survivability systems occupy a significant portion of a tank’s volume. Might we see unmanned or autonomous tanks in the near future? Edit: perhaps one way to counter the threat of jamming, in addition to or instead of an autonomous mode, would be to allow line of sight remote control by the accompanying manned combined arms force?
Already here. But the problem is the AUTONOMOUS part. That is what everyone is trying to avoid. Except comms links might be jammed or hacked. So it's a dilemma. For now, anything like that needs a human operator, so a comms link.
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@@スガル Whatever would work against unmanned tanks (like EMP) would also work against unmanned drones, wouldn't it?
One stat that was given by a tanker a couple of years ago was that in all wars that tanks have been used in, their casualty rate were far lower than infantry casualties. By something like 1-to2. As vulnerable as a tank may be to a top-attack missile, think how vulnerable infantry is to artillery air-burst and MLRS cluster bombs.
I'm assuming that's talking about tank crews, right? Obviously there will always be more infantrymen than tanks even in the tankiest treadhead army. And while that might well be true, you still have the issue of the massive cost it takes to buy, maintain, and especially fuel a tank. You need to be getting something worthwhile to justify that kind of cost.
i think casualties are poor metric on how useful tanks are. economics and logistics are a more useful metric. if a tanks that costs millions can easily be taken out by someone with barely any training with a weapon costing only thousands thats when youy start wondering if it is worth. and then there is the issue of what role a MBT is suppose to have. tanks biggest role is killing other tanks, to fight foot mobiles tanks are not very effective compared to IFV with autocannons.
Infantry units are much less expensive to build, train and support at the strategic level. If the terrain your army is on is northern, western or central Europe, infantry is the way to go with a few tank units and plenty of ground attack and artillery forces supporting them. Forests, swamps/marshes, rough terrain and BUAs are not the friends of Armor. Infantry is best there at the operational level. Combined arms always has the edge in the end, regardless of terrain because it allows adaptation to the changing situation warfare always presents.
This was implied, but older ATGM systems are likely to be cycled out of use fast (per your comments on ammo use) leading to cutting edge systems in front line hands fast and at scale. Countries must pay heavily for an AFV generational upgrade, while an ATGM generational upgrade costs 'only' the current stock of ATGMs and the phase-out still yields significant value. Phasing out a generation of AFVs appears to primarily create value for local farmers and interested bystanders. Let's hope we continue to support Ukraine in demonstrating the power of international collaboration over tearing up treaties and that Russia fails to escape this doctrinal trap they have walked into.
Only at the cost of making them star-wars level expensive. A system that your grandmother can be trained to use in an afternoon and that can be fielded in huge numbers for a fraction of the cost (and with no logistical tail at all) can make fielding a useful number of "protected" tanks so ridiculously expensive they will be virtually unusable. You'll lose the conflict financially before you can win militarily. I think that's what the West is demonstrating to the Russian government as we speak. Add to that problem an even bigger one: There is no conceivable way to protect your supply columns to this degree. And without support vehicles (not to mention IFVs in combat support) your tank is worth almost nothing, regardless of how much you spend on it.
@@charlesfaure1189 And add to that the fact ATGMs are improving far faster than tanks. Today, ATGMS can hit tanks 1.5 miles away. It's not hard to imagine ATGMs with several miles range or longer, with cheap drones acting as spotter. Tanks have no chance against such systems whether protected by infantry or not.
Remember that these questions have been asked _many_ times before, but the tank always survives. APDS, HEAT, older generation ATGMs like the Malyutka, the attack helicopter, IEDs, smart munitions, etc. Every 10 years or so some new development happens that makes everyone speculate that the tank is "obsolete". I have no reason to believe that handheld anti tank weapons (which have been a threat since WW2) are suddenly going to single handedly render tanks unusable.
All of these videos have been absolutely wonderful. Well research, well explained, and very well argued. I sent them to my family and now we watch them together, which is pretty cool seeing as they’re not normally defense policy minded people. (it’s mostly energy policy and healthcare law with them). Anyways I hope to see more, great job!
Talk to them about how Germany’s disastrous energy politics weakened all of Europe and made Putin more bellicose. Talk to them about gas, lignite, “Energiewende”, nuclear energy, LNG terminals, gas storage (LNG and gaseous), pipelines, strategic oil reserves, household heating, HVDC, etc…
@@peterfireflylund don’t worry, we are all baffled by germany shutting down actively operating nuclear power plants, and how stupid and greedy it was to decide it was okay to rely on the russians for energy products. it’s one of the few things we can all agree on.
I think that what we are seeing is the modern-day "Infantry Revolution." The Infantry Revolution was during the 14th century when weapons like pikes were invented specifically to counter knights. All of the supply problems with tanks now were similar problems with knights and their horses during the medieval era. Once infantry was able to actually take down knights, the knight (and assorted light cavalry) became much less popular. The tank will follow a similar path as cavalry did up until WWI; it will be used, but only for specific roles like breaking through a line, flank charging, or pursuing fleeing enemies.
I think IFVs will still be a thing that can be used like tanks, but the officers and the NCOs better have the good sense to tell the squad to leave the damn vehicle under most types of fire. I think armoured mortars and artillery are to stay too and will play an even bigger role. Because still need big gun, but why needlessly expose yourself in direct fire?
The thing is, these ATGM's aren't new technology, Javlins entered service in 1984. This debate has been doing the rounds since the late 1960's when Israel used early ATGM to devastate Egyptian tanks in the 6 days war. Armor provides a huge benefit in terms mobility and fire supoort, but it needs to be protected and properly supported, what we are seeing here is what happens when outdated armour (bulk of the Russian armour being T-72's) isn't used correctly, driving down narrow roads single file without proper recon and support or engage in close quarters in city streets, in those situations without awareness of there surroundings, supporting infantry clearing surrounding buildings and room to manuver or bring their firepower to bear, they're just over priced moving coffins
I think the longbow was not unlike the more modern day equivalent of long range artillery and this had a devastating effect on cavalry and infantry alike at over 300 metres. Arrows fired from longbows were also, presumably, the medieval equivalent of the Javelin at shorter distances.
@@richardcory5024 It was the tactics that mattered not the longbows. Longbows were destroyed by cavalry at the Battle of Patay without doing any damage.
Throughout history there's been a constant back and forth between arms and armor. Cavalry killed the Chariot, Muskets killed the Knight, and now ATGMs are killing the Tank. The modern tank may soon become obsolete, but it will be replaced at some point in the future with some other form of highly mobile armored unit.
The replacement is already here, IFV with their own missiles for both anti-armor and anti-air. It's better defended then a tank, cheaper and more flexible.
The modern tank will stay around because it's an all terrain vehicle with a big gun. That's the capability a tank gives you. The armor package on a tank exists to keep that big gun fighting for as long as possible. Until something else can bring that 105-120mm gun to anywhere a tank can go, there will be tanks.
The tank can only effectively be used in conjunction with skilled infantry, with out that skilled infantry the tank is merely an expensive target. Infantry needs tanks, but the tank also needs that infantry. If you try to use a tank as a mobile fortress it will not survive...
I would recommend people go see the video that The Chieftan put out about this today. Cliff notes version...tanks are not dead, active protection is going to become bigger, combined arms is a must.
@@talandar5773 Even before that the myth of armor invincibility has been around since the 20s it tends to take a hit any time there is a large scale conflict involving armor especially if a side tries to rely on it but neglects infantry support. But it always comes back. I expect in 10 years after whatever the next defensive system will be shows up to deal with Javelins and the like we will see people once again proclaiming the supremacy of the tank. Tanks are just too cool a penis enhancer not to have a devoted following.
Excellent content Perun. Exceptionally well articulated, your intellect and sense of details shine through. Many folks are looking for “alternate” info on this Ukraine situation. I think many people look elsewhere from mainstream and biased sources at this point. Great work mate, keep it up. Cheers!
I've watched several of your videos on various aspects of the Russia/Ukraine conflict, and each has been excellent. I'm quite impressed with how much quality content you can put together in a short amount of time. Well done! Very well done, indeed!
6 years in US Marine Recon and you couldn't pay me to get in a tank. 10 times out of 10 I would rather walk in or drive a fast attack vehicle. Tanks just feel like they are giant signs saying "shoot me!"
I completely agree. I've spent half of my 23 years career in the US infantry in light, and half in heavy. In this AT weapons and drone saturated environment, I would not want to be in armor.
@@connorbranscombe6819 You actually don't. Even in WW2, you had a higher chance of dying as a truck driver, bomber crewman, submarine crewman and a whole litany of other jobs. We're small on the ground and are hard detected if trained. well. A large armored vehicle, however, is impossible to hide from observation from aircraft and are easy to target if you have weapons in range. Infantry, not so much. They can hide very easy and use the terrain to their advantage. These heavy vehicles have a hard time staying off of the roads, just like us in Afghanistan and Iraq. Stay on the roads, and you will spend the rest of your life on them. Not very long
@@theimmortal4718 Haha tell that to the couple thousand dead infantrymen in Iraq, compared to the 9 disabled or destroyed Abrams tanks, I’m pretty sure one can do some quick math and figure out a tank is safer then dragging ass on foot. We’re not in world war 2 either so citing those statistics is quite literally irrelevant, the US hasn’t fought a war like world war 2 since world war 2 lmao.
Anyone proclaiming tanks are outdated/dead/vulnerable....very likely went to the same school that the Russian generals who allowed their armor/mech units to be exposed and unsupported. Congratulations.
@@evancourtney7746 Except ATGMs are easier to counter than APFSDS. Active protection systems are making a lot of headway to counter ATGMs, and most ATGMs cannot penetrate the frontal armor of modern MBTs. The reason ATGMs are so effective, is that they're being used on the defense and from the flanks of targets. APFSDS is also cheaper than an ATGM of comparable penetration on a round to round basis. I do think, however, that MBTs need to be combined with modern self propelled artillery, as their role is more and more becoming as a standoff anti-vehicle platform. With unmanned turrets and autoloaders, as well as 140mm+ guns being the norm for most of the theoretical next-generation MBTs as is, it wouldn't be much of a shift to increase the elevation angles of the gun to facilitate use in an artillery role as well, making the platforms more flexible for the modern battlefield. Meanwhile, IFVs are increasing in weight across the board, up to medium tank masses at 30-40 tons, utilizing more armor, advanced ATGMs, and higher caliber autocannons than IFVs of the past age, and will likely take over the spearhead role that MBTs have held for the past half century.
They ARE vulnerable and outdated in SOME circumstances. They have great use in a MOBILE modern war, where troops can't dismount and use man portables, and they can acquire targets from further than almost anything else on the field. But as soon as things get bogged down or they try to attack static defenses, they are rolling coffins. It's an IF situation. YES, they are useful IF they are used right and NOT used when they shouldn't... Like in an urban environment. 250$ Panzerfaust 3 rounds CAN pop a turret up 50 feet in the air if it hits the right spot, so can cheap old Karl-Gs (especially the latest revisions). You don't even NEED Javeliins or NGLAWs in close quarters or inside an urban fight to make scrap metal out of a 6 milliion$ hulk like a Leo 2A6 or an M1A2. I'm sorry if your Cavalry /Armor heart can't say Bye-Bye. But TANKS are not the kings they once were. They are an offensive weapon and as it always happens, people found defenses against them. We just reached the time when those defenses are much more powerful than before. I used to LOVE my FN-C1A1... The new plastic toys with puny rounds REALLY made me feel under-armed and defenseless. I mean I was raised in the boonies and hunting with a .22 was ILLEGAL, because you run the risk of just wounding your prey and it suffers and dies in agony... NOT nice, nor humane. . Then they give us .223s... WTH??? But HEY! It's what everybody got (to me, it's COST-CUTTING, period...), and in the end, I kind of did NOT miss the extra weight., just the REACH-OUT and TOUCH IT factor. Things CHANGE, adapt, and overcome buddy... You'll sleep better at night.
Well , all the videos i have seen of "ambush" on tanks by anti tank weapons , are in reality suicide attacks . for example i saw one video that a column of russian tanks was advancing ,then a crazy suicide guy , attack a tank the first one with an anti tank missile. the tank is hit in the turrent but don't penetrate it ,still cause some fire on its turrent , the guy on the turret escape and the driver keep going to take the tank to a safe place. and at the same time the third tank blow up the shooter with a direct hit. and the entire thing is over. and days earlier the minister of defense of russia reported that a t-90 survived a javelin attack , and the crew only experienced concussion. There is also in syria the experience of a t-90a tank receiving a direct hit on a tow missile and the tank keeps going. basically the performance of anti tank weapons is completely the opposite of what this video author claim. finally there is a video on syria , by syrian army ,that their t-72 was ambushed and received like 8 hits from rpg , and the tank survived and its crew. Modern tanks with aps defenses and reactive armor can survive modern anti tank weapons. so is the other way. smoke anti heat screen can blind those javelins missiles pretty easily too. Another thing over rated even more are those javelines missiles.. there is a video of a russian chopper pilot ,that he dodge up to 19 javeline missiles attacks ,and the last one manage to hit , but still he could land the choopper, that it was a ka-52. No idea who was to blame for so poor performance ,maybe the operators of the javelins were amateurs , or maybe the pilot was very good and knew how to counter them , and or the chopper could jam the missiles with electronic warfare. either case , those javelines missiles have been pretty bad in reality , since russia don't lost a plane in weeks and continue flying over ukraine.. the thing that really have caused troubles for russia airforce are those buks air defenses of ukraine that they have been hidding inside civilian buildings and then pull them in a small time ,then hide it. still russia have lost less than a dozen of planes.. one su-25 even managed to land ,after being hit by a stinger missile. destroyed one engine ,the other could continue flying ,but was seriously damaged its hull. Russia is not using their best hardware to not reveal to nato to much information , so far russia not using armatas ,neither modernized t-90am with active defenses. that can defeat top attack missiles or even hellfire attacks from apache choppers.
@@TheJimprez Again, this is why I feel that the MBT role will end up being split between next generation heavier IFVs with hard-kill APS, and armored self propelled artillery. IFVs will take up much of the spearhead offensive role, and more of the direct fire role, as they begin utilizing 40-60mm autocannons. And with unmanned turrets and high caliber cannons, protected by APS, already being the immediate projection for next-generation MBTs, it's little stretch to suggest such gain high angle targeting capability to make them more flexible on the battlefield, as the anti-armor direct fire needs decrease.
From another analyst perspective, this was solid and objective. My critique would be in the area of potential doctrinal impacts, but as you clarify up front, you’re staying out of that because it’s not your expertise. So that’s perfectly legitimate IMO. Well done. I would argue the best use of obsolescent tank hulls is repurposing them to another combat support mission. An aviation example: B52 has flexed from high altitude penetration, to low altitude penetration to stand-off missile truck. It also retains earlier mission capabilities in more permissive environments, of course, and is likely going to be unmatched for its useful life for a very long time. What does that mean for armored hulls? American M-60 hulls saw extended service as armored recovery vehicles, bridgers, etc. Combat engineers like to have some survivability too, but don’t need to take the same quality and quantity of fires as front line tanks. Other uses for old armored hulls can include artillery support: They’re quite easy to convert to a heavy mortar carrier. Although that’s a function that has fallen out of favor in US doctrine, I would argue it’s a very useful capability for forces that cannot count on overwhelming air dominance from day 1. Of course that assumes an operator has sufficient quantity to justify maintaining production of spares and so forth. When that becomes prohibitive, off to the target range… 😆🤷♂️
self-propelled mortars are ballin, and I don’t see why the US doesn’t really use it. it’s fast, it hits hard, and it doesn’t suck 50 billion dollars into a jet pro…actually that might be why the US doesn’t use it, not enough kickbacks.
@@oscaranderson5719 In this case, it’s just about mission capabilities & what adds new capabilities. The US invests heavily in air dominance and capabilities that leverage air dominance. If you know going into any conflict that you’re going to have, worst case, air superiority, and more likely air dominance, the mobile mortars, and heavy mortars in general, just don’t add capability relative to the drones, gunships, and fast movers. On the other hand, for most countries who have a lot more near-peers, I think mortar carriers are probably under-valued. A lot of countries look at US force structure & take cues from that without really understanding the ramifications of different mission sets & operational assumptions/conditions. If “cost-effectiveness” and “territorial defense” are your primary interests, you design a completely different force structure than the US.
I mean it's an old school solution, often saw obsolete hulls converted into mobile artillery units in WW2, the M3 Priest was a converted M3 Lee once it was obsolete by the Sherman, Pz2 and 3 hulls were converted into Tank Destroyers or artillery by the Germans once they became obsolete. As you mentioned the M-60 was converted into other rolls.
Converting modern main battle tanks into roles like mobile mortar carriers and such isn't really more practicable than fielding purpose built vehicles. MBT's burn lots of fuel to carry that now (that they've been repurposed) unnecessary armor around, which of course applies additional strain to the supply lines. A purpose built vehicle would be lighter, more mobile and much more efficient. I hate (really hate) scrapping old, formerly efficient things, ships, aircraft even computers (I'm an original computer nerd), but there is a point that re-purposing them is not efficient, and in war efficiency is paramount.
@@richardduerr9983 It depends on the inventory to re-use & cost for conversion and support. You have to analyze each proposed use case. The MBT re-use I mentioned are all cases where the armored chassis is an asset, like engineering vehicles or other heavy support. The costs to design & develop an entirely new platform are all part of the analysis, and sting more if the required quantity is low and an easy conversion is available. But in general this doesn’t just apply to MBT chassis. We (US) converted many M113 APC’s to other support missions as the M2 family was coming on line. Most of those IIRC basically just got an up-armor package & turret for security duties, but there were some mortar carriers & other assorted low volume versions. Eventually the M113’s left service, but they got some additional cost-effective use that way.
Measure and Countermeasure ! The tank starting in WW1 was an answer to the trench warfare and barbed wire of the Western Front trenches, and the beginning of mobile warfare as seen in Nth Africa in WW2. Combined operations are now the go, but with helos and missiles, a new paradigm has evolved.
He stated he won't go beyond what he's qualified to analyze of certain topics, which my god I have such respect for honest and candid content experience/transparency 👍
Azerbaijan used Russian tanks very effectively in 2020 war, while Armenian tanks became scrap metal or war trophies for Azerbaijanis. It really depends on your war concept. Tanks are still useful, especially if they are equipped with active protection.
First of all, more absolutely stellar work. Really well done. Former tanker here: this war yet another opportunity for system and doctrine evolution. Remove the tanks and something else will have to assume that role. I find it slightly amusing to suggest the death of the tank without suggesting the end of pretty much all armored vehicles. If a tank is too vulnerable, where does that leave thinner skinned things like armored personnel carriers? All of this means years of new theories, new developments, new training, and everyone will be ready to refight this war when the next one comes, most likely with a different scenario we aren’t ready for.
The end of tanks was also predicted when the Egyptians defeated the initial Israeli counterattack during the Suez crossing of the Yom Kippur war. The Egyptians employed Sagger ATGMs at a density never before seen, with each of the five attacking Egyptian divisions allocated about 1,500 missiles for three days worth of fighting. While the fighting in Ukraine does not have such density, the effectiveness of modern ATGMs will only spur the development of countermeasures (whether passive or active) just as the usage of the Sagger spurred the development of ERA and the ubiquity of the RPG spurred the usage of cage and slat armor.
the only counter measure for anti tank infantry are drones. If I was a Russian General I would want a hell of a lot of drones the way the US had against insurgents. The cheap drones that cost less than a stinger missle. Use it to monitor the terrain and look for ambushes. and take out anti tank teams from the air with 50 caliber rounds. The drone team would need to work very closely with the front line, in fact probably slightly ahead of the front. Tanks are still needed to hold onto your gains, infantry alone cant hold territory without hard firepower. Despite what everyone says, I think NATO membership of Ukraine was very close, as NATO withdrew it's activities in the middle east they were about to re-focus on Russia and China, and membership of Ukraine was imminent. So Russia had to act fast - and I dont think they were ready for it. They are low on ammo and dont have the countermeasures to deal with stingers and anti tank missles.
Yeah then Atgm’s will advance to get around those systems for much cheaper then the system. Dual charges or multiple rockets launched one behind another. One to penetrate cage or to detonate ERA first.
that's an interesting point. The Israelis ended up learning fast didn't they? They realise the optics on these missles leave an IR signal so with the correct gear all the ATGM team wouid light up like a christmas tree. So they can be dealt with by snipers or the tanks just go around where they are stationed.
I’d love to see your take on how this affects the defence of Taiwan. ATGMs would probably do a real good job on landing craft, as well as tanks. Since China will start with a saturation missile barrage, large assets, like tanks and planes, will be way more vulnerable than a stash ofATGMs or MANPADs. Since this is on our side of the world, I thought it would be of interest to you, too.
Of course it affects it in one way or another. But there are also work-arounds. For example: The range of the Javelin is 2500m. You absolutly bomb the shit out of everything on the coast for 2.5km inland and the landing craft no longer have to worry about Javelins. Or you do a contested landing, where you're willing to absorb a some losses. But then can mitigate the losses by using a great many smaller vehicles (eg: Type-05 amphib) to spread out the incoming landing forces. And have the landing covered by, and preceded by, constant flak; to pre-emptivly shoot ATGMs out of the air. Also smoke to cover the advance, prevent any ATGM lock on. Or once you're on the coast, you can secure a beach head out to 2.5km. In fact it doesn't need to be a full 2.5km beach head because the landing forces detection range, and fighting range pushes their area of denial past their area of control. And the ships themselves can be pushed further back by use of pontoon bridges (Also useful when the beach lacks a good harbour) Or a combination of all of the above.
Do not worry too much about Taiwan while China’s (and the CCP’s) fortunes are slowly rising. It’s only in decline that China would attempt something as insane as an amphibious assault on Taiwan. This is what is happening in Russia-Putin and Russia are in decline and the Invasion of Ukraine is a futile attempt to halt the decline.
I see them domestically developing, or licensing, production of their own weapons systems to fulfill this roll. They've always been a powerful manufacturing economy, and can no doubt afford to buy these or set up their production, regardless of the route they choose to go. No doubt they'll also buy a fuckton of stationary SAM systems and reloadable ATGM systems, in addition to supplying their stationary coastal artillery, which are extremely powerful guns if aimed properly.
Oh, my Lord, you should continue to offer your commentary on Defense matters, writ large. Your mind is fantastic, and I hope to see more of you on these topics.
I am a US Air Force veteran. In the late 1960's the US realized it could never match Soviet tanks one to one. We chose a smaller number of tanks but introduced the A-10 to make up the difference. Now Turkey came up with the TB2. It did a number on the Armenian tanks. Mobile armored vehicles vehicles still have a valuable role to play when combined with infantry, but the days of main battle tank have past.
Yeah, but tbf, the A-10 is an example of an outdated idea itself. CAS itself isn't worthwhile anymore. Cannon CAS is absolute dogshit, always has been. Vast majority of A-10 armor kills have been missiles anyways.
The defensive strategy of the "savage rabbit" will become very very common. Letting the armored spearhead roll by while hiding your army and then popping out to blow away teh logistics train with its soft skinned vehicles is a way to blunt or destroy the blitzkrieg battleplan.
ya no. the reason this is working as well as it is is because of the terrain preventing offroad movement of anything heavy. aka russian mud has striked again and this time is royally fucking over the russians.
That strategy relies on defense in depth, which is only going to be available to a limited number of countries as most don't have the acreage/miles it requires the defenders to give up. Also, really need to have a geography that is limiting the paths/routes the armor can travel.
I very much appreciate how you state your perspective strengths and weaknesses and provide well balanced and based comparisons to create an easy to follow and hard to argue explanation of recent events and possible conclusions.
I can see drones becoming a crucial aspect of tanks in the future -- one of the most crucial issues of drones will be wide scale jamming, which it seems to be feasibly to counter by having C&C of said drones in closer proximity. Similarly, tanks have a crucial issue of situational awareness, due to being a steel box, which drones, by virtue of having cheap and effective eyes in the sky, can counter. I can easily envision a future where a tank's primary anti-vehicle weapon becomes an ATGM with indirect-fire capability that drones will guide, and where the direct-fire capability of the main gun becomes more of an infantry support weapon. Not sure that this *will* be the role that tanks take in the future, but I can certainly see it as a strong possibility.
i agree that drones and indirect fire atgms will be the future but if the tank can have those the infantry probably will too. i don't think jamming will be a problem for long. there are ways to get around it with higher power phased array or laser communications in networks of drones and of course whatever doing the jamming immediately getting an atgm to the face since they are screaming their position to everyone around. APS and PD, either laser or the autocannons russia's experimenting with, will be what saves tanks. the PD in particular might be the most important for killing small drones.
The problem with mounting atgm on tanks is ammunition. They wouldn't be able to carry enough for extended combat scenarios. Personally, I think the future of tanks is drone tanks. If there were no crew in a tank you could fit the 105mm on a substantially smaller chassis. Using a fixed gun design with minimal armor, you could create a small army of these drone tanks for the price of a conventional tank. Their size would make them more easily concealable, a smaller and ultimately less profitable trade for an atgm, would give the operator much greater situational awareness, and would most definitely save on gas, thus reducing stress on the supply chain.
It also comes down to armor modernization. Most heavy armor in the west relies on infantry spearheads for support and IFV's to support or screen in the front. Think naval tactics. You have the destroyers to screen for the battleship. Most US armor has actually began to install point-defense systems to protect from these targeted launches. This is one thing I have to chalk up to the US Army. We haven't always been effective, but COIN tactics taught us a lot about how to defend our armor from light foot-mobiles with LATA and HATA loadouts. It's a suite now that I think about it. Lack of aerial intelligence begets operational flexibility to a small insurgency, lack of infantry sweeps and screening forces means these guys can get right up on your big guns, and lack of modernization begets cook-offs. It's a domino effect that really exemplifies how modern offensive warfare requires so many pieces to work in conjunction.
As a final note, if your heavy armor is being engaged at less than 100-200 meters by MANPATs, you've effectively failed at the game. Do not pass go, do not collect Crimea.
I watched your Terra Invicta games, which helped me defeat the alien threat as the resistance. To my delight I discovered that you also make videos covering IRL military analysis that are with minimal bias. Is very bueno. Keep up the amazing work!
Hey man, love your content. As a suggestion, it would be interesting to know about the failures of the VDV, and how air assault / airborne units might have to rethink their usage given how MANPADs can relatively cheaply defeat helicopters / low flying airborne troop transports, given how much of an issue the Russian military has had conducting SEAD
Yes, that's a big one. The VDV has lost enough BMDs to leave 2 regiments walking. The last time I checked Oryxspioenkop, anyways. Maybe it's up to a full 3 regiments.
I'm not someone who's qualified to be able to state these are accurate summaries of what's actually going on but besides that, these summaries are great! Thankyou for the hardwork you putin (get it?) in research and presentation! *edits for grammar
Before I watch the video, I expect the answer to be "no". If we look at only say the Iran-Iraq war, or US invasions in the Middle-East, we get a skewed picture of modern warfare that does not favour the use of armour. Battle tanks have overwhelming firepower and are great at penetrating enemy lines and securing positions at high speed and cutting off positions. They must be properly supplied, maintained, supported by infantry and work in mostly flat areas where targets can't hide in buildings, forests or mountains easily. Russian armour did literally none of these things. They drove single-file, in poorly maintained and supplied tanks without support or intel straight into Ukrainian tractors. Not to take away from the Ukrainians, but in theory, if the Russian vehicles were actually properly supplied, etc. they could have easily completely restricted the Ukrainians' ability to maneuver East of the Dnieper within a few days. A complete death sentence for any cities and forces caught behind the advance. In a conventional war between armies, armour is still extremely useful as a strong and maneuverable firepower platform. But they are a force multiplier. You still need competent infantry, logistics, intelligence, etc. for them to be effective. At least, this is my opinion before watching the video. We will see if it changes!
since a tank needs to be supported by deployed infantry it is no longer usefull at securing positions at high speed. The armenian-azeri conflicts already demonstrated that they sucked in defense when the air superiority is contested. Conclusion: the cumulation of circumstances to succesfully operate tanks in combination wth its cost-efectiveness is so interdictive that a serious tankdeployment is no longer relevant AS LONG AS THERE IS NO EFFECTIVE WAY TO DEFEND THE TANK (besides slow infantry) against different threats. At the moment they are armoured coffins,
@@Belisarius277 The Azeris still used 'grunts' to close with and secure positions; so, 'combined arms--tanks, crunchies, arty and air working in tandem'-is still the way to go.
@@nickmitsialis The azeris "droned" armenian tanks which were the only anti-tank capacity the armenians had besides RPG7. its obvious now that relying on tanks to act defensively without air superiority is a bad idea since essentially everyone with an rc airplane can take them out. The tank as an offensive weapon is history too since it is useless against even light infantry sporting atgm even in the open. As long as a 80k dollar missile can take out a 2 million dollar tank without the tank being able to spot the atgm crew, its absurd to try to bring them. Too complex logistics, cost ineffective and essentially just a big bullseye. Battleship were obsolete when airpower outranged their guns. same thing for atgm in relation to tanks.
@@Belisarius277 yes; but drones can't occupy terrain and infantry still need to be pushed back; Combined Arms-=-Nick Moran did a vid about this, and he's the 'tread head'.
@@nickmitsialis as far as i know the ukrainians are relying pretty much on infantry to occupy territory. This is not desert storm where you could drive miles through featureless terrain where every bump sticks out like a sour thumb. Again costineffective, cumbersome and obsolete in its current configuration. The concept "tank" needs an update, perun made a great analysis on this
Your analysis is always detailed and spot on. The Stugna-P is a great system. I've seen it take out tanks, trucks, machine gun nests, and other targets. The only downside is that it was designed by Ukraine, but they outsourced manufacturing to none other than Belarus. So they gave away their intellectual property and can't resupply.
Back in the '80's, I played on a tank simulator for the M1A1. It was a lone unit with no infantry support or other armour units , other than the escort missions where the other units were hopelessly obsolete. It gave me a very distorted view of what a lone armour unit could do. You make very good points about logistical support and supporting military units. Tanks are terrifying weapons, but they do need help to protect them from fast moving capable defensive fire.
Thanks for your insightful presentation. Just one thing, there’s a difference between ordinance and ordnance - Ordinance: a law. - Ordnance: military weapons and ammunition.
Clancy also predicted the effectiveness of ATGMs in Red Storm Rising. The politburo member's kid mentions something about "two reservists in a Jeep" being able to stop a whole column dead, a lot like what we saw on the northern flank where the column moved on Kyiv during the initial opening of this war.
Another great video. In times of emergency, cost and time to train will be dominant factors. The debate about tracked vs wheeled vehicles becomes more pertinent with the destructive power of ATGMs.
This reminds me intensely of chariots at the end of bronze age civilization. Expensive training for operators, expensive maintenance, situationally deployable and counterable in urban environments, yet terrifying and indispensable on open planes. Possibly a weapon of empires, not of city-states?
@@niksarass horses are just plain superior to chariots, and later on heavily armoured ones, then even later on wagons+gunpowder(search up hussite wagons) then finally the tank
@@Cecilia-ky3uw they are, the reason why chariots were used in the first place was because horses that were big and strong enough to carry a man into battle weren't really a thing until fairly late in the bronze age, on top of which it's significantly trickier to fight from horseback than from a chariot
The category of ATGMs spans the aviation and air force: the AH-64D Apache Longbow and AC-130W Stinger II come to mind. Both can wreak havoc on even large tank formations, especially the '64' operating as wings and squadrons. Each platform carries 16 Hellfire ATGMs.
I have zero knowledge of tanks and limited knowledge of this stuff in general, but I must say that following through this video was an absolute pleasure. This kind low key and matter of fact way of presenting stuff is just a joy to follow. I can see how the target is in actual understanding of a complex issue rather than presenting an pre-selected dogmatic idea. Much appreciated, this was great!
Perun I love your videos but one point I'll disagree with massively is the "A bad tank is worse than no tank." Because the thing is, as long as you have a tank you are forcing your enemy to carry ATGMs with them where ever they go. Ask any infantry soldier if their job is easier with an ATGM strapped to their back, or without and they'll tell you without every day of the week. So even if you rarely deploy your T-55, or if you do it's in a very limited fire support mission, the mere fact it's a threat means that you have forced your enemy to limit their tactical mobility in favour of Anti-Tank Firepower, and if you can do that, confident that your enemy doesn't have tank support, then your infantry will have an advantage in the dismounted close combat role.
Some of my thoughts on this video: - Wonder how systems like those of Rheinmetal will change this, ive seen some videos of them and they look quite capable. Although those videos are by the makers of those systems soooo.... - Stocking up on atgms sounds good, but i seems to recall that they have a quite limited shelf life, something to do with volatile gasses being used for sensor cooling, idk - If the prevelence of atgms means the amount to tanks drops, then the amount of carried atgms could drop and make tanks more useful again, so there is probably some balance point there. - and lastly: These videos are really fucking informative, if you end up reading all these comment, thank you so much.
Compressed gas is only required for ATGMs with a thermal FPA seeker, such as the Javelin, though the planned 'G' model will use an uncooled seeker. The laser guided (eg, Stugna-P), or inertially guided (NLAW) systems shouldn't have this problem, there I imagine most issues are with either basic material/explosives deterioration or battery self-discharge (if those aren't easily replaceable). The Germans evidently won't send most of the cold war Strela MANPADSs they found, because so many had deteriorated in humid warehousing. There may be solutions to this, like climate controlled storage, or better, making use of old salt mines (as used for records storage). Agreed, there will be some new balance between tanks and ATGMs. What I'd really like to see is nations rerole at least one of their units towards exploring what a new combined arms doctrine would look like. I suspect it wouldn't be so far away from the US Stryker brigade concept. Just with more ATGMs in each sqd, surveillance drones/loitering munitions organic to each plt, laser designating drones for precision fires organic to each company, and perhaps some multiple rocket launchers with terminal laser guidance organic to each artillery btn. In essence, pushing guided non-line of sight fires down to the lowest reasonable echelons, and relying on lightly armored mobile gun systems for less expensive direct fires.
@@MrDarrylR oh I didn't know the NLAW only used the lead for aiming. I recently saw some product videos from the makers of the switchblade drone and some other things where soldiers have small tablets that show them live isr data from drones etc. Pretty interesting stuff, can probably make smaller teams have big effect
“Sagger” is the nato nomenclature for that early wire-guided Malyutka. From a former intel analyst, I love the content you’re producing - its well thought out and avoids popular western (and eastern!) biases. The Aussie defense ministry would do well to put you on as a contractor. Cheers!
I have a background in Economics (now working as a data engineer) and had a thing for defense economics. Did spend some time in my college's library reading the Handbook of Defense Economics volume 1 by North Holland. Your videos are sober, well produced, authoritative and with a dry, meme-ish sense of humor which I appreciate. Never checked your gaming stuff out, but I'd definitely would if you've played stuff like WARNO or Wargame Red Dragon. Anyway, just passing by to say I do like your stuff a lot. I leave a couple of videos on queue and play chess while listening to them, which works just fine because you have solid technical presentation skills. Wouldn't mind a few more ads if the revenue were significant to you, always happy to support high quality content.
46:17 the discord notification sound got me But as to not portray that a meme moment was my defining takeaway of this video: i think that you're really good at presenting this. This is the 3rd or so Ukraine conflict lecture that I've listened from you
As ex paratrooper where we have to jump into battlefields and use our legs and feet to engage the enemy its been a real joy to watch the infantrymen using highly sopisticated anti tank missiles win the war. Its has made the tank look very vulnerable indeed. Small highly motivated soldiers can operate at night get in close to the enemy and cause havoc. I think this war will be an eye opener for the western military. Poor Russian communications open to ham radio operators, using mobile cell communications so the Ukrainane could pin point locations of command centres. Russian Generals having go forward to find out what hells happening at the front. Tanks and vehicles getting bogged down on supply routes poor equipment maintence running out of fuel. Its been a litany of disasterous military planning. Its made the Russians look unprofessional and very inapt. This is a Battleship/Aircraft carrier moment of the Pacific war. TANKS are extremely vulnerable to drones and modern anti-tank weapons. I'd rather be in small squard of highly motivated well armed infantrymen then in a steel coffin.
True, but infantry will eventually become obsolete in this drone businesses too. The heavy use of cheap undetectable, but expendable drones that guide artillery strikes accurately alone guarantees this, but the real hell for the infantryman hasn't even begun yet. AI + drone swarming will be a true game changer.
@@JAnx01 Infantry will never be obsolete. Drone systems (both land and air) plays a role in combat. But they cannot hold the ground. Infantry holds the ground. In the 50's and 60's, there was a prevailing thought that aircraft and missiles would render Infantry obsolete. However, after air systems have done their job, how do you control the territory?
@@JAnx01 I agree with you, and disagree with you on so many levels. Drones are not undetectable at all, they can be stealthy, but emit radio waves and reflect high frequency radar, at least at fairly short range because they contain metal. Radio frequency jamming can disable drones from an entire area, so they must resort to frequency-hopping, however radio jamming that can cover the spectrum of frequencies that drones could use also jams the frequencies of radio that the defenders weapons need. Also, drones that can kill infantry, at least for now, need to be able to fire projectiles. For that the drone must be sturdy and large enough to carry a gun or grenades etc., which entails a fair amount of metal and size, again making it very detectable and targetable, and not so cheap and expendable. I think the war between drones and not-drones will come down to the fact that drones rely on radio frequencies to communicate. Being able to jam those communications in these days of digital encryption over the airwaves (like your mobile phone does) will be key to deciding how effective drones will be in future battles. Drones are only as effective as their communications are.
I think you're buying into the propaganda. No one knows what is going on and the Ukrainians keep releasing ARMA 3 video game footage to make it seem like they're winning. It's absurd. Even the US media is finally admitting that half of the Ukrainian Army is encircled by the Russians. It's amazing the amount of lies and bullshit they've tried to sell people.
The South African military knew the weaknesses of tanks vs well armed infantry back in the 80's. The South African Defence Force spearheaded its attacks with infantry and fast moving wheeled vehicles and left the heavy armour in the reserve and only brought it in as a final line of defence/offence. Our Soldiers gave russians and cubans and other communist block soldiers hell throughout the war with fast mobile warfare but still used tanks during battles such as Cuito Cuanavale, the largest tank battle in Africa since WW2. Tanks will always have a place in warfare although it will switch from the spearhead to a more supportive role
The weakness of tanks vs infantry that has the right equipment has been known as long as tanks existed. Bundles of stick grenades were used by the Germans to tank out tanks in WWI. Infantry guns, special anti-tank guns, and even anti-tank rifles could do the same. Tanks vs infantry anti-tank weapons have been an arms race since then. Who has had the advantaged have changed back and forward over time. At what distance and what terrain is better for each has also changed. The general knowledge that infantry can take out tanks if they have the right equipment has always existed. If you look at armored units between the world wars and in the early part of WWII most units had too many tanks and too few infantry initially. There is a shift to more infantry when they get tested in combat. Germany removes 1/3 of the tanks in Panzer divisions between the attack on Poland and the Soviet Union. They doubled the amount of infantry in the divisions, this was because you could not use too many tanks efficiently without infantry support. So the knowledge that combined arms is the most efficient way to use tanks is as old as the tanks. The knowledge of combined arms in general predates tanks by centuries. Archers, foot soldiers, and cavalry is better in a battle than either of them separatly.
from my experience with milsims it’s very easy to lose a tank if you’re not experienced, and while it’s tempting to throw them at the enemy they’re most protected and mobile deep in your back line where they don’t need to move at combat pace. what I’m saying is they might as well become self-propelled artillery with an MG on top lmao
Another historical example is the Israel-Lebanon war in 2006. Merkava units got hammered pretty hard by ATGM crews. Estimates vary from 20 to 50 tanks, which is relatively big for the IAF.
This was a great discussion. Tanks are far from obsolete. Even older tanks can absolutely crush infantry that lack adequate number of ATGMs. For poorer countries that have less concern about casualties this might win the day against a poorly prepared enemy. But against a competent defender with sufficient ammo, ATGMs will make the attacker pay a heavy price. Also we must not forget that Ukraine is firing a ridiculous number of these things and by the volume of fire alone, some are bound to get kills. All we can really learn from the available data is that if a sufficient number of ATGMs are available to the defender, then poorly supported tanks on the attack will suffer heavy losses.
in 2007, I already knew the era of the tank was over. The game Halo 3 showed me tanks were helpless against the Spartan Laser. That was the depth of my military/tactical knowledge. :p
while I totally understand the thinking, considering the amount of tank losses Russia has taken, they haven't been exactly tactical about it. I'm no military expert but I've always heard that tanks work when they've got infantry support. I haven't heard/seen much of that with the war in Ukraine, surely this will be a factor as I can't see many well trained militaries making this kind of mistake, especially on the scale Russia has done in Ukraine.
also not a military expert but i do have a small piece to add confirming this. i frequently play a game (that is not quite a mil-sim) called Hell Let Loose based in WW2. the main mode of gameplay is a tug-of war type matchup where the axis and allies fight for control of sectors of map. there isnt really any air assets to speak of but tanks definitely have a role. a tank on its own can wreak havoc for a limited amount of time before a coordinated team gets their heads in the game and takes it out or a lucky squad with a bazooka or panzerfaust does the same. a tank that has infantry with it has *substantially* higher survivability in battle as there are infantry units that are able to slowly repair tanks, or elsewise able to build repair stations using supplies placed by other soldiers or airdropped by the commander. in addition to providing security for the tank which cannot see everywhere at once and takes seconds to bring its weapons to bear. any infantry that can even *_hear_* an enemy tank is going to be extremely motivated to try to get it off the battlefield as quickly as possible because they are simply devastating in their ability to take down infantry
Most tank kills by Ukraine have been artillery. Infantry support can only dir in that situation and don't help at all. Drones hunts for tanks, directs accurate artillery on them and hit the top armor, killing the tanks. Over, and over again.
this reminds me of the discussion in the early 80s when an Exocet missile sank the Sheffield. i remember that it's price tag went from ~$100k to $1m after it was proven in war.
Exocet price went excessively high was also because it was being bought by British agents to deny supply to Argentina. Market supply and demand went crazy.
Tanks should still have a place when used effectively for combined arms warfare. The tank's job is to bust fortifications and enemy armor, while drawing fire away from friendly troops. It can also suppress enemy infantry with machine guns, but IFV's are better at this job. The tank is an intimidating power, and only a couple shoulder fired rockets will not usually be enough to make the tank confirmed as a non-threat. All the time and effort spent by the enemy focusing on the tank, is time they are not spending on the tank's friendly infantry and APC vehicles. It allows for the infantry to maneuver and flank the enemy easier. It still can destroy the enemy's fortified position or cover. What you do NOT want to do, is have very poor infantry assistance for the tank, or even worse, send them in alone. They will be unable to focus on all the infantry threats that will inevitably surround them and overpower them. I personally think, that for the modern battlefield, it is more worth it to view MBTs as a more specialized tool, instead of the backbone of your military force. I'd personally invest more into having a smaller force of very capable tanks, and setting them up with hard kill APS systems and all the best toys to make them as survivable as possible. Large tank forces of mediocre tanks seem obsolete. They cause huge issues with logistics. Especially the logistics chain is vulnerable to guerilla attacks and strikes from the air. The tanks themselves are easily picked off. The terrain can force your huge tank units to go through a deadly bottle neck, they aren't as unpredictable and versatile as infantry.
I really want to agree with you, because I'm a history nut and love tanks, but since modern ATMG's are so effective and reasonably cheap and operable in basically all weather, I don't see much of a role for MBT's at all. They need infantry screening for ATMG's far beyond the range that the tank is a useful asset to the offensive drive. Maybe using them on a massed surprise offensive drive would work, but with even super-cheap drones for surveillance against them, surprise is completely lost and the effectiveness of those tanks is also lost. The logistics on keeping them fueled does not justify their failure to achieve combat effectiveness.
@@richardduerr9983 spaced armor and ERA has mostly removed the ability for a unguided missile to one shot a modern tank, and active defensive systems like the trophy systems have proven to be reasonably effective. its going to take time to get used to this new style of war with these new systems but blowing up old Soviet cast-steel tanks doesn't really prove the effectiveness of these systems. Almost every tank fielded by Russia was obsolete with the introduction of the Abrams and other NATO tanks in the 70-80's. Its like they are bringing A7V's into WW2 and is not indicative of the capabilities of modern equipment.
@@lastword8783 they are not really useful for punching and breakthrough. even in WW1 that idea was proved to be false. what they provide is accurate and lethal "close" fire support to destroy machinegun nests and hardpoints. the closer something can get to the action the faster it can be employed and tanks are supposed to keep up with the infantry. every other use of tanks has been coincidental or suicidal as even in WW2 mechanized units where attached directly to tanks to assault defensive positions under covering fire. sending tanks out unsupported for assaults or exploitation's just gets them chopped up. The infantry leads the way. tanks are just another form of fire-support.
@@davidmccormick7419 " they are not really useful for punching and breakthrough. even in WW1 that idea was proved to be false" This "punch through" thing is an image that seems to refuse to die. Guderian seems to suggest this usage. When you are facing an enemy completely incapable of mounting a timely counterattack (France 1940) or there is a good chance they so poorly equipped as to not be combined arms units (Russia 1941), it may work, perhaps spectacularly well. But it was suicide to simply throw tanks forward by 1942. It is conceivable that modern tactical defense systems will make tanks "pretty hard" against these shoulder fired weapons. So I will keep an open mind as to whether the failure of these poorly maintained old Russian tank designs really says anything (or not) about how a properly equipped modern tank would perform.
@@ComradeOgilvy1984 The reason the image refused to die is that armored divisions did breakthrough all the time in WWII. A German armored division subverted 4 separate fortification lines around Stalingrad and reached the Volga, splitting the Russians in two and negating their defenses.
Soooo interesting to re watch this just before the brand new video. The minefield factor and the relevance of legacy systems in a high-attrition war was a lesson for us post-2023. St. FPV ended up being even more cost effective than St. Javelin and how forget the great flop: The Switchblade.
I remember reading a number of years ago about the diminishing role of the tank and I wasn't sure what exactly to think of it, as I'm British and it was a British article that seemed to be justifying our low or unimpressive numbers of tanks. To be fair though, prioritising our Navy, air force and special forces with a small but highly professional army seems best for us than trying to be some major land power. We've never been that even at the height of imperial power
Yea our frontline tank numbers are going to be down to 100+ with the new challenger coming out. Not including the warriors etc. Battle taxi won't go out of favour though.
UK Arny is geared for the snakes head not the million long length of the body of Soliders. Intelligence, intelligence, Special Forces, Special Forces..
@@tonyfriendly4409 as a nato member we had a responsibility to maintain a set number for combat on the eastern front.. Hence why they were all based in Germany. As infantry we got loaded out to take out tanks any way. Best 2 weeks on Salisbury hunting down tank after tank for air strikes and artillery. Fun times.
Thanks for the thoughtful insights in this series. I am receiving better information from this channel then I can ever hope to find in traditional media.
1) even in WW2 Germany realized that tanks suck without infantry/support/etc. As a result, they used the least amount of tanks per trooper and many argue this is what gave them the best efficiency. USSR, on the other hand, oftentimes used just tanks on their own without infantry, these got slaughtered. My point is, tanks always sucked when used on their own and their usefulness is often exxagerated because the most efficient military (Hitlers germany) actually used less tanks compared to their enemies on purpose 2) The tank age has long been gone 40+ years ago. They're useful as a "show of force" mechanism and to frighten, and this is why many armies still keep them, but you're not going to see them being useful against sophisticated weaponry , unless these tanks are in small numbers. If Israel at any point decided to significantly increase their tank count, all those tanks are dead weight, but having a small amount of tanks and having them defended gives an advantage 3) Battleships are next to be extinct. They face a similar problem: that some untrained soldier can simply blow the thing up for 1/millionth of the cost of the battleship. Its just that we havent yet had two sophisticated powers fight at sea. Everything thats big is an easy and rewarding target, and all these "anti missile systems" are useless. You can grab a small drone with a bomb and fly it next to any modern battleship unnoticed
G’Day from Oregon, USA. Listened (more than watched) a few hours of your Ukraine analysis. Think you got the TH-cam config’d right as no ads at all! Thank so much for the week or more of work you put into this.
I need more of this from you. Never even seen the gaming side, though I will check it out. You have a very unique skill set to explain these things, I can't get enough.
Back when there were infantry portable antitank rifles that could knock out tanks in the early years of ww2 it was understood that tanks would be best used by concentrating them into tank divisions rather than spreading them out in small groups across one's army. Fighting 2 or 5 or 10 tanks at a time is difficult but manageable with ATGMs; fighting 100 is impossible. The Russians have unlearned everything they ever knew. Including the whole "don't be the bad guy in world affairs and conquer and erase your neighbors" thing.
Back in WW2 tanks didn't attack as whole divisions either. You usually had 2 tank companies attacking in one sector, so approx. 20-24 tanks, plus support vehicles. A whole tank division, so 200+ MBTs + several hundred support vehicles in one place will cause a huge traffic jam and enable the enemy to counterattack on the flanks. Remember that video of the Russian tank regiment being ambushed with artillery and ATGMs. Well that was a whole tank regiment driving down a country lane.
@@MarcosElMalo2 No, tanks are useful when concentrated and supported. Driving a load of tanks down an obvious highway into ambushes because all of the fields are mud and impossible to get across, with no air support and infantry that doesn't even know why they're there is... basically 1920s British doctrine but let's ignore that.
"don't be the bad guy in world affairs and conquer and erase your neighbors" - ?!?! They never ever learned this. In fact this has been their MO since basically forever..
The short answer is “no”. What Ukraine has shown is that not all tanks are equal and more importantly, that armour needs to be backed up with infantry and air support. When used effectively within a combined arms strategy the best tanks are still a deadly weapon system.
I'm not so sure that ATGM's have not made the tank irrelevant. Infantry screening can only screen to a fairly short distance in front of armor that is also supposed to be supporting them. ATGM's have an engagement range that is outside the infantry's effective range. ATMG operators can kill tanks outside the range of the infantry, and helicopter support can be suppressed by MANPADS protecting the ATMG operators. Without the tanks being able to support the infantry assault, what is their mission?
It’s been awhile since this was produced and a lot has happened . Ukraine performed a counter offensive with fast light armored vehicles, armored personnel carriers, and a few tanks. This was successful because the Russians were unable to effectively redirect artillery and that the defense lines which held the most weapons were effectively bypassed and surrounded. The main battle tank has a place on the battlefield as mobile artillery and when their numbers are far superior on offensive operations. I do suggest that future tanks will be half the size and weight. They need to be faster and able to withstand artillery. Lastly they need to be designed to reduce or eliminate weak points such as in the turret.
Good video. However, whilst you do acknowledge that there is a doctrinal reason why tanks are going to stay around, I feel you hand-wave away just how important that doctrinal reason is, and even the economic viability of an expensive, survivable system capable of dealing much greater death and destruction much faster, and in both offense and defense. I sense a response video coming on my channel next week to give that tanker's perspective. Not necessarily to counter anything you said, I disagree with little, but to provide that little extra food for thought to re-balance things.
Please don't take it as a handwave, just deference on the point to those who can speak more confidently on it.
As I see it, Army argues this is something they need in order to do a job, the spreadsheet warriors then get on with making sure industry and budget can deliver that (or as close to that as reasonably possible), preferably without blowing out the budget.
I like to think that civie analysts can take it as far as "hey guys, do these numbers and indicators give you pause? Are we on the right track here?" But they can't go as far as saying "trash your armour, and no, we have no idea what you should do instead, deal with it".
I can confidently, intellectually get as far as "smacking around poorly utilised legacy systems is easier than ever" but I can't get to "so this is a better system for supporting the infantry, do this instead."
So please take it not so much as a handwave so much as an active invitation for input.
Fair enough. Out of interest, are you familiar with "DOTMLPF"? (Or whatever the Aussie equivalent is?) (Edit. Turns out the closest Aussie equivalent is "Fundamental Inputs to Capability")
@@TheChieftainsHatch Department of Transportation My Little Pony Fans?
@@swj719 How did you find out about that? Rule 1 of Department of Transportation My Little Pony Fans is that you don't talk about Department of Transportation My Little Pony Fans....
@@TheChieftainsHatch While I think everyone tends to use their own acronyms, the core ideas are reasonably transferable (or at least I'd hope so).
As a sidenote, your talk on US WWII AFV development at the New York Military Affairs Symposium back in 2017 has to be one of my most watched YT videos, as are the recent series on doctrinal development. Thanks for everything you do.
Edit: DOTMLPF is a lot less of a mouthful than whatever you'd end up with if you tried to make something out of "Organisation, Command & Management, Personnel, Collective Training, Major Systems, Facilities and Training Areas, Supplies, Support, and Industries."
Based on your video view counts, the internet likes your military analysis more than game commentary. I've only seen your Ukraine videos and they're good enough that I'd expect you to blow up if you stick with it. You're one of the best I watch, more thorough than any others.
Have to agree... your insights on both the Ukraine crisis and military technology as a whole are excellent...that's actually why I'm subbed
😆 Dude wants to do videos about his hobby, not his day job 🤷♂️
yep. his game commentary is already quite good, but these real-life commentary videos are even better.
I mean, porque no los dos? If he enjoys the video game content he should do both so that he can do a mix.
Really enjoy the military videos though so would def be happy if he continues
I agree ☝🏼
"They won't destroy T-14s..."
Well yeah, that's because T-14s pretty much don't exist. Russia has like 5 of them total.
But russia has now started serial production. And with the power of russian logistics they maybe have them ready for battle in 2 or 3 jears.
@@Shadow25720 LOL what power of Russian logistics? They can't manufacture any of the parts they need.
They're desperately trying to buy night vision sensors from France.
They can't get any semiconductor chips for the electronics.
Nobody will sell them anything.
Their economy is in tatters and they're bogged down and losing in an ill-advised war of their own making where they've lost 30% of the forces they committed and have been forced to pull troops protecting their borders to desperately try and reinforce.
In 2 or 3 years there won't be a Russia left to receive the T-14s at this rate.
What a joke.
Nothing is indestructible. But T-14 has some great design ideas. The tank itself will be knocked out easily, but the crew will survive.
@@TurkishRepublicanX The crew may not survive.
@@bigmatthews666 In theory they can, in practice more work may need to be done but the concept is sound.
Finally, someone actually using logic when publicly talking about modern warfare. I like that you present the ambiguity and shades of gray that are missing in most outlets that claim either side of an argument as if there's no doubt or conditions
When I was in the army 35 years ago, we referred to the armored personnel carriers as "group coffins". Knowing what I did about the anti-tank weapons that we had, even back then, I was terrified with the prospect of being inside of one. We had 81mm rockets that could make a roast dinner out of the occupants of these vehicles. I assumed an enemy would have something similar.
I see this issue in the very same way. Missile-armed infantry is more agile and effective than tanks and
from the number of tanks being destroyed in Ukraine these days, this is clearly the case. Tanks are
basically just mobile artillery these days and their time in military history is ending, thanks to light,
portable, and relatively inexpensive shoulder-launched anti-armor missiles. It has been said that all
wars are economic in nature. If so, then much lower cost but effective weapons will dominate the
battlefields now and even more so in the future.
You can buy 150 javelin for the price of 1 main battle tank ( us, fr , german or uk)... with a miss rate of 50% you can roast 75 tanks. What MBT can hope to destroy 75 armor before dying ?
Drones are even cheaper than ATGM's and require little training to operate. There will b a role for some sort of armored mobile artillery for the foreseeable future but MBT's r expensive to produce, to train, to fuel and to maintain. Seems the cost-benefit ratio just isn't there. Probably why the USMC doesn't field them anymore.
@@markb8468 suicide drone with double warhead? I dont think its less than $ 100k.
@@northerngannetproject3147 I haven't looked up the cost....but it's substantially less than a tank. From 3-5 million or so?
As a former tanker who was part of the Iraq invasion and occupation I think your coverage was very fair. Urban warfare sucks for tanks.
Sincere compliments on this comprehensive and balanced video! As a once ATGW operator (armored infantry) who used to operate in close coordination with MBTs and a military analyst later on, you have taken into account most relevant factors.
One small factor I'd like to highlight here that is somewhat overlooked is the apparent absence of Russian (armored) recce in their - obviously failing - combined arms approach. Most western forces that deploy MBTs have recce forces scan ahead for possible threats that use long range/high resolution sensors and which cooperate closely with artillery, air support and infantry. Their data usually contributes to how tanks, infantry and fire/air support is deployed ahead of contact with enemy forces. Today (armored) recce forces also deploy drones and deploy dismounted troops to scan for hostile infantry and sometimes can operate as or with Joint Terminal Air Controllers (JTAC) or Fire Support Teams (FST) to coordinate fire control.
All of that seems lacking in the Russian approach. And that tells more than anything else I suppose that the Russian ground forces are ill prepared for whatever engagement they end up in. The mud for example seems to have them surprised completely, when most recce troops could have conveyed information on the terrain conditions well in advance.
This all shows one thing more than anything else to me. The Russian military leadership is there only to satisfy the need for the Kremlin to have obedient subordinates, not effective ones.
Well spoken....
I have heard reports that the Russian Air Units are afraid of and do not trust their own ADA! And that Ground/Air Communication is almost nonexistent .....
@@zeprin I mean, it isn't unreasonable - when the other side's air units are largely the same as yours, target ID gets dicey.
@@swj719 True. But then deconfliction (which units are exactly where?) becomes of paramount importance. Another aspect that the Russian forces seem to have no clue of.
Having said that, deconfliction - even with the best procedures and training in place - is a b@tch regardless during actual combat. Fratricide sadly occurs to often.
@@alantoon5708 Thank you kindly.
I believe that tanks will always have a place on the battlefield. The problem with Russia is that they keep playing rock-paper-scissors and always select rock. ATGMs are vulnerable to infantry and quick responding mortars. A column of tanks driving down the road into enemy territory without infantry or scouting elements has almost always been a bad idea.
Also tanks in the open, like in a desert, are top notch if you have air superiority. They still have their place for sure.
@@spencerstevens2175 And this is why we see countries like the USA have such success with tanks. The US has exceptional combined arms doctrine and has air supremacy as a primary goal in any fight. Which allows ground attack assets to be in the air over the armor on overwatch duties. As well as good infantry dismount tactics from APCs and IFVs. But that requires extensive logistics capacity suited to global power projection, I don't think Russia has that full logistics integration into all methods of power projection.
That has been a bad idea for about 80 years. That's when the Panzerfaust was invented...
@@Argosh see: Desert Storm
@@Argosh also the six day war and Yom kippur war. Israel used their tanks very effectively
Great video! My two cents worth (as an ex-mechanized infantry soldier) is the critical role of the environment. As you mentioned, built-up areas are no-go zones for tanks, even with infantry support. The infantry will just spend most of their effort in protecting the enticing target that is the tank, while the tank is not able to offer much value in return. Tanks do better in open country and fighting at longer ranges. In short, tanks belong in the countryside and not in the city.
Unfortunately for the Russians, the Ukrainian countryside is also proving inhospitable to their tanks, and a major underestimated factor is the mud. From first-hand experience I can tell you that operating in heavy sticky mud is a nightmare for armored vehicles. I've trained in those conditions and had days when I spent two hours actually training and ten hours extracting vehicles from mud.
Look at the sheer numbers of abandoned Russian tanks that were captured by the Ukrainians. Yes, some of the Russian crews abandoned their vehicles because of mechanical breakdowns and lack of fuel, but I would bet that simply getting stuck in mud is also a major reason.
The mud is also acting as an area denial weapon to the Russian armor, much like a minefield would. The mud forces the Russian vehicles to use the roads, which makes them much easier targets for Ukrainian hit-and-run ambushes. Almost every video I've seen of Russian tanks getting destroyed had the tanks on a road, not spread out in an open field.
I cannot over-emphasize how important this factor is. Ambushing a tank driving across a wide-open countryside is far more difficult that ambushing one that you know has to come down a certain road. One of the lessons drilled into mechanized infantry is to avoid roads whenever possible. Always travel unpredictably across open country if you can.
My prediction is that if this conflict continues for long enough for the ground to dry up, then the Russian tanks will perform better (assuming there are any left by then). The tanks will become much more difficult to take out once they can travel cross-country rather than use roads.
What would be the point of using the tanks in the countryside though? Ukraine won't engage them with their own tanks, it would be suicide and they can just continue to use drones and rocket launchers. They can move them more safely perhaps but they can't use them to project power into dense urban areas. Am I wrong or is even using tanks in this type of war just not useful?
@@branteus In this scenario you would use the tanks to dominate the countryside and encircle the cities. Tanks would also be needed for taking out enemy armor and fortified positions in the countryside. The actual city fighting would be done with dismounted infantry backed by their own mechanized vehicles and artillery support from batteries a safe distance outside the city. The tanks would definitely still be needed for this kind of war.
@@branteus Tanks can engage from miles away. Antitank weapons that can be carried by a person/pair have ranges of ~1/4 mile. Drones change things, definitely, but they aren't everywhere. It would also force the Ukrainians to defend against armor from all sides instead of just down major highways.
I think "Assuming there are any left" is going to be the key factor, not just for the tanks but for supply and personnel. Battle groups are effectively useless offensively with as little as 10% casualties and while proposed rates are impossible to verify I suspect the logistical train is approaching something like 25% and passable roads evaporate with each ambush and IED.
It will be at least late May before the north is not boggy enough to neutralize tanks but even in the south where ground is better tanks are still taking losses.
Of course the other issues still cripple the offensive; morale, training, equipment, money, etc. etc. If you can't even issue your troops effective nav equipment they will be hopeless at fighting an offensive war.
@@marcusmoonstein242 But wouldn't these tanks need supply convoys (that I assume would not have the same off road capabilities of tanks, and thus could be easily targeted) to refuel and rearm?
I think the way to frame it is "tanks are in need of a recontextualization". The B-52's original role no longer exists, and they'd last about 30 seconds in that role, but they're very effective at lobbing large numbers of standoff weapons. Something similar will have to happen with the MBT. My personal take is that situational awareness will be the main future thrust. Having drone feeds data linked into tanks could prevent a large number of these sorts of attacks while giving them a huge advantage in tank on tank fighting.
Definitely. Ignoring the mud Ukraine should be the absolute perfect situation for tanks to take over the battlefield just like it did in the same area in WW2. Even in their ideal infantry support role now, what advantage does it have over a heavily equipped IFV? Better armour that still gets shredded anyway. Tanks need to justify their expense, surely, armies don't want to just get rid of them like Belgium did so they need to integrate with increasingly relevant aspects like electronic warfare better than they currently do. The problem is if they just negate other tanks, everything else is doing that already.
Using tanks as mobile drone platforms seems pretty terrifying
@@Spaced92 Heavy IFVs generally have lower caliber guns and a shorter firing range compared to a heavy MBT. They are also less capable of negotiating difficult terrain compared to a modern MBT. And heavy armor still does count against most weapons that doesn't impact perfectly on the turret or side of the tank.
But an IFV will bring supporting infantry, which is crucial for the survival of the tank in forests, as well as urban and hilly terrain.
When my father was tankist in Czechoslovak army in 80s, they believed that tanks are outdated already in that time. They were learning that if they see radar of Apache heli over trees, they should leave tank and run as far as possible because they can't do anything with that. 🙂 We are small nation and surviving of crew is priority, but on other hand, due to political situation, we had to use soviet tanks which really didn't (and still don't) guarantee you that you survive, there was enough tanks, but not enough experienced crews, so just leave the tank was not a big deal I guess. I think this was unofficial strategy, my father said that there were 2 types of military leaders - type 1 was commie who knew nothing about military but he was good member of party, and second was real military leader who didn't care about politics much, these 2 types of officers were very often in conflict and were saying things which are going directly against each other. 🙂 Type one was saying propagandistic shits about how they are the best and immortal and second type told you that you will survive 5 minutes in tank battle, that was really positive motivation. 🙂
That is an amazing story lol. Very practical advice from the second type of officer.
@@epicurusurist9017 When my father was ending military service, they were retraining him to medic reservist, because it was time when they lowered amount of tanks and they didn't need him later. He was really glad that he didn't have to enter that steel coffin called T-55A again. We had thousands of tanks during communism time, can you imagine it for such a small country? Now we have 30 operable modernised tanks and another 100 outdated T-72 and few others conserved, it's ridiculous imagination that we had like 5000 tanks back in the day. 🙂
5 minutes? The political military leader won't last 5 seconds in a real firefight against actually experienced and trained veterans.
Also another aspect to look at. Putin was trained as a spy, and agent, not an elite soldier who can take on a battalion of enemy soldiers.
Ondrej... People just love "bling". (I do myself, in my backpack...) ...Even if it is on the opposite side:
The last time I was at a normal Home Guard exercise, I had to listen to to how stupid it was to guard a stationary object. "Because the Russians woul 'just' send in a cruise missile!" -- A cruise missile flying 2000 km ...or across Sweden ...or from a submarine??? For a target that was vulnerable to any caffe latte drinking political hothead with a cheap hammer? --- People are just blinded by "bling" sometimes.
@@MultiZirkon People here believed that both sides will nuke us in case of war NATO vs Warsaw Pact. 🙂 That's why Soviets needed sattelite states, they needed bumper zone and keep nuclear wasteland far from their land.
I’ve never seen your gaming videos, but I’ve gotten addicted to these analyses. You have a fresh perspective on the pre-conflict logistics and supply chain issues that I’ve seen very little of in other content that covers this war, and you explain it incredibly well. Which is crazy because these are essentially “just” recorded PowerPoint decks - no fancy graphics, no music, no animations. It just goes to show you how the quality of the content itself can drive interest compared to slick production values.
I don’t know if you would ever be interested in doing these types of analyses for past conflicts, but I bet you would get a lot of interest in them. One of my favorite aspects of American Civil War history is understanding how Ulysses Grant‘s expertise as a quartermaster played directly into his successful strategies against Confederate forces. I’d love to see your take on historical conflicts.
@@AR-GuidesAndMore - The interesting bit is that the presentation of @PerunAu is so clear and structured that those great visuals aren't necessary. I'm regularly listening to Perun videos as podcasts while driving or working, because they are such great enterteachment.
There's something so nice about the Perun format that I think it could reach out enormously into mainstream if it was used for other topics.
Thanks for the video. Next potential topic - the Russian military's allergy to pallets, forklifts and logistics in general.
Logistiwhatsits?
What about how they thought they wouldn’t need long Johns and gloves for fighting in the freezing cold? Or I guess they didn’t bring winter gear because they weren’t expecting a fight
It's not that they don't have logistics, they do (though at times it looks like it is dated to ca. 1943). It's that they rely upon their rail network for logistics. they have a force of 20k troops just devoted to operating and defending this network. It is a very efficient system if they are invaded, whereby they can easily rush supplies and equipment to a hub and defend that land not far from the hub.
The whole system breaks down when they try to project their power. The rail hubs end at their borders. As a result they have difficulties projecting power much beyond the 150km mark from their nearest rail hub. Of course, they also operate on the push model of logistics. This means that the supplies that troops get are known ahead of time, but that also results in logistic driving strategy. They prioritize missiles and ammo over fuel and food. It is obvious how that kind of system will easily breakdown in an offensive invasion but Russia hasn't needed to do large scale offensive wars in a long time.
@Alpha_Wave That is very true. They don't have massive dedicated LHA/LHDs, they don't have a large number of oversea bases that can refuel their fleet. This means that they can't establish a fleet train. And that means that they don't think about projecting logistics, only dumping logistics.
@@haruruben freezing cold is better than around zero cent. Cold
Another note. The premise that ‘old cheap tanks’ can flip the economics on using Javeline is laughable, because old tanks are very vulnerable to the old trusty RPG-7. There is a reason nobody uses these old tanks anymore except in very poor third world countries. Heck, even modern tanks are vulnerable to RPG rockets. In Ukraine for example they target tank tracks with RPGs. Yes, it requires good hit, but a tank with broken tracks becomes very vulnerable and often abandoned by crew.
Let us also consider the fact that russia doesn't defend its tanks with adaquate screening troops. Tanks have always been very vulnerable to infantry. The role of a tank is to assist the infantry, not replace it as russia has
@@goldenhate6649 exactly
@@goldenhate6649 seems that Russian generals must have presumed that a show of massed armor would be enough to get a "cheap" victory. They were very wrong and in being wrong, they created a HUGE morale problem when their troops started getting incinerated by the dozens. Now they are stuck in a nasty bloody fight.
I read about a challenger or abrams tank that got stuck in a ditch in Iraq and took like 60-80 hits from rpg 7s and survived. Both tanks however have been penetrated/destroyed by the rpg 29. The moral of the story is that modern tanks can withstand old anti tank rockets
Combined arms means that without infantry every tank is vulnerable. Tanks are still viable in my humble opinion but must be deployed with accompanying infantry to have any chance. But on saying that it was shown in WW2 that with enough mortars the infantry defenders could strip away enough infantry support to render the tanks vulnerable again. The USA army at one point in time thought that the "Stryker" type wheeled armoured vehicles could replace tanks but have since reconsidered that line of thought. There's no simple answer but a tank attack with trained accompanying "Panzer Grenadeers" is the best tactic the Russians could employ but its the human factor of who wants to win the most I believe.
ATGM's, especially the Javelin and NLAW, have changed things but this particular war just seems to be the reality of facing a defense in-depth which is always going to be a costly affair.
Every since the earliest days of the "Tank" there have been weapons for killing them that could be transported and used by either 1 soldier, or a 2 soldier team. Survival of MBTs and all other forms of armored combat vehicles on a modern conventional battlefield depends upon the coordinated effort of a "Combined Arms Combat Team" that utilizes Aviation assets (both fixed wing and rotary), Artillery, Reconnaissance elements, and of extreme importance, almost as much as Aviation assets (in some cases more) is the need for a proper balance of Mechanized Infanyry traveling with the MBTs in vehicles that can not only keep up with the MBTs but also have a level of survivability that allows them to transition through the MBTs when needed for engaging dismounted enemy Infantry with their own dismounted Infantry. Commanders of Armored and Mechanized forces must follow certain guidelines about movement of these units like not moving them during daylight unless you have Air Superiority ( without it you cannot reliably keep Close Air Support on station ready to react as needed) and the terrain that MBTs can be used in. Every since WW1 we've known tanks don't do well in deep muddy fields, densely populated urban areas, steep mountains or very heavily wooded areas. They should not travel down roads in convoys to avoid muddy fields and heavily wooded areas, especially not if those roads traverse unsecured areas or if you don't have effective Close AR Support or effective and rapid Counterbattery Artillery fires. Modern tanks come with smoke generators, multiple smoke grenade launching systems, and are capable of relatively fast speeds, but where do we see most of the tanks being destroyed in Ukraine? Static positions, convoys on roads, urban areas, or in assaults against dug in Ukrainian defensive positions that the Russians know exactly where they are, they know that they are full of Infantry dismounts with tons of ATGMs and yet we don't see dismounted Infantry assaulting those positions under covering Artillery or Close Air Support with their IFVs moving close by giving supporting fires with their auto cannons and coaxial machine guns. We see tanks killed after sitting in the same poorly camouflaged positions for days ( evidenced by the tables, chairs and other "hooch" setups soldiers create anytime we sit in one place over 24 hours). We see them destroyed or captured where they ran out of fuel or where their crew abandoned them. We see them killed when being committed into battle in a piecemeal fashion (and once again without effective Close Air Support or Artillery Support/effective Counterbattery Support. By the 2nd time tanks were used on the battlefield in WWI these lessons were being learned, it's almost like a lot of Russian Officers/Commanders never really spent much time reading the history of Armored Warfare. Combine that with, from all appearances a significant portion of Russian soldiers not wanting to be there, and apparently poorly trained, undisciplined, and unmotivated (by looking at uniforms and gear, watching how they handle their weapons ( poor muzzle discipline and a lot of unaimed spray and pray shooting) and the fact that so many vehicles, and so much equipment and ammunition being abandoned in completely usable condition with little to no attempt to prevent the Ukrainian forces from being able to use it tells us a lot about the Russian military that has entered Ukraine. I'm sure there are some really good quality Russian units involved in this war, and I'd bet we just aren't hearing much about them. Probably because they still have most of their MBTs, IFVs, and other vehicles and equipment in their possession and in working order because those leading these units actually spent their training time awake, alert, and sober.
Or invade Russia type terrain/geography when the ground is thawing ......or going into winter
Well presented. I’m an old M1A1 tanker in the US Army. Before 911 we spent all our time training in combined arms to fight the Russian hoard. Most of the time in MOPP 2 or MOPP 4.
I agree older tanks are a waste of resources. Modern tanks with well trained crews, active protection systems and a clear well executed combined arm doctrine can still decide a battle.
Couldnt agree more !
Electronic warefare too
t-series tanks including the T-90 are utterly obsolete. the gap is the same as the difference from an A7V to a Panther and its showing. when you are that much of a target being a generation behind is suicide.
Yes to attack ( irak)... no to defend.
Semper Fi. 1st Tank Bn
As a 19K, our weaknesses are well known. It's worth noting the anti-warhead defensive systems are not rapid-fire and usually not very good at defending against multiple attacks. They're designed to defeat the golden BB, not beat off a concerted push. Further, anti-tank weapons don't have to blow the turret off or destroy the interior to mission-kill a tank. Simply knocking the sprockets or road wheels off, or breaking the track itself (seen that a few times in some of the city fighting) means the tank cannot move. And tanks that cannot move are short-lived unless your units are advancing past the casualties. The biggest thing I've seen the defenders doing in Ukraine that's working so well is getting in multiple attacks on a single target. One video I saw showed no less than five different hits on the same tank, with the left track coming off on the fourth hit, resulting in a mobility kill.
As mentioned in the video, unsupported vehicles (armor or not) are easy pickings for infantry, especially when they have ready access to modern anti-materiel weapons. But how else is an army that is badly coordinated and badly supplied supposed to take ground? Poor coordination in the laager means not all tanks end up fully fueled before the road march. Poor coordination on the march means armor sometimes outruns the infantry vehicles, with expected results. Poor training in reaction to contact means you end up with a bunch of tanks stuck in the ditch or in a muddy field like I saw in one video. Poor morale means almost nothing works the way commanders think things are going to work, so the least little bloody nose and the formation breaks down resulting in far too many avoidable casualties.
On top of that we have the staggering intelligence failures of Russia in estimating what they were going up against -- Ukrainians ain't a bunch of mountain goat-herds with a few RPGs and AKs, and they should have known better, especially after the Donetsk fighting. It's almost like the Russian command staff has been training to try and win the next Afghanistan, and this is not that.
My worry is not whether tanks are going to become obsolete -- it's what Putin and his ego will do when he thinks he is cornered and about to lose to an outnumbered and outgunned foe. He cannot afford to have all his other thinly-contained satrapies decide the Kremlin has become weak and decide to secede, costing them more strategic assets.
yeah I think this is bit of an edge case in terms of armor everything the Russians did in building their tactical formations exacerbates poor coordination. the BTG is the formation I would adopt if I knew all my mid grade officers were the reincarnation of Napoleon other wise I have questions about a major's qualifications to integrate that many arms with a junior staff
I remember reading beyond 3-4 defeats the shrapnel statistically will have knocked out the defensive systems. Even if you needed to fire 4 hellfire’s off to take out one MBT, the cost is still vastly less than that tank.
@@kalimarus but you have had to sit there long enough to fire off 4 hellfires
Would something like a 50 cal with AP rounds (especially tungsten) be able to damage a tank track enough to disable it? I'd suspect a 50 cal to be worthless against a modern tank but I've seen some of the tracks used on them and I'm sure 50 cal rounds could certainly severe the bolts & connecting bars that keep the track together. I'm sure it's usually take multiple hits in the same area, but I would think it would be possible. The larger the caliber, the higher chance of disabling the track I would think.
@@kde5fan737 Technically, yes, eventually, but the whole time you're trying to mission-kill the tank by pecking away at it, that tank and all his buddies and (hopefully) his infantry support will be trying to suppress and kill YOU. A machine gun big enough to damage a tank will be throwing up a pretty large dust cloud of its own, along with a lot of noise and muzzle flash that says HEY YOU GUYS, SHOOT ME PLEASE. This is one reason man-portable SAMs and ATGMs are effective in broken terrain or city environments: you can pop out, fire, and retreat to cover pretty easily. Tank crews if trained properly will pull up, fire, and then retreat back behind whatever cover they have if they are aware of anti-tank threats in the area. Assuming you have any cover available. If you're trying to move fast and capture ground, you usually don't have time to dig revetments, even if you have the combat engineers around to do it.
The diagram posted in the video where it shows the rock/paper/scissors diagram is a good one to start with. Take that and now imagine the effective ranges of the weapons involved. Then consider how visible the enemy you're fighting is i.e. does he have cover and/or concealment too? Then consider how fast each of those systems can be employed and how exposed you have to be to employ them. It's enough to make your head hurt.
Great video! As a naval officer, the concept of relying on mobility and active protection over armor is an interesting one…it basically encapsulates the philosophy of warship design since the advent of anti-ship missiles.
Yes, I see land warfare evolving much the same way navel warfare has. The tank is equivilent to a battleship (heck they called the tank the land-battleship when it was in development) and they rely almost exclusivly on direct fire guns and thick armor to defeat peer platforms. When battleships became obsolete we still retained cruisers and destroyers which gradually merged in size and role to systems which carried a large variety of weapon systems and many people just term them all as 'surface combatants' now. In the same manor I see our modern IFV's with their combination of infantry, misiles and auto-cannons will become the dominant platform on land. Drones will also get incorporated likely with each IFV having a little helo-pad on the back for the launch and recovery of it's own recon drones just as warships launch helecopters.
I have seen several videos depicting Ukrainian troops in action. With the exception of the squad machine gunner, every troop had some kind of anti armor capability. You might not completely kill a tank with one shot, but damage adds up. If you just slow a tank down, it's less capable of offensive action and can be taken out later. Combine that, with the effect of the rasputitsa, the tanks will not be as effective as they could be until the mud solidifies.
"Killing a truck worth it, let alone a tank"
Indeed: don't under-rate trucks. If a row of fifty trucks have all of the food and fuel that the invaders can lay hands on for two hundred miles, then they're more valuable than twice the number of tanks.
"But if you're on a budget, do those legacy tanks provide you value?"
Alas, probably yes: wars tend to be fought against civilians.
Unless you have all your units near rail depots or a plentiful supply of transport helicopters with secure landing zones, trucks are the way to go. In mountains and jungles I would suggest mule trains if you can find a plentiful source of mules and the personnel to support them. But this isn't Burma during the second world war, is it? :)
I have really appreciated these videos on this topic. So many videos seem to be way too enthusiastic about killing and how "cool" weapons are. This is the kind of thing I can learn from and have an interesting discussion with people after. Thank you for doing these.
These weapons are cool haha. Acknowledge it or not, the majority of people who get into military kit and equipment as hobbyists are on some level driven by the cool factor.
To plus on this, I appreciate recognising the limits of your ability to commentate on these topics - too many folks have gone down the speculative rabbit hole and not made it out the other side
Wanted to say basically the same!
Yes! I concur with your sentiments, sadly this channel is full of jingoistic juveniles, what mother grunted them Into the world.
@@johncampbell2979 You're a snob, Campbell! I invite you to turn your nose down every once in a while, the whole world can see right into your nostrils.
Combined arms has always been the way to go.
Our resident you tube tanker put out a video today too, where he comes to a lot of the exact same conclusions.
Pretty much this. Well trained infantry working in close coordination with tanks neutralize most ATGMs because they can't get close enough without tangling with enemy soldiers.
It's the right conclusion.
It has always been rock paper scissors. If you only have rocks, a few papers will decimate them.
This video was superbly researched and reasoned By someone who is not a tank expert by any means. The evidence is overwhelming against tanks in an era of smart and affordable light weight antitank weapons. It’s a no-brainer.
@@Caseytify Yes, but . . .
The range, accuracy, and concealibility of the newest ATGMs indicates to me that you want your tanks operating further back during an advance, with troops out ahead, already dismounted. A spearhead with mechanized infantry could run into a lot of trouble unless you’re using your tanks as old WWII style Infrantry Tanks (think Matildas and Churchills), unless the terrain is as smooth as a cue ball.
After watching and reading some comments I'd just like to point out a couple of interesting tidbits. In my country "armour" has largely been replaced by two vehicles, (1) a 155mm self propelled howitzer with an on road top speed of 90kmh and a maximum firing range of +70kms, and (2) a recon/anti tank vehicle with a 76mm AT gun, top speed of 120kmh on and 60kmh offroad. Both of these use large wheels instead of tracks. The idea behind them were to maximize mobility, i.e. they were specifically designed to get to and between conflict zones themselves, not via trains or other means, are specifically protected against landmines (and I presume therefore IEDs) and in the case of (2) doctrine dictated that they would be used as static AT weapons once at a conflict zone. (There were also versions built with 105mm NATO barrels, AA types and SAM types)
There is still the problem of holding terrain if you're the attacker. For that you need people protecting what you have taken. Artillery can't do that. Light vehicles with AT guns can't do that either. An attacker also needs other systems than the ones you hold up as examples.
Russia wants Ukraine so it must send tanks to capture it and troops to support the tanks. Once it is captured the tanks support the troops.
@@УллечкоПеровчДедушка how is that working out?
@@tacticalosintcombatfootage2022 Looking at ambushes I would say that Russian armored infantry knows when to follow but not when to lead. So they'll keep risking and losing tanks unnecessarily.
What country is that?
South Africa?
Perun, I am so incredibly happy to have come across your content. Some of, if not the most well put together presentations on the Ukraine war and modern conflict. Keep at it. Never heard of you through gaming but I hope you'll continue being thorough and not succumb to trying to pump content out seeing how successful these videos seem to be. Ace job, keep at it.
I came for the Ukrainian analysis, but stayed for the Phoenix Point playthrough.
Even in WW2 it was understood that tanks could not operate effectively without air and infantry support. Russia has neglected this.
There will always be utility in a self-propelled gun with immunity to small arms and autocannons, and resistance to artillery. The problem is that countries like Russia keep using them comically badly.
tanks is ment to fight other tanks in open areas. not for fight people hiding in Urban area with javelin rocket.
russis didnot anticipate ukraine was going to get 30 billion in military aid.
The difference between now and WW2 is that infantry cannot protect vehicles from ATGMs that are fired from more than 200 meters away, let alone kilometres aways. And what's new in this conflict is the not only the mass deployment of weapons that have this long range capability, but are also portable. Not to mention the heavy use of cheap expendable undetectable drones that guide arty strikes accurately.
@@JAnx01 Nailed it! In WW2 dismounted troops could clear the way in front of tanks of defenders with short range anti-tank Panzerfaust. The infantry could sometimes over run German 88mm artillery positions before the tanks came in range. To make that happen with modern ATGM's mean that the infantry has to be so far ahead of the tanks, that the mission of the tanks (to be the iron fist that shocks defending infantry) is completely failed.
Urban areas are the death of tanks
@@firstname4476 Even NLAW has a range of 800m. You just need some undulating terrain. No urban area needed.
I really like your analysis. As a former tank soldier in the Australian Army (1988 - 1996), I have long been waiting for the development of specialised armoured vehicles designed specifically around countermeasures for anti tank weapons, perhaps, even to the point of not having any main armour, much as the tracked AA guns of the Cold War period.
Ideally, these would be sprinkled at the troop, or squadron level. So there would be one of these dedicated vehicles for every three to 12 standard tanks.
However, I do fear that the "queen of the battlefield" is currently failing in its primary role, namely penetration and exploitation of enemy defensive lines.
Edit: I would also point out that I was trained to successfully use a Carl Gustav 84mm Anti-Tank recoilless rifle in the space of two days. I will admit that I was in the top 5-10 percent of my regiment, with regard to small arms fire, having learnt how to shoot, prior to joining the Army.
(Even during my time with the Navy Cadets, as a teenager with TS Melbourne", I was one of the few who obtained the marksman badge - which was a hugely watered down version of the real thing. But hey, we were kids, so lacked both the time and experience to even consider any of us even remotely close to a regular soldier with the marksmanship badge, let alone even the worst soldier from any Australian infantry regiment.)
Out of my squadron, we only had enough Gustav rounds for two soldiers to fire real round, as opposed to .22 calibre sub rounds, which adequately mimicked the flight path of the of real weapon. And I hit my tank sized target at a range of about 300 - 400 metres, with both the practice and later on with the live round. But my tank sized target was a stationary steel water tank, so If they'd been moving I almost certainly wouldn't have hit with either shot.
What takes time, however, is teaching the bush skills that an infantry man requires in order to conduct fire and movement. All Australian soldiers are also trained in infantry minor tactics' it is literally (Seriously, if we handed out medals like the US do, we'd all be stooped to the left with the weight, because the Aussie soldier is trained on a wider variety of weapon systems and able to easily transition our modes of war, knowing our soldiers already have the basics a significant part of ALL NCO training, where there is a generic leadership course, as well as another course that is directly related to your job.
By way of example, all Australian Corporals are trained to lead a section in the field, irrespective of whether their day job is counting blankets. By the end of my service, I had not only fired the Tank main gun, but been trained and fired the following weapon: The SLR rifle, of the Vietnam era, he 30 and 50 calibre machine guns, the 40 mm "wombat gun", or percussion grenade launcher, the M60 machine gun, the MG3 the F1 submachine gun, the 9mm Browning pistol. Probably missed the point, but you get what I mean.
I recall having a conversation with an American Private, who couldn't believe that I was not only trained in multiple tank crew positions, but could also drive an army truck and was a fully qualified "B" vehicle (land Rover) and a few other things. He just knew infantry minor tactics and if another job needed to be done, his unit had people to do that job.
So, yes, you can easily train soldiers to use the weapons. But against a well trained force, that knows how to engage in fire and movement, I'd expect less success.
For whatever stupid reason, Russia attacked Ukraine at exactly the wrong time of the year. Everybody knows that during spring and autumn the plains of Ukraine turn into mud. FFS, this was what saved Moscow during the 1942. Tanks do best on open terrain, where they can easily move, shoot and scoot and engage in other traditional tank tactics. I once had my entire troop of tanks (3 at the time) bogged in the same swamy area on Puckapunyal range. We subtlety contacted the spanners to come and get us out and that cost us several slabs of beer. But our Squadron OC didn't fine out, so all was good! :-)
Had the Russians invaded during either the height of winter, or in May, once the ground has dried out, it would have allowed tanks to do what they do best, namely engage in overwhelming manuver warfare across a wide front (as opposed to a single road with its "40 mile convoy"), where if you advance at pace, you'll easily overrun the infantry on the ground.
Infantry can't move as fast as armour, so if you can gain the mobility advantage and the tanks can very quickly close the distance between infantry ATGMs and the extreme target range of those systems. A Modern Tanks Thermal vision can easily see the heat radiating off a recently used weapon, so hiding would be hard.
I can tell you from personal experience, being charged by a tank, as an infantryman, is a terrifying experience.
When on exercise, we would do demo runs against infantry positions and while we knew that a tank can go from full speed to a dead stop within its own length, assuming dry ground.
On one exercise in the Northern Territory, we "charged" a group of infantry attempting to infiltrate our defences. One of our tanks charged towards them at full speed and halted about 20 metres from there. The tank driver had night vision gear, so could easily see the infantry. The infantry didn't, so all they heard was the very loud noise of a 36 litre diesel engine as it approached them, followed by the emergence the tanks headlight at about 50 feet (because the drive didn't want to run them over).
Simply on the basis of that charge, the section of infantry became combat ineffective. By the time that I rocked over in the troop leader's vehicle, the section commander was engaged in a highly heated argument about how dangerous the charge was. His troops were medevac'd an even the next day, some members were reported to be displaying what we'd now call "Combat Stress Reaction". Given just how badly one solder responded, I wouldn't be surprised if he went on to develop PTSD over the event.
So tanks, when deployed properly have an incredible shock value that simply should not be under-estimated.
In Australia, we went from over 100 leopard tank variants, to only 56 and our supposition was that the halving of the numbers was largely for us to retain "armoured capability", so that if we ever got into a shooting war, we'd still have a well trained cadre of troops upon which to build a larger tanks force. Basically, 1st Armoured Regiment would have largely merged with the School of Armour to train thousands of new troops on how to not get themselves killed in batle.
Tanks without infantry support is Modern Combat is pure silliness and opens you up to being taken out by a single Molotov Coctail on the engine deck. We've known that since WW1, but someone has to learn it about every generation, or so.
Long term, I see tanks becoming much, much heavier as these missiles become more accurate and dangerous. This extra weight will allow for more robust passive armour, at the cost of mobility.
But this has been a back and forth for years. The Leopard 1 that I crewed, was designed at a time when the even an unguided HEAT round was king of the battlefield and been able to get out of the line of sight of these lumbering beasts was vital. The best defence against such a weapon is mobility, so the tank sacrificed armour, for mobility. This kind of "arms race" has been going on for years, but given the slowness of the missile, if we were attacked in a hull up, or turret down position, we could easily break line of sight, rendering the missile pointless. Problem is that these days they chase you down.
As an aside, by the early 1990s Australian tanks, no longer carried HEAT rounds, because APDS and HESH were an easier combination and greatly streamlined our logistics.
So as with all warfare, I see an evolution (much like the T-14 Amarta), that prioritises crew survivability, but in which tanks are no longer the speedy, 42 ton, wonders of my day, but rather slower (although not lumbering) behemoths that are built specifically to overcome the threat of missile, because of their better armour and active protection systems.
We've seen a lot of what I expect with the Abrahms tank, which is about ten tons heavier, in today's modern variant, than it was during the initial release. I don't expect tanks to start carrying ATGMs themselves (although Russian designs can), but wouldn't be surprised to see the Australian Army (for example) finally begin to include larger artillery pieces for infantry suppression roles, being that the biggest danger to enemy artillery is often a good, old fashioned dash of artillery, which is guaranteed to leave the survivors less capable fighters and your mobile forces a much greater sense of success.
The idiocy of the Russians bot using their artillery to support their combat troops astounds me. WTF are they thinking, when they take a valuable combat resource out of the line, so it can waste its rounds against civilian (AKA : militarily useless) targets? Idiocy.
As I said, I am an old school tank soldier. I haven't even stepped inside an Australian Abrams, so much of what I've said is probably hugely out of date, but I handle criticism well and would love for anyone to tell me if I'm on the right track, or simply a tank soldier out of time and out of his depth. :-)
tltr
It was a good comment before the edit, and it's an excellent comment after it, cheers mate
My training is very similar. Trained in all infantry weapons, SLR, SMG, GPMG, Browning 9mm,LMG(7.62 Bren)M79,L96 then Charlie G and Law 66. Later SA 80 etc...We also did artic warfare etc. I trained as a driver on the 432, then Scimitar. All crew could do each others job. In terms of tactics you do the NCO cadre followed by junior Brecon then senior Brecon. All this in the roll of infantry. To be good at any role you have to specialise at it. All this wide ranging training was good but to become good you have to specialise. We did different rolls in 2 year stretches. You were just becoming good at it when you moved onto something else. We became good at close recce with the scimitar, I had the chance to observe a medium recce regiment, I think the Blues and Royals. They were superb because that is all they did. We learnt so much from them. We also realised it is a job that needs to be dedicated to full time. Wide ranging training is not always good. Also whatever you learn has to be relearnt and often.
yeah modern AT wepons have night vision, and avtive protection doesn't work well and miles of range, so idk if yo tank can charge before it gets hit
Killing civilians in siege is pointless. Shelled buildings are excellent cover for ambush and you don't have feed dead civilians. You could let all the civilians go and shell the city or build strong lines around the city and the defenders will attack you when the run out of food and water.
I'm not a military expert by any means, but; isn't it fair to say that ATGMs are a defensive weapon essentially? And that to capture territory on the offense, you will still need heavily armed and armoured vehicles? Dismounted infantry as main offensive arm without armour support would still be horribly vulnerable to all forms of fire, no? Therefore some form of tank will still be necessary for the offensive.
yes, but what we're talking about here is Ukraines ability specifically and any small country facing a larger foe generally, to use these weapons in defence. That's all.
Infantry ATGMs are essentially a replacement for WW2 antitank guns, which are primarily defensive weapons.
Offensive weapons are able to move fast, and infantry on foot are not fast.
What you are actually saying is that defence has now grown strong relative to the offensive - maneouvre warfare is now extremely expensive. Like how the machine gun and barbed wire did in 1914-18 MANPADs, ATGMs and drones will create slugfests.
@@kenoliver8913 eh, defense has had the advantage for a while. As you note, since 1918 at least.
And the Russians are ignoring a good 80 years of history in how they are fighting.
Yes you want to use atgm's defensively for best results but they can be and have been used offensively
You hit the nail on the head. The way to win war is combined arms warfare. It doesn't matter if its 1942 or 2022, the side that has their different units effectively communicate and work together tend to win. Tanks + infantry + air strikes + artillery + drones + logistics + intelligence + proper training + competent leadership = winning.
If this is the case, which it seems to be, it also helps to explain why the Russians have performed so poorly: they have struggled to conduct themselves in this sophisticated way.
Until Rods From God wipes your Army and Navy out. And you have no idea where it’s coming from. Putin, meet US Space Force. We don’t need boots on the ground to annihilate Russian armor.
@@InshushaGroupie Because that type of sophistication takes money, a career military force, said force knowing that their survival relies on being effective, and leadership which is willing to trust units to at least do their jobs. Funnily enough, that describes a competent westernized army. Maybe not as much on the money side, but more on the "being good at your job" side.
The thing is, I don't realistically think anyone expects a military coup in most western nations. One of the reasons is because there's far less personal power in being a general or admiral than in countries where that is a concern. The priorities from the top to the bottom are different.
One disclaimer and one post-recording thought on this one:
Disclaimer first: I get "Skiff" and "Sagger" mixed up at one point in this recording when talking about the Stugna vs the much older Malyutka ATGMs. I also make typos that got missed.
Second just a closing thought on why I'm not prepared to outright call time on the tank:
The invention of gunpowder weapons didn't immediately kill the previously dominant knights and armoured cavalry of the European battlefields. At first, they thickened their armour to resist early projectiles, then when that was no longer possible they began to reduce their armour and change their role. Heavy cavalry remained, albeit with a different look and new tactics, for centuries to come.
Until armies are confident that they can do without the role filled by the tank, I believe it's far more likely that tanks and their associated tactics evolve rather than go extinct in the near term.
As to what that evolution is likely to look like, I'd rather leave to the experts with experience in the field. All I can say is that powers observing the Ukraine conflict are likely to ask questions about whether or not they really get value out of older and more vulnerable vehicles, and whether they can get more bang for their buck from mobile ATGMs and shoulder fired ordinance.
yes this is the end of the tank and armor. ukraine has shown armor cannot take a city. and the miniaturization and lethality and fire power of a small infantry carried weapon is an astounding 90 percent with javalins, nlaws, stingers. why would anyone bother spending 8-9 million or more to manufacture a tank now after what we have seen in ukraine. compare that to ww2 where the lethality of bazookas was only 60-70 percent. only idiot advisors in the military will be making tanks now for a nation.
The Russians are failing massively because of lack of combined arms, lack of communication/cooperation and choosing to attack right at the start of the mud season, limiting your vehicles to the asphalt roads.
Non-supported tanks were punished already in WW2 in 1940-1941, with anti-tank guns. You don't need bazookas and late WW2 era to learn these lessons about combined arms warfare. Actually, you don't even modern industrial warfare to learn the lessons of combined arms warfare.
That the Russians are failing so horribly means we cannot draw any conclusions about the value of the tank in adequate combined arms warfare. We can only confirm what the Germans already knew in 1940: tanks need infantry support (combined arms) to be successful.
small corection , from end of february until 20th of march it wasnt that muddy as you might think , this year march was cold in ukraine, reaching -18 at night and -10 during day
I have the sensation that the so called "operation" is a failed maskirovska, they just used the army to draw the western attention and made an "all in" with the attack on the Kiev airport to take the Govt and cut the head, but they failed and now they have to use the poor russian gopniks as cannon fodder :(
This war seems to be won by Ukraine on the internet and won by Russia on the ground.
The Russians are not loosing. They are in the process of squashing the best brigades ~70000 men on the Donbas front. Kiev is a holding battle
@@mattiasdahlstrom2024 Yeah if Ukraine was winning why would the US be talking territorial concessions by Ukraine?
Considering this was one of the longest pieces of research I have watched this year , it was extremely well researched and most of all, very interesting . One,of those books you can’t put down. So to speak. And, in my case 4/22 no adverts. I am now tempted to watch the reservists one which I had originally decided could , in no way, be interesting, I also look forward to working through the remainder.. Many thanks and keep up the good work.
It seems to me that the crew space and survivability systems occupy a significant portion of a tank’s volume. Might we see unmanned or autonomous tanks in the near future?
Edit: perhaps one way to counter the threat of jamming, in addition to or instead of an autonomous mode, would be to allow line of sight remote control by the accompanying manned combined arms force?
At the very least, reduced crew. Two man tanks with automated turret
@@bernieeod57 EMP will be it's counter. Tho right now EMP is still in its infancy and has not yet develop,
Rheinmetall is already working on that. Basically an automated truck, but instead of grad rockets it launches loitering munitions.
Already here. But the problem is the AUTONOMOUS part. That is what everyone is trying to avoid. Except comms links might be jammed or hacked. So it's a dilemma. For now, anything like that needs a human operator, so a comms link.
@@スガル Whatever would work against unmanned tanks (like EMP) would also work against unmanned drones, wouldn't it?
You speak the language pretty well for someone who isn’t/wasn’t in the military.
Plus your PowerPoint flex’s like a retired O4 teaching at war college
One stat that was given by a tanker a couple of years ago was that in all wars that tanks have been used in, their casualty rate were far lower than infantry casualties. By something like 1-to2. As vulnerable as a tank may be to a top-attack missile, think how vulnerable infantry is to artillery air-burst and MLRS cluster bombs.
Yeah, but since the 70's, modern NATO-nation horse cavalry have had, like, zero casualties.
I'm assuming that's talking about tank crews, right? Obviously there will always be more infantrymen than tanks even in the tankiest treadhead army. And while that might well be true, you still have the issue of the massive cost it takes to buy, maintain, and especially fuel a tank. You need to be getting something worthwhile to justify that kind of cost.
i think casualties are poor metric on how useful tanks are. economics and logistics are a more useful metric. if a tanks that costs millions can easily be taken out by someone with barely any training with a weapon costing only thousands thats when youy start wondering if it is worth. and then there is the issue of what role a MBT is suppose to have. tanks biggest role is killing other tanks, to fight foot mobiles tanks are not very effective compared to IFV with autocannons.
Infantry units are much less expensive to build, train and support at the strategic level. If the terrain your army is on is northern, western or central Europe, infantry is the way to go with a few tank units and plenty of ground attack and artillery forces supporting them. Forests, swamps/marshes, rough terrain and BUAs are not the friends of Armor. Infantry is best there at the operational level. Combined arms always has the edge in the end, regardless of terrain because it allows adaptation to the changing situation warfare always presents.
@@iroll Yea, isn't that odd :)
This was implied, but older ATGM systems are likely to be cycled out of use fast (per your comments on ammo use) leading to cutting edge systems in front line hands fast and at scale. Countries must pay heavily for an AFV generational upgrade, while an ATGM generational upgrade costs 'only' the current stock of ATGMs and the phase-out still yields significant value. Phasing out a generation of AFVs appears to primarily create value for local farmers and interested bystanders. Let's hope we continue to support Ukraine in demonstrating the power of international collaboration over tearing up treaties and that Russia fails to escape this doctrinal trap they have walked into.
Seems like there’s going to be a massive emphasis on active protection systems. Their effectiveness could keep the tank’s role secure.
Only at the cost of making them star-wars level expensive. A system that your grandmother can be trained to use in an afternoon and that can be fielded in huge numbers for a fraction of the cost (and with no logistical tail at all) can make fielding a useful number of "protected" tanks so ridiculously expensive they will be virtually unusable. You'll lose the conflict financially before you can win militarily. I think that's what the West is demonstrating to the Russian government as we speak.
Add to that problem an even bigger one: There is no conceivable way to protect your supply columns to this degree. And without support vehicles (not to mention IFVs in combat support) your tank is worth almost nothing, regardless of how much you spend on it.
most modern anti tank weapons counter APS
@@charlesfaure1189 And add to that the fact ATGMs are improving far faster than tanks. Today, ATGMS can hit tanks 1.5 miles away. It's not hard to imagine ATGMs with several miles range or longer, with cheap drones acting as spotter. Tanks have no chance against such systems whether protected by infantry or not.
@@springer-qb4dv the javelin had more then 1.5 so yeah
Remember that these questions have been asked _many_ times before, but the tank always survives. APDS, HEAT, older generation ATGMs like the Malyutka, the attack helicopter, IEDs, smart munitions, etc.
Every 10 years or so some new development happens that makes everyone speculate that the tank is "obsolete". I have no reason to believe that handheld anti tank weapons (which have been a threat since WW2) are suddenly going to single handedly render tanks unusable.
All of these videos have been absolutely wonderful. Well research, well explained, and very well argued. I sent them to my family and now we watch them together, which is pretty cool seeing as they’re not normally defense policy minded people. (it’s mostly energy policy and healthcare law with them). Anyways I hope to see more, great job!
Talk to them about how Germany’s disastrous energy politics weakened all of Europe and made Putin more bellicose.
Talk to them about gas, lignite, “Energiewende”, nuclear energy, LNG terminals, gas storage (LNG and gaseous), pipelines, strategic oil reserves, household heating, HVDC, etc…
@@peterfireflylund don’t worry, we are all baffled by germany shutting down actively operating nuclear power plants, and how stupid and greedy it was to decide it was okay to rely on the russians for energy products. it’s one of the few things we can all agree on.
I think that what we are seeing is the modern-day "Infantry Revolution." The Infantry Revolution was during the 14th century when weapons like pikes were invented specifically to counter knights. All of the supply problems with tanks now were similar problems with knights and their horses during the medieval era. Once infantry was able to actually take down knights, the knight (and assorted light cavalry) became much less popular. The tank will follow a similar path as cavalry did up until WWI; it will be used, but only for specific roles like breaking through a line, flank charging, or pursuing fleeing enemies.
I think IFVs will still be a thing that can be used like tanks, but the officers and the NCOs better have the good sense to tell the squad to leave the damn vehicle under most types of fire.
I think armoured mortars and artillery are to stay too and will play an even bigger role.
Because still need big gun, but why needlessly expose yourself in direct fire?
You left out unruly populations. Tanks work great on crowds when you have police power.
The thing is, these ATGM's aren't new technology, Javlins entered service in 1984. This debate has been doing the rounds since the late 1960's when Israel used early ATGM to devastate Egyptian tanks in the 6 days war. Armor provides a huge benefit in terms mobility and fire supoort, but it needs to be protected and properly supported, what we are seeing here is what happens when outdated armour (bulk of the Russian armour being T-72's) isn't used correctly, driving down narrow roads single file without proper recon and support or engage in close quarters in city streets, in those situations without awareness of there surroundings, supporting infantry clearing surrounding buildings and room to manuver or bring their firepower to bear, they're just over priced moving coffins
I think the longbow was not unlike the more modern day equivalent of long range artillery and this had a devastating effect on cavalry and infantry alike at over 300 metres. Arrows fired from longbows were also, presumably, the medieval equivalent of the Javelin at shorter distances.
@@richardcory5024 It was the tactics that mattered not the longbows. Longbows were destroyed by cavalry at the Battle of Patay without doing any damage.
Throughout history there's been a constant back and forth between arms and armor. Cavalry killed the Chariot, Muskets killed the Knight, and now ATGMs are killing the Tank. The modern tank may soon become obsolete, but it will be replaced at some point in the future with some other form of highly mobile armored unit.
This is going to sound ridiculous to some , but i think semi-automated ground based drones. Essentially robots with artillery.
@@TwistedNerve1 Pentagon already has plans for that.
The replacement is already here, IFV with their own missiles for both anti-armor and anti-air. It's better defended then a tank, cheaper and more flexible.
The modern tank will stay around because it's an all terrain vehicle with a big gun.
That's the capability a tank gives you. The armor package on a tank exists to keep that big gun fighting for as long as possible.
Until something else can bring that 105-120mm gun to anywhere a tank can go, there will be tanks.
@@kennethferland5579 Until it gets popped open by 155mm shell fragments or 30mm cannon fire.
The tank can only effectively be used in conjunction with skilled infantry, with out that skilled infantry the tank is merely an expensive target. Infantry needs tanks, but the tank also needs that infantry. If you try to use a tank as a mobile fortress it will not survive...
I would recommend people go see the video that The Chieftan put out about this today. Cliff notes version...tanks are not dead, active protection is going to become bigger, combined arms is a must.
Right. The notion of armor invincibility is a myth and has been since the widespread deployment of infantry portable AT
Does bigger active protection require bigger tanks? Are we going to see Mammoth tanks in our lifetime??
@@talandar5773 All tanks, from WW1 to the present, have been vulnerable to something. They're just less vulnerable than other types of vehicles.
They just need to keep stacking cope cages on top of each other
@@talandar5773 Even before that the myth of armor invincibility has been around since the 20s it tends to take a hit any time there is a large scale conflict involving armor especially if a side tries to rely on it but neglects infantry support. But it always comes back. I expect in 10 years after whatever the next defensive system will be shows up to deal with Javelins and the like we will see people once again proclaiming the supremacy of the tank. Tanks are just too cool a penis enhancer not to have a devoted following.
Ohhhhhhhhhh this was my comment!!!! Thank you for listening 👂🏻!
@Shy Cracker thank ya sir. I was really interested in this subject so I’m happy to have some more insight!
Yes, it was lol
Excellent content Perun. Exceptionally well articulated, your intellect and sense of details shine through. Many folks are looking for “alternate” info on this Ukraine situation. I think many people look elsewhere from mainstream and biased sources at this point. Great work mate, keep it up. Cheers!
I've watched several of your videos on various aspects of the Russia/Ukraine conflict, and each has been excellent. I'm quite impressed with how much quality content you can put together in a short amount of time. Well done! Very well done, indeed!
6 years in US Marine Recon and you couldn't pay me to get in a tank. 10 times out of 10 I would rather walk in or drive a fast attack vehicle. Tanks just feel like they are giant signs saying "shoot me!"
Hence why Marines are known colloquially as crayon eaters.
I completely agree. I've spent half of my 23 years career in the US infantry in light, and half in heavy. In this AT weapons and drone saturated environment, I would not want to be in armor.
@@theimmortal4718 haha you realize you have a much bigger chance getting killed or injured as infantry eight?
@@connorbranscombe6819
You actually don't. Even in WW2, you had a higher chance of dying as a truck driver, bomber crewman, submarine crewman and a whole litany of other jobs. We're small on the ground and are hard detected if trained. well. A large armored vehicle, however, is impossible to hide from observation from aircraft and are easy to target if you have weapons in range. Infantry, not so much.
They can hide very easy and use the terrain to their advantage. These heavy vehicles have a hard time staying off of the roads, just like us in Afghanistan and Iraq. Stay on the roads, and you will spend the rest of your life on them. Not very long
@@theimmortal4718 Haha tell that to the couple thousand dead infantrymen in Iraq, compared to the 9 disabled or destroyed Abrams tanks, I’m pretty sure one can do some quick math and figure out a tank is safer then dragging ass on foot.
We’re not in world war 2 either so citing those statistics is quite literally irrelevant, the US hasn’t fought a war like world war 2 since world war 2 lmao.
Anyone proclaiming tanks are outdated/dead/vulnerable....very likely went to the same school that the Russian generals who allowed their armor/mech units to be exposed and unsupported. Congratulations.
What's for sure is that they don't need the weight of a 120mm gun, just their own ATGMs. Maybe the M551 really is the way forward.
@@evancourtney7746 Except ATGMs are easier to counter than APFSDS. Active protection systems are making a lot of headway to counter ATGMs, and most ATGMs cannot penetrate the frontal armor of modern MBTs. The reason ATGMs are so effective, is that they're being used on the defense and from the flanks of targets. APFSDS is also cheaper than an ATGM of comparable penetration on a round to round basis.
I do think, however, that MBTs need to be combined with modern self propelled artillery, as their role is more and more becoming as a standoff anti-vehicle platform. With unmanned turrets and autoloaders, as well as 140mm+ guns being the norm for most of the theoretical next-generation MBTs as is, it wouldn't be much of a shift to increase the elevation angles of the gun to facilitate use in an artillery role as well, making the platforms more flexible for the modern battlefield.
Meanwhile, IFVs are increasing in weight across the board, up to medium tank masses at 30-40 tons, utilizing more armor, advanced ATGMs, and higher caliber autocannons than IFVs of the past age, and will likely take over the spearhead role that MBTs have held for the past half century.
They ARE vulnerable and outdated in SOME circumstances. They have great use in a MOBILE modern war, where troops can't dismount and use man portables, and they can acquire targets from further than almost anything else on the field. But as soon as things get bogged down or they try to attack static defenses, they are rolling coffins.
It's an IF situation. YES, they are useful IF they are used right and NOT used when they shouldn't... Like in an urban environment.
250$ Panzerfaust 3 rounds CAN pop a turret up 50 feet in the air if it hits the right spot, so can cheap old Karl-Gs (especially the latest revisions). You don't even NEED Javeliins or NGLAWs in close quarters or inside an urban fight to make scrap metal out of a 6 milliion$ hulk like a Leo 2A6 or an M1A2.
I'm sorry if your Cavalry /Armor heart can't say Bye-Bye. But TANKS are not the kings they once were. They are an offensive weapon and as it always happens, people found defenses against them. We just reached the time when those defenses are much more powerful than before.
I used to LOVE my FN-C1A1... The new plastic toys with puny rounds REALLY made me feel under-armed and defenseless. I mean I was raised in the boonies and hunting with a .22 was ILLEGAL, because you run the risk of just wounding your prey and it suffers and dies in agony... NOT nice, nor humane. . Then they give us .223s... WTH??? But HEY! It's what everybody got (to me, it's COST-CUTTING, period...), and in the end, I kind of did NOT miss the extra weight., just the REACH-OUT and TOUCH IT factor.
Things CHANGE, adapt, and overcome buddy... You'll sleep better at night.
Well , all the videos i have seen of "ambush" on tanks by anti tank weapons , are in reality suicide attacks . for example i saw one video that a column of russian tanks was advancing ,then a crazy suicide guy , attack a tank the first one with an anti tank missile.
the tank is hit in the turrent but don't penetrate it ,still cause some fire on its turrent , the guy on the turret escape and the driver keep going to take the tank to a safe place. and at the same time the third tank blow up the shooter with a direct hit. and the entire thing is over. and days earlier the minister of defense of russia reported that a t-90 survived a javelin attack , and the crew only experienced concussion. There is also in syria the experience of a t-90a tank receiving a direct hit on a tow missile and the tank keeps going. basically the performance of anti tank weapons is completely the opposite of what this video author claim. finally there is a video on syria , by syrian army ,that their t-72 was ambushed and received like 8 hits from rpg , and the tank survived and its crew. Modern tanks with aps defenses and reactive armor can survive modern anti tank weapons. so is the other way. smoke anti heat screen can blind those javelins missiles pretty easily too. Another thing over rated even more are those javelines missiles.. there is a video of a russian chopper pilot ,that he dodge up to 19 javeline missiles attacks ,and the last one manage to hit , but still he could land the choopper, that it was a ka-52. No idea who was to blame for so poor performance ,maybe the operators of the javelins were amateurs , or maybe the pilot was very good and knew how to counter them , and or the chopper could jam the missiles with electronic warfare. either case , those javelines missiles have been pretty bad in reality , since russia don't lost a plane in weeks and continue flying over ukraine.. the thing that really have caused troubles for russia airforce are those buks air defenses of ukraine that they have been hidding inside civilian buildings and then pull them in a small time ,then hide it. still russia have lost less than a dozen of planes.. one su-25 even managed to land ,after being hit by a stinger missile. destroyed one engine ,the other could continue flying ,but was seriously damaged its hull.
Russia is not using their best hardware to not reveal to nato to much information , so far russia not using armatas ,neither modernized t-90am with active defenses. that can defeat top attack missiles or even hellfire attacks from apache choppers.
@@TheJimprez Again, this is why I feel that the MBT role will end up being split between next generation heavier IFVs with hard-kill APS, and armored self propelled artillery. IFVs will take up much of the spearhead offensive role, and more of the direct fire role, as they begin utilizing 40-60mm autocannons. And with unmanned turrets and high caliber cannons, protected by APS, already being the immediate projection for next-generation MBTs, it's little stretch to suggest such gain high angle targeting capability to make them more flexible on the battlefield, as the anti-armor direct fire needs decrease.
You've really improved since this video came out.
Cheers - this was done on very basic equipment and long before I had anyone to help with sound.
From another analyst perspective, this was solid and objective. My critique would be in the area of potential doctrinal impacts, but as you clarify up front, you’re staying out of that because it’s not your expertise. So that’s perfectly legitimate IMO. Well done.
I would argue the best use of obsolescent tank hulls is repurposing them to another combat support mission. An aviation example: B52 has flexed from high altitude penetration, to low altitude penetration to stand-off missile truck. It also retains earlier mission capabilities in more permissive environments, of course, and is likely going to be unmatched for its useful life for a very long time. What does that mean for armored hulls? American M-60 hulls saw extended service as armored recovery vehicles, bridgers, etc. Combat engineers like to have some survivability too, but don’t need to take the same quality and quantity of fires as front line tanks. Other uses for old armored hulls can include artillery support: They’re quite easy to convert to a heavy mortar carrier. Although that’s a function that has fallen out of favor in US doctrine, I would argue it’s a very useful capability for forces that cannot count on overwhelming air dominance from day 1. Of course that assumes an operator has sufficient quantity to justify maintaining production of spares and so forth. When that becomes prohibitive, off to the target range… 😆🤷♂️
self-propelled mortars are ballin, and I don’t see why the US doesn’t really use it. it’s fast, it hits hard, and it doesn’t suck 50 billion dollars into a jet pro…actually that might be why the US doesn’t use it, not enough kickbacks.
@@oscaranderson5719 In this case, it’s just about mission capabilities & what adds new capabilities. The US invests heavily in air dominance and capabilities that leverage air dominance. If you know going into any conflict that you’re going to have, worst case, air superiority, and more likely air dominance, the mobile mortars, and heavy mortars in general, just don’t add capability relative to the drones, gunships, and fast movers. On the other hand, for most countries who have a lot more near-peers, I think mortar carriers are probably under-valued. A lot of countries look at US force structure & take cues from that without really understanding the ramifications of different mission sets & operational assumptions/conditions. If “cost-effectiveness” and “territorial defense” are your primary interests, you design a completely different force structure than the US.
I mean it's an old school solution, often saw obsolete hulls converted into mobile artillery units in WW2, the M3 Priest was a converted M3 Lee once it was obsolete by the Sherman, Pz2 and 3 hulls were converted into Tank Destroyers or artillery by the Germans once they became obsolete. As you mentioned the M-60 was converted into other rolls.
Converting modern main battle tanks into roles like mobile mortar carriers and such isn't really more practicable than fielding purpose built vehicles. MBT's burn lots of fuel to carry that now (that they've been repurposed) unnecessary armor around, which of course applies additional strain to the supply lines. A purpose built vehicle would be lighter, more mobile and much more efficient. I hate (really hate) scrapping old, formerly efficient things, ships, aircraft even computers (I'm an original computer nerd), but there is a point that re-purposing them is not efficient, and in war efficiency is paramount.
@@richardduerr9983 It depends on the inventory to re-use & cost for conversion and support. You have to analyze each proposed use case. The MBT re-use I mentioned are all cases where the armored chassis is an asset, like engineering vehicles or other heavy support. The costs to design & develop an entirely new platform are all part of the analysis, and sting more if the required quantity is low and an easy conversion is available.
But in general this doesn’t just apply to MBT chassis. We (US) converted many M113 APC’s to other support missions as the M2 family was coming on line. Most of those IIRC basically just got an up-armor package & turret for security duties, but there were some mortar carriers & other assorted low volume versions. Eventually the M113’s left service, but they got some additional cost-effective use that way.
Measure and Countermeasure ! The tank starting in WW1 was an answer to the trench warfare and barbed wire of the Western Front trenches, and the beginning of mobile warfare as seen in Nth Africa in WW2. Combined operations are now the go, but with helos and missiles, a new paradigm has evolved.
I suggest creating a standalone channel for this. I predict huge growth.
He stated he won't go beyond what he's qualified to analyze of certain topics, which my god I have such respect for honest and candid content experience/transparency 👍
Azerbaijan used Russian tanks very effectively in 2020 war, while Armenian tanks became scrap metal or war trophies for Azerbaijanis. It really depends on your war concept. Tanks are still useful, especially if they are equipped with active protection.
First of all, more absolutely stellar work. Really well done. Former tanker here: this war yet another opportunity for system and doctrine evolution. Remove the tanks and something else will have to assume that role. I find it slightly amusing to suggest the death of the tank without suggesting the end of pretty much all armored vehicles. If a tank is too vulnerable, where does that leave thinner skinned things like armored personnel carriers? All of this means years of new theories, new developments, new training, and everyone will be ready to refight this war when the next one comes, most likely with a different scenario we aren’t ready for.
The end of tanks was also predicted when the Egyptians defeated the initial Israeli counterattack during the Suez crossing of the Yom Kippur war. The Egyptians employed Sagger ATGMs at a density never before seen, with each of the five attacking Egyptian divisions allocated about 1,500 missiles for three days worth of fighting. While the fighting in Ukraine does not have such density, the effectiveness of modern ATGMs will only spur the development of countermeasures (whether passive or active) just as the usage of the Sagger spurred the development of ERA and the ubiquity of the RPG spurred the usage of cage and slat armor.
Sagger, please.
the only counter measure for anti tank infantry are drones. If I was a Russian General I would want a hell of a lot of drones the way the US had against insurgents. The cheap drones that cost less than a stinger missle. Use it to monitor the terrain and look for ambushes. and take out anti tank teams from the air with 50 caliber rounds.
The drone team would need to work very closely with the front line, in fact probably slightly ahead of the front.
Tanks are still needed to hold onto your gains, infantry alone cant hold territory without hard firepower.
Despite what everyone says, I think NATO membership of Ukraine was very close, as NATO withdrew it's activities in the middle east they were about to re-focus on Russia and China, and membership of Ukraine was imminent. So Russia had to act fast - and I dont think they were ready for it. They are low on ammo and dont have the countermeasures to deal with stingers and anti tank missles.
@@mrbadger6043 Sagger hush
Yeah then Atgm’s will advance to get around those systems for much cheaper then the system. Dual charges or multiple rockets launched one behind another. One to penetrate cage or to detonate ERA first.
that's an interesting point. The Israelis ended up learning fast didn't they? They realise the optics on these missles leave an IR signal so with the correct gear all the ATGM team wouid light up like a christmas tree. So they can be dealt with by snipers or the tanks just go around where they are stationed.
I’d love to see your take on how this affects the defence of Taiwan. ATGMs would probably do a real good job on landing craft, as well as tanks. Since China will start with a saturation missile barrage, large assets, like tanks and planes, will be way more vulnerable than a stash ofATGMs or MANPADs. Since this is on our side of the world, I thought it would be of interest to you, too.
yeah think that would be interesting that as well as Myanmar and the effects of the upkeep reduction due to reductions in tanks
Of course it affects it in one way or another. But there are also work-arounds.
For example:
The range of the Javelin is 2500m. You absolutly bomb the shit out of everything on the coast for 2.5km inland and the landing craft no longer have to worry about Javelins.
Or you do a contested landing, where you're willing to absorb a some losses. But then can mitigate the losses by using a great many smaller vehicles (eg: Type-05 amphib) to spread out the incoming landing forces. And have the landing covered by, and preceded by, constant flak; to pre-emptivly shoot ATGMs out of the air. Also smoke to cover the advance, prevent any ATGM lock on.
Or once you're on the coast, you can secure a beach head out to 2.5km. In fact it doesn't need to be a full 2.5km beach head because the landing forces detection range, and fighting range pushes their area of denial past their area of control. And the ships themselves can be pushed further back by use of pontoon bridges (Also useful when the beach lacks a good harbour)
Or a combination of all of the above.
It doesn't compare. Taiwan will want to stop China way before the landing craft phase.
Do not worry too much about Taiwan while China’s (and the CCP’s) fortunes are slowly rising. It’s only in decline that China would attempt something as insane as an amphibious assault on Taiwan. This is what is happening in Russia-Putin and Russia are in decline and the Invasion of Ukraine is a futile attempt to halt the decline.
I see them domestically developing, or licensing, production of their own weapons systems to fulfill this roll. They've always been a powerful manufacturing economy, and can no doubt afford to buy these or set up their production, regardless of the route they choose to go. No doubt they'll also buy a fuckton of stationary SAM systems and reloadable ATGM systems, in addition to supplying their stationary coastal artillery, which are extremely powerful guns if aimed properly.
Oh, my Lord, you should continue to offer your commentary on Defense matters, writ large. Your mind is fantastic, and I hope to see more of you on these topics.
I am a US Air Force veteran. In the late 1960's the US realized it could never match Soviet tanks one to one. We chose a smaller number of tanks but introduced the A-10 to make up the difference. Now Turkey came up with the TB2. It did a number on the Armenian tanks.
Mobile armored vehicles vehicles still have a valuable role to play when combined with infantry, but the days of main battle tank have past.
That would be false
The A-10 was designed for CAS to replace the older A-1 and F-5
@@verdebusterAP CAS against what? Tanks that's what
@@cpi3267
CAS in general
@@verdebusterAP well then they fucked up
Yeah, but tbf, the A-10 is an example of an outdated idea itself. CAS itself isn't worthwhile anymore. Cannon CAS is absolute dogshit, always has been.
Vast majority of A-10 armor kills have been missiles anyways.
The defensive strategy of the "savage rabbit" will become very very common. Letting the armored spearhead roll by while hiding your army and then popping out to blow away teh logistics train with its soft skinned vehicles is a way to blunt or destroy the blitzkrieg battleplan.
Me:
Tim the Enchanter: [heavy Scottish accent] “Look at the bones!!”
ya no. the reason this is working as well as it is is because of the terrain preventing offroad movement of anything heavy.
aka russian mud has striked again and this time is royally fucking over the russians.
@@MarcosElMalo2 Rite...one rabbit stew coming right up. uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
@@Thekilleroftanks ah yes Poootin....the only commander who ever brought defeat to the Russians in winter.
That strategy relies on defense in depth, which is only going to be available to a limited number of countries as most don't have the acreage/miles it requires the defenders to give up. Also, really need to have a geography that is limiting the paths/routes the armor can travel.
I very much appreciate how you state your perspective strengths and weaknesses and provide well balanced and based comparisons to create an easy to follow and hard to argue explanation of recent events and possible conclusions.
“The T-14 will NEVER be destroyed by ATGMs!!!!” Well yeah because the T-14 won’t be able to make it to the front...
I can see drones becoming a crucial aspect of tanks in the future -- one of the most crucial issues of drones will be wide scale jamming, which it seems to be feasibly to counter by having C&C of said drones in closer proximity. Similarly, tanks have a crucial issue of situational awareness, due to being a steel box, which drones, by virtue of having cheap and effective eyes in the sky, can counter.
I can easily envision a future where a tank's primary anti-vehicle weapon becomes an ATGM with indirect-fire capability that drones will guide, and where the direct-fire capability of the main gun becomes more of an infantry support weapon. Not sure that this *will* be the role that tanks take in the future, but I can certainly see it as a strong possibility.
i agree that drones and indirect fire atgms will be the future but if the tank can have those the infantry probably will too. i don't think jamming will be a problem for long. there are ways to get around it with higher power phased array or laser communications in networks of drones and of course whatever doing the jamming immediately getting an atgm to the face since they are screaming their position to everyone around. APS and PD, either laser or the autocannons russia's experimenting with, will be what saves tanks. the PD in particular might be the most important for killing small drones.
The problem with mounting atgm on tanks is ammunition. They wouldn't be able to carry enough for extended combat scenarios. Personally, I think the future of tanks is drone tanks. If there were no crew in a tank you could fit the 105mm on a substantially smaller chassis. Using a fixed gun design with minimal armor, you could create a small army of these drone tanks for the price of a conventional tank. Their size would make them more easily concealable, a smaller and ultimately less profitable trade for an atgm, would give the operator much greater situational awareness, and would most definitely save on gas, thus reducing stress on the supply chain.
please keep making Ukraine analyses and war analyses in general. I watched everything to completion
To completion you say ?😮💨
It also comes down to armor modernization. Most heavy armor in the west relies on infantry spearheads for support and IFV's to support or screen in the front. Think naval tactics. You have the destroyers to screen for the battleship. Most US armor has actually began to install point-defense systems to protect from these targeted launches. This is one thing I have to chalk up to the US Army. We haven't always been effective, but COIN tactics taught us a lot about how to defend our armor from light foot-mobiles with LATA and HATA loadouts. It's a suite now that I think about it. Lack of aerial intelligence begets operational flexibility to a small insurgency, lack of infantry sweeps and screening forces means these guys can get right up on your big guns, and lack of modernization begets cook-offs. It's a domino effect that really exemplifies how modern offensive warfare requires so many pieces to work in conjunction.
As a final note, if your heavy armor is being engaged at less than 100-200 meters by MANPATs, you've effectively failed at the game. Do not pass go, do not collect Crimea.
I watched your Terra Invicta games, which helped me defeat the alien threat as the resistance. To my delight I discovered that you also make videos covering IRL military analysis that are with minimal bias. Is very bueno. Keep up the amazing work!
Hey man, love your content. As a suggestion, it would be interesting to know about the failures of the VDV, and how air assault / airborne units might have to rethink their usage given how MANPADs can relatively cheaply defeat helicopters / low flying airborne troop transports, given how much of an issue the Russian military has had conducting SEAD
Yes, that's a big one.
The VDV has lost enough BMDs to leave 2 regiments walking. The last time I checked Oryxspioenkop, anyways. Maybe it's up to a full 3 regiments.
I'm not someone who's qualified to be able to state these are accurate summaries of what's actually going on but besides that, these summaries are great! Thankyou for the hardwork you putin (get it?) in research and presentation!
*edits for grammar
17 people found that to be a witty comment, damn? Put in more work next time
@@fedecano7362 Smeetjeneets needs you to take your statement and putin different words.
Before I watch the video, I expect the answer to be "no".
If we look at only say the Iran-Iraq war, or US invasions in the Middle-East, we get a skewed picture of modern warfare that does not favour the use of armour.
Battle tanks have overwhelming firepower and are great at penetrating enemy lines and securing positions at high speed and cutting off positions. They must be properly supplied, maintained, supported by infantry and work in mostly flat areas where targets can't hide in buildings, forests or mountains easily.
Russian armour did literally none of these things. They drove single-file, in poorly maintained and supplied tanks without support or intel straight into Ukrainian tractors. Not to take away from the Ukrainians, but in theory, if the Russian vehicles were actually properly supplied, etc. they could have easily completely restricted the Ukrainians' ability to maneuver East of the Dnieper within a few days. A complete death sentence for any cities and forces caught behind the advance.
In a conventional war between armies, armour is still extremely useful as a strong and maneuverable firepower platform. But they are a force multiplier. You still need competent infantry, logistics, intelligence, etc. for them to be effective.
At least, this is my opinion before watching the video. We will see if it changes!
since a tank needs to be supported by deployed infantry it is no longer usefull at securing positions at high speed. The armenian-azeri conflicts already demonstrated that they sucked in defense when the air superiority is contested. Conclusion: the cumulation of circumstances to succesfully operate tanks in combination wth its cost-efectiveness is so interdictive that a serious tankdeployment is no longer relevant AS LONG AS THERE IS NO EFFECTIVE WAY TO DEFEND THE TANK (besides slow infantry) against different threats. At the moment they are armoured coffins,
@@Belisarius277 The Azeris still used 'grunts' to close with and secure positions; so, 'combined arms--tanks, crunchies, arty and air working in tandem'-is still the way to go.
@@nickmitsialis The azeris "droned" armenian tanks which were the only anti-tank capacity the armenians had besides RPG7. its obvious now that relying on tanks to act defensively without air superiority is a bad idea since essentially everyone with an rc airplane can take them out. The tank as an offensive weapon is history too since it is useless against even light infantry sporting atgm even in the open. As long as a 80k dollar missile can take out a 2 million dollar tank without the tank being able to spot the atgm crew, its absurd to try to bring them. Too complex logistics, cost ineffective and essentially just a big bullseye. Battleship were obsolete when airpower outranged their guns. same thing for atgm in relation to tanks.
@@Belisarius277 yes; but drones can't occupy terrain and infantry still need to be pushed back; Combined Arms-=-Nick Moran did a vid about this, and he's the 'tread head'.
@@nickmitsialis as far as i know the ukrainians are relying pretty much on infantry to occupy territory. This is not desert storm where you could drive miles through featureless terrain where every bump sticks out like a sour thumb. Again costineffective, cumbersome and obsolete in its current configuration. The concept "tank" needs an update, perun made a great analysis on this
Your analysis is always detailed and spot on. The Stugna-P is a great system. I've seen it take out tanks, trucks, machine gun nests, and other targets. The only downside is that it was designed by Ukraine, but they outsourced manufacturing to none other than Belarus. So they gave away their intellectual property and can't resupply.
Mad isn't it . Now the Belarusian can give details to Putin seeing as they are mates
Back in the '80's, I played on a tank simulator for the M1A1. It was a lone unit with no infantry support or other armour units , other than the escort missions where the other units were hopelessly obsolete. It gave me a very distorted view of what a lone armour unit could do.
You make very good points about logistical support and supporting military units. Tanks are terrifying weapons, but they do need help to protect them from fast moving capable defensive fire.
Thanks for your insightful presentation. Just one thing, there’s a difference between ordinance and ordnance
- Ordinance: a law.
- Ordnance: military weapons and ammunition.
Damn those spellcheckers.....
@@waynearrington6727 spellcheckers did the right thing.
I'm impressed that Russian engineers had the foresight to design ejection turrets for their tanks.
🤣🤣🤣
Beam me up Scotty
Clancy also predicted the effectiveness of ATGMs in Red Storm Rising. The politburo member's kid mentions something about "two reservists in a Jeep" being able to stop a whole column dead, a lot like what we saw on the northern flank where the column moved on Kyiv during the initial opening of this war.
Another great video. In times of emergency, cost and time to train will be dominant factors. The debate about tracked vs wheeled vehicles becomes more pertinent with the destructive power of ATGMs.
This reminds me intensely of chariots at the end of bronze age civilization. Expensive training for operators, expensive maintenance, situationally deployable and counterable in urban environments, yet terrifying and indispensable on open planes. Possibly a weapon of empires, not of city-states?
Chariots, phalangite infantry, knightly cavalry, tanks, its all the same arm in a high level model of warfare.
Alexandre the great had one of the greatest empires and he didn't use chariots to the contrary, he noobed ennemy chariots with simple horses
@@niksarass horses are just plain superior to chariots, and later on heavily armoured ones, then even later on wagons+gunpowder(search up hussite wagons) then finally the tank
@@niksarass Chariots for used because horses capable of bearing a rider, trained not to panic in war, and run at a gallop took a while to be bred.
@@Cecilia-ky3uw they are, the reason why chariots were used in the first place was because horses that were big and strong enough to carry a man into battle weren't really a thing until fairly late in the bronze age, on top of which it's significantly trickier to fight from horseback than from a chariot
The category of ATGMs spans the aviation and air force: the AH-64D Apache Longbow and AC-130W Stinger II come to mind. Both can wreak havoc on even large tank formations, especially the '64' operating as wings and squadrons. Each platform carries 16 Hellfire ATGMs.
I have zero knowledge of tanks and limited knowledge of this stuff in general, but I must say that following through this video was an absolute pleasure. This kind low key and matter of fact way of presenting stuff is just a joy to follow. I can see how the target is in actual understanding of a complex issue rather than presenting an pre-selected dogmatic idea. Much appreciated, this was great!
Perun I love your videos but one point I'll disagree with massively is the "A bad tank is worse than no tank."
Because the thing is, as long as you have a tank you are forcing your enemy to carry ATGMs with them where ever they go. Ask any infantry soldier if their job is easier with an ATGM strapped to their back, or without and they'll tell you without every day of the week. So even if you rarely deploy your T-55, or if you do it's in a very limited fire support mission, the mere fact it's a threat means that you have forced your enemy to limit their tactical mobility in favour of Anti-Tank Firepower, and if you can do that, confident that your enemy doesn't have tank support, then your infantry will have an advantage in the dismounted close combat role.
Some of my thoughts on this video:
- Wonder how systems like those of Rheinmetal will change this, ive seen some videos of them and they look quite capable. Although those videos are by the makers of those systems soooo....
- Stocking up on atgms sounds good, but i seems to recall that they have a quite limited shelf life, something to do with volatile gasses being used for sensor cooling, idk
- If the prevelence of atgms means the amount to tanks drops, then the amount of carried atgms could drop and make tanks more useful again, so there is probably some balance point there.
- and lastly:
These videos are really fucking informative, if you end up reading all these comment, thank you so much.
Compressed gas is only required for ATGMs with a thermal FPA seeker, such as the Javelin, though the planned 'G' model will use an uncooled seeker. The laser guided (eg, Stugna-P), or inertially guided (NLAW) systems shouldn't have this problem, there I imagine most issues are with either basic material/explosives deterioration or battery self-discharge (if those aren't easily replaceable).
The Germans evidently won't send most of the cold war Strela MANPADSs they found, because so many had deteriorated in humid warehousing. There may be solutions to this, like climate controlled storage, or better, making use of old salt mines (as used for records storage).
Agreed, there will be some new balance between tanks and ATGMs.
What I'd really like to see is nations rerole at least one of their units towards exploring what a new combined arms doctrine would look like. I suspect it wouldn't be so far away from the US Stryker brigade concept. Just with more ATGMs in each sqd, surveillance drones/loitering munitions organic to each plt, laser designating drones for precision fires organic to each company, and perhaps some multiple rocket launchers with terminal laser guidance organic to each artillery btn. In essence, pushing guided non-line of sight fires down to the lowest reasonable echelons, and relying on lightly armored mobile gun systems for less expensive direct fires.
@@MrDarrylR oh I didn't know the NLAW only used the lead for aiming. I recently saw some product videos from the makers of the switchblade drone and some other things where soldiers have small tablets that show them live isr data from drones etc. Pretty interesting stuff, can probably make smaller teams have big effect
“Sagger” is the nato nomenclature for that early wire-guided Malyutka. From a former intel analyst, I love the content you’re producing - its well thought out and avoids popular western (and eastern!) biases. The Aussie defense ministry would do well to put you on as a contractor. Cheers!
I have a background in Economics (now working as a data engineer) and had a thing for defense economics. Did spend some time in my college's library reading the Handbook of Defense Economics volume 1 by North Holland. Your videos are sober, well produced, authoritative and with a dry, meme-ish sense of humor which I appreciate. Never checked your gaming stuff out, but I'd definitely would if you've played stuff like WARNO or Wargame Red Dragon.
Anyway, just passing by to say I do like your stuff a lot. I leave a couple of videos on queue and play chess while listening to them, which works just fine because you have solid technical presentation skills. Wouldn't mind a few more ads if the revenue were significant to you, always happy to support high quality content.
46:17 the discord notification sound got me
But as to not portray that a meme moment was my defining takeaway of this video: i think that you're really good at presenting this. This is the 3rd or so Ukraine conflict lecture that I've listened from you
As ex paratrooper where we have to jump into battlefields and use our legs and feet to engage the enemy its been a real joy to watch the infantrymen using highly sopisticated anti tank missiles win the war. Its has made the tank look very vulnerable indeed. Small highly motivated soldiers can operate at night get in close to the enemy and cause havoc. I think this war will be an eye opener for the western military. Poor Russian communications open to ham radio operators, using mobile cell communications so the Ukrainane could pin point locations of command centres. Russian Generals having go forward to find out what hells happening at the front.
Tanks and vehicles getting bogged down on supply routes poor equipment maintence running out of fuel. Its been a litany of disasterous military planning. Its made the Russians look unprofessional and very inapt. This is a Battleship/Aircraft carrier moment of the Pacific war. TANKS are extremely vulnerable to drones and modern anti-tank weapons. I'd rather be in small squard of highly motivated well armed infantrymen then in a steel coffin.
I concur.
True, but infantry will eventually become obsolete in this drone businesses too. The heavy use of cheap undetectable, but expendable drones that guide artillery strikes accurately alone guarantees this, but the real hell for the infantryman hasn't even begun yet. AI + drone swarming will be a true game changer.
@@JAnx01 Infantry will never be obsolete. Drone systems (both land and air) plays a role in combat. But they cannot hold the ground. Infantry holds the ground.
In the 50's and 60's, there was a prevailing thought that aircraft and missiles would render Infantry obsolete. However, after air systems have done their job, how do you control the territory?
@@JAnx01 I agree with you, and disagree with you on so many levels. Drones are not undetectable at all, they can be stealthy, but emit radio waves and reflect high frequency radar, at least at fairly short range because they contain metal. Radio frequency jamming can disable drones from an entire area, so they must resort to frequency-hopping, however radio jamming that can cover the spectrum of frequencies that drones could use also jams the frequencies of radio that the defenders weapons need. Also, drones that can kill infantry, at least for now, need to be able to fire projectiles. For that the drone must be sturdy and large enough to carry a gun or grenades etc., which entails a fair amount of metal and size, again making it very detectable and targetable, and not so cheap and expendable. I think the war between drones and not-drones will come down to the fact that drones rely on radio frequencies to communicate. Being able to jam those communications in these days of digital encryption over the airwaves (like your mobile phone does) will be key to deciding how effective drones will be in future battles. Drones are only as effective as their communications are.
I think you're buying into the propaganda. No one knows what is going on and the Ukrainians keep releasing ARMA 3 video game footage to make it seem like they're winning. It's absurd. Even the US media is finally admitting that half of the Ukrainian Army is encircled by the Russians. It's amazing the amount of lies and bullshit they've tried to sell people.
The South African military knew the weaknesses of tanks vs well armed infantry back in the 80's.
The South African Defence Force spearheaded its attacks with infantry and fast moving wheeled vehicles and left the heavy armour in the reserve and only brought it in as a final line of defence/offence. Our Soldiers gave russians and cubans and other communist block soldiers hell throughout the war with fast mobile warfare but still used tanks during battles such as Cuito Cuanavale, the largest tank battle in Africa since WW2.
Tanks will always have a place in warfare although it will switch from the spearhead to a more supportive role
The weakness of tanks vs infantry that has the right equipment has been known as long as tanks existed. Bundles of stick grenades were used by the Germans to tank out tanks in WWI. Infantry guns, special anti-tank guns, and even anti-tank rifles could do the same.
Tanks vs infantry anti-tank weapons have been an arms race since then. Who has had the advantaged have changed back and forward over time. At what distance and what terrain is better for each has also changed. The general knowledge that infantry can take out tanks if they have the right equipment has always existed.
If you look at armored units between the world wars and in the early part of WWII most units had too many tanks and too few infantry initially. There is a shift to more infantry when they get tested in combat. Germany removes 1/3 of the tanks in Panzer divisions between the attack on Poland and the Soviet Union. They doubled the amount of infantry in the divisions, this was because you could not use too many tanks efficiently without infantry support.
So the knowledge that combined arms is the most efficient way to use tanks is as old as the tanks. The knowledge of combined arms in general predates tanks by centuries. Archers, foot soldiers, and cavalry is better in a battle than either of them separatly.
from my experience with milsims it’s very easy to lose a tank if you’re not experienced, and while it’s tempting to throw them at the enemy they’re most protected and mobile deep in your back line where they don’t need to move at combat pace.
what I’m saying is they might as well become self-propelled artillery with an MG on top lmao
Another historical example is the Israel-Lebanon war in 2006. Merkava units got hammered pretty hard by ATGM crews. Estimates vary from 20 to 50 tanks, which is relatively big for the IAF.
What a wonderful series of videos on the Ukraine war. Thank you so much for explaining it all in such clear terms.
This was a great discussion. Tanks are far from obsolete. Even older tanks can absolutely crush infantry that lack adequate number of ATGMs. For poorer countries that have less concern about casualties this might win the day against a poorly prepared enemy. But against a competent defender with sufficient ammo, ATGMs will make the attacker pay a heavy price. Also we must not forget that Ukraine is firing a ridiculous number of these things and by the volume of fire alone, some are bound to get kills. All we can really learn from the available data is that if a sufficient number of ATGMs are available to the defender, then poorly supported tanks on the attack will suffer heavy losses.
Thank you very much for this in depth analysis! All I thought about tanks until this war was: they are a bit like moving bunkers, only more fragile.
in 2007, I already knew the era of the tank was over.
The game Halo 3 showed me tanks were helpless against the Spartan Laser. That was the depth of my military/tactical knowledge. :p
while I totally understand the thinking, considering the amount of tank losses Russia has taken, they haven't been exactly tactical about it. I'm no military expert but I've always heard that tanks work when they've got infantry support. I haven't heard/seen much of that with the war in Ukraine, surely this will be a factor as I can't see many well trained militaries making this kind of mistake, especially on the scale Russia has done in Ukraine.
also not a military expert but i do have a small piece to add confirming this.
i frequently play a game (that is not quite a mil-sim) called Hell Let Loose based in WW2. the main mode of gameplay is a tug-of war type matchup where the axis and allies fight for control of sectors of map. there isnt really any air assets to speak of but tanks definitely have a role. a tank on its own can wreak havoc for a limited amount of time before a coordinated team gets their heads in the game and takes it out or a lucky squad with a bazooka or panzerfaust does the same. a tank that has infantry with it has *substantially* higher survivability in battle as there are infantry units that are able to slowly repair tanks, or elsewise able to build repair stations using supplies placed by other soldiers or airdropped by the commander. in addition to providing security for the tank which cannot see everywhere at once and takes seconds to bring its weapons to bear.
any infantry that can even *_hear_* an enemy tank is going to be extremely motivated to try to get it off the battlefield as quickly as possible because they are simply devastating in their ability to take down infantry
Most tank kills by Ukraine have been artillery. Infantry support can only dir in that situation and don't help at all. Drones hunts for tanks, directs accurate artillery on them and hit the top armor, killing the tanks. Over, and over again.
this reminds me of the discussion in the early 80s when an Exocet missile sank the Sheffield. i remember that it's price tag went from ~$100k to $1m after it was proven in war.
yes in fact it doubled it, from 1 to 2 million. I saw it from ARgentina
Exocet price went excessively high was also because it was being bought by British agents to deny supply to Argentina. Market supply and demand went crazy.
@@rodthurley5343 ohhhh, interesting. had not heard that, before.
Tanks should still have a place when used effectively for combined arms warfare. The tank's job is to bust fortifications and enemy armor, while drawing fire away from friendly troops. It can also suppress enemy infantry with machine guns, but IFV's are better at this job. The tank is an intimidating power, and only a couple shoulder fired rockets will not usually be enough to make the tank confirmed as a non-threat. All the time and effort spent by the enemy focusing on the tank, is time they are not spending on the tank's friendly infantry and APC vehicles. It allows for the infantry to maneuver and flank the enemy easier. It still can destroy the enemy's fortified position or cover.
What you do NOT want to do, is have very poor infantry assistance for the tank, or even worse, send them in alone. They will be unable to focus on all the infantry threats that will inevitably surround them and overpower them.
I personally think, that for the modern battlefield, it is more worth it to view MBTs as a more specialized tool, instead of the backbone of your military force. I'd personally invest more into having a smaller force of very capable tanks, and setting them up with hard kill APS systems and all the best toys to make them as survivable as possible. Large tank forces of mediocre tanks seem obsolete. They cause huge issues with logistics. Especially the logistics chain is vulnerable to guerilla attacks and strikes from the air. The tanks themselves are easily picked off. The terrain can force your huge tank units to go through a deadly bottle neck, they aren't as unpredictable and versatile as infantry.
I really want to agree with you, because I'm a history nut and love tanks, but since modern ATMG's are so effective and reasonably cheap and operable in basically all weather, I don't see much of a role for MBT's at all. They need infantry screening for ATMG's far beyond the range that the tank is a useful asset to the offensive drive. Maybe using them on a massed surprise offensive drive would work, but with even super-cheap drones for surveillance against them, surprise is completely lost and the effectiveness of those tanks is also lost. The logistics on keeping them fueled does not justify their failure to achieve combat effectiveness.
@@richardduerr9983 spaced armor and ERA has mostly removed the ability for a unguided missile to one shot a modern tank, and active defensive systems like the trophy systems have proven to be reasonably effective. its going to take time to get used to this new style of war with these new systems but blowing up old Soviet cast-steel tanks doesn't really prove the effectiveness of these systems. Almost every tank fielded by Russia was obsolete with the introduction of the Abrams and other NATO tanks in the 70-80's. Its like they are bringing A7V's into WW2 and is not indicative of the capabilities of modern equipment.
@@lastword8783 they are not really useful for punching and breakthrough. even in WW1 that idea was proved to be false. what they provide is accurate and lethal "close" fire support to destroy machinegun nests and hardpoints. the closer something can get to the action the faster it can be employed and tanks are supposed to keep up with the infantry. every other use of tanks has been coincidental or suicidal as even in WW2 mechanized units where attached directly to tanks to assault defensive positions under covering fire. sending tanks out unsupported for assaults or exploitation's just gets them chopped up. The infantry leads the way. tanks are just another form of fire-support.
@@davidmccormick7419 " they are not really useful for punching and breakthrough. even in WW1 that idea was proved to be false"
This "punch through" thing is an image that seems to refuse to die. Guderian seems to suggest this usage. When you are facing an enemy completely incapable of mounting a timely counterattack (France 1940) or there is a good chance they so poorly equipped as to not be combined arms units (Russia 1941), it may work, perhaps spectacularly well. But it was suicide to simply throw tanks forward by 1942.
It is conceivable that modern tactical defense systems will make tanks "pretty hard" against these shoulder fired weapons. So I will keep an open mind as to whether the failure of these poorly maintained old Russian tank designs really says anything (or not) about how a properly equipped modern tank would perform.
@@ComradeOgilvy1984 The reason the image refused to die is that armored divisions did breakthrough all the time in WWII. A German armored division subverted 4 separate fortification lines around Stalingrad and reached the Volga, splitting the Russians in two and negating their defenses.
Soooo interesting to re watch this just before the brand new video.
The minefield factor and the relevance of legacy systems in a high-attrition war was a lesson for us post-2023.
St. FPV ended up being even more cost effective than St. Javelin and how forget the great flop: The Switchblade.
I remember reading a number of years ago about the diminishing role of the tank and I wasn't sure what exactly to think of it, as I'm British and it was a British article that seemed to be justifying our low or unimpressive numbers of tanks. To be fair though, prioritising our Navy, air force and special forces with a small but highly professional army seems best for us than trying to be some major land power. We've never been that even at the height of imperial power
Yea our frontline tank numbers are going to be down to 100+ with the new challenger coming out. Not including the warriors etc. Battle taxi won't go out of favour though.
UK Arny is geared for the snakes head not the million long length of the body of Soliders.
Intelligence, intelligence, Special Forces, Special Forces..
Tanks don't make nearly as much sense for an island nation than they would on the eastern European plain. Focusing on other priorities makes sense.
@@tonyfriendly4409 as a nato member we had a responsibility to maintain a set number for combat on the eastern front.. Hence why they were all based in Germany. As infantry we got loaded out to take out tanks any way.
Best 2 weeks on Salisbury hunting down tank after tank for air strikes and artillery. Fun times.
@@beanspud88 That makes sense.
Thanks for the thoughtful insights in this series. I am receiving better information from this channel then I can ever hope to find in traditional media.
1) even in WW2 Germany realized that tanks suck without infantry/support/etc. As a result, they used the least amount of tanks per trooper and many argue this is what gave them the best efficiency. USSR, on the other hand, oftentimes used just tanks on their own without infantry, these got slaughtered. My point is, tanks always sucked when used on their own and their usefulness is often exxagerated because the most efficient military (Hitlers germany) actually used less tanks compared to their enemies on purpose
2) The tank age has long been gone 40+ years ago. They're useful as a "show of force" mechanism and to frighten, and this is why many armies still keep them, but you're not going to see them being useful against sophisticated weaponry , unless these tanks are in small numbers. If Israel at any point decided to significantly increase their tank count, all those tanks are dead weight, but having a small amount of tanks and having them defended gives an advantage
3) Battleships are next to be extinct. They face a similar problem: that some untrained soldier can simply blow the thing up for 1/millionth of the cost of the battleship. Its just that we havent yet had two sophisticated powers fight at sea. Everything thats big is an easy and rewarding target, and all these "anti missile systems" are useless. You can grab a small drone with a bomb and fly it next to any modern battleship unnoticed
Yeah, big & slow is a target, and direct-fire guns are hopeless compared to guided missiles.
G’Day from Oregon, USA. Listened (more than watched) a few hours of your Ukraine analysis. Think you got the TH-cam config’d right as no ads at all! Thank so much for the week or more of work you put into this.
I need more of this from you. Never even seen the gaming side, though I will check it out. You have a very unique skill set to explain these things, I can't get enough.
a very particular set of skills, skills you've have acquired through a very long career
@@lancemcque1459 I see what you did there. Clever boy 😉
Back when there were infantry portable antitank rifles that could knock out tanks in the early years of ww2 it was understood that tanks would be best used by concentrating them into tank divisions rather than spreading them out in small groups across one's army. Fighting 2 or 5 or 10 tanks at a time is difficult but manageable with ATGMs; fighting 100 is impossible. The Russians have unlearned everything they ever knew. Including the whole "don't be the bad guy in world affairs and conquer and erase your neighbors" thing.
Back in WW2 tanks didn't attack as whole divisions either. You usually had 2 tank companies attacking in one sector, so approx. 20-24 tanks, plus support vehicles. A whole tank division, so 200+ MBTs + several hundred support vehicles in one place will cause a huge traffic jam and enable the enemy to counterattack on the flanks. Remember that video of the Russian tank regiment being ambushed with artillery and ATGMs. Well that was a whole tank regiment driving down a country lane.
So, tanks are only useful in specific terrain where it’s possible to fit 100 tanks?
Eh... That is not why the Germans invented the Panzer Division in the thirties.
Really. It *really* is not.
@@MarcosElMalo2 No, tanks are useful when concentrated and supported. Driving a load of tanks down an obvious highway into ambushes because all of the fields are mud and impossible to get across, with no air support and infantry that doesn't even know why they're there is... basically 1920s British doctrine but let's ignore that.
"don't be the bad guy in world affairs and conquer and erase your neighbors" - ?!?! They never ever learned this. In fact this has been their MO since basically forever..
The short answer is “no”. What Ukraine has shown is that not all tanks are equal and more importantly, that armour needs to be backed up with infantry and air support. When used effectively within a combined arms strategy the best tanks are still a deadly weapon system.
I'm not so sure that ATGM's have not made the tank irrelevant. Infantry screening can only screen to a fairly short distance in front of armor that is also supposed to be supporting them. ATGM's have an engagement range that is outside the infantry's effective range. ATMG operators can kill tanks outside the range of the infantry, and helicopter support can be suppressed by MANPADS protecting the ATMG operators. Without the tanks being able to support the infantry assault, what is their mission?
It’s been awhile since this was produced and a lot has happened . Ukraine performed a counter offensive with fast light armored vehicles, armored personnel carriers, and a few tanks. This was successful because the Russians were unable to effectively redirect artillery and that the defense lines which held the most weapons were effectively bypassed and surrounded.
The main battle tank has a place on the battlefield as mobile artillery and when their numbers are far superior on offensive operations. I do suggest that future tanks will be half the size and weight. They need to be faster and able to withstand artillery. Lastly they need to be designed to reduce or eliminate weak points such as in the turret.