Daily Mail: Putin's new 'super tank' leaves West totally outgunned

[Malthus]

My impression is that apocalyptic claims for a single new weapon system (such as the title of this thread), and claims that entire weapon systems are "obsolete", tend to be both overblown.

Tanks are part of a combined arms strategy. They have strengths and weaknesses; they can be countered by dedicated weapons systems, hand-held, fired by aircraft, or in mines. Trying to charge modern infantry with tanks alone is suicide, if they are not already broken in morale and are prepared, trained and equipped to first-world standards, and particularly if they are part of an all-arms defense.   

All this has been true since at least WW2 if not earlier.

I'm not convinced the evidence is there yet that some modern technology makes them obsolete, any more than I am convinced that some improvements in speed, armor or armament makes any particular model totally dominant. 

[Berkut]

<pontificate>

I actually find the idea that the MBT could be obsolete, or soon to be so, not at all far fetched.

As the lethality of weapons increases over time, the question is whether or not the "armor" (and by this I mean any counter system employed, whether that be physical armor, ECM, etc., etc) available can increase along with it making the current system continue to be viable.

History very clearly tells us that the answer at some points in time is often "no". Knights went away when infantry personal weapons became more deadly faster than the armor a horse can carry could improve to counter it. That saw the end of cavalry and the armored knight as a primary battlefield weapon system.

Tanks came along when the ICE was invented that allowed one to move around a weight of armor it was not at all possible that an individual infantry weapon could defeat, and so that became a primary weapon system for going on about 100 years now...but that will change as well. Perhaps it has changed already, but we haven't had enough of a sustained "experiment" to know for sure. We could be in the opening days of WW2 as it relates to the capability of the battleship, for all we know, were we are heavily invested in a weapon system that is mostly obsolete, but we don't really know it for sure yet.

But it would be foolish to stop building battleship in 1935 without the benefit of hindsight. You simply do not know. And we don't know right now.

Once thing I am kind of confident on though is the idea that the modern high intensity battlefield is largely an unknown. So much technology has changed since the last time true conventional forces of modern militaries have clashed in a sustained conflict, that I suspect whatever the "truth" is, nobody actually knows it yet.

Hopefully we don't ever find out.

</pontificate>

[derspiess]

Many visionaries were thought to inhabit cuckoo land. Everyone from Tesla to Newton to Einstein to Jim Jones, David Koresh, and L. Ron Hubbard has been dismissed by some as crazy.

[CountDeMoney]

Why would it move underground?

Hard to shoot.

The wonders of Polish ASW development never cease.

[CountDeMoney]

Many visionaries were thought to inhabit cuckoo land. Everyone from Tesla

Well yeah--once they went acoustic, it all went to shit.

[Drakken]

Many visionaries were thought to inhabit cuckoo land. Everyone from Tesla to Newton to Einstein to Jim Jones, David Koresh, and L. Ron Hubbard has been dismissed by some as crazy.

Don't dare to put Tesla in the same sentence as Newton and Einstein. 

[Zanza]

I don't know anything about modern military equipment and tactics, but I could imagine that the best equipment and tactics for fighting a counter-insurgency in the Middle East or fighting a mechanized army in the Northern European plains could be different. Maybe main battle tanks work better in the latter environment than the former.

[Berkut]

I don't know anything about modern military equipment and tactics, but I could imagine that the best equipment and tactics for fighting a counter-insurgency in the Middle East or fighting a mechanized army in the Northern European plains could be different. Maybe main battle tanks work better in the latter environment than the former.

Crazy talk, you're as loony as Siege!

[Valmy]

I don't know anything about modern military equipment and tactics, but I could imagine that the best equipment and tactics for fighting a counter-insurgency in the Middle East or fighting a mechanized army in the Northern European plains could be different. Maybe main battle tanks work better in the latter environment than the former.

Maybe. But they seem like easy targets to me.

[Zanza]

Maybe. But they seem like easy targets to me.

No idea. The armies of the world seem to still consider them a vital part of their combined arms strategy.

My amateur view is that they can move fairly fast through rough terrain (compared to non-mechanized infantry), have very powerful weaponry that can fight just about any ground target, have good  sensors and communications to operate together with other units, and I would assume their armor means that they have a higher survivability than just about every other ground unit (in open terrain at least, cities are probably different). Every weapon that can hit a main battle tank seems to be able to hit other ground units as well with probably more devastating effects.

[Malthus]

<pontificate>

I actually find the idea that the MBT could be obsolete, or soon to be so, not at all far fetched.

As the lethality of weapons increases over time, the question is whether or not the "armor" (and by this I mean any counter system employed, whether that be physical armor, ECM, etc., etc) available can increase along with it making the current system continue to be viable.

History very clearly tells us that the answer at some points in time is often "no". Knights went away when infantry personal weapons became more deadly faster than the armor a horse can carry could improve to counter it. That saw the end of cavalry and the armored knight as a primary battlefield weapon system.

Tanks came along when the ICE was invented that allowed one to move around a weight of armor it was not at all possible that an individual infantry weapon could defeat, and so that became a primary weapon system for going on about 100 years now...but that will change as well. Perhaps it has changed already, but we haven't had enough of a sustained "experiment" to know for sure. We could be in the opening days of WW2 as it relates to the capability of the battleship, for all we know, were we are heavily invested in a weapon system that is mostly obsolete, but we don't really know it for sure yet.

But it would be foolish to stop building battleship in 1935 without the benefit of hindsight. You simply do not know. And we don't know right now.

Once thing I am kind of confident on though is the idea that the modern high intensity battlefield is largely an unknown. So much technology has changed since the last time true conventional forces of modern militaries have clashed in a sustained conflict, that I suspect whatever the "truth" is, nobody actually knows it yet.

Hopefully we don't ever find out.

</pontificate>

But individual infantry weapons *could* defeat a tank. Even in WW2, there were bazookas, panzerfausts, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzerfaust

By the 1970s, there were wire-guided man-portable missiles that could (and did) knock out tanks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M14_Malyutka

This did not make tanks obsolete, though. Just added complexity to the rock-paper-scissors of an all-arms battle. The Israelis, who lacked such missiles, eventually overcame the Egyptians, who had them - after learning a sharp lesson about the vulnerability of their tanks. The Israelis still use tanks, though.

Now, it could well be that some future tech makes tanks wholly obsolete. Maybe it is already here, and kept secret from us.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I don't know anything about modern military equipment and tactics, but I could imagine that the best equipment and tactics for fighting a counter-insurgency in the Middle East or fighting a mechanized army in the Northern European plains could be different. Maybe main battle tanks work better in the latter environment than the former.

Maybe. But they seem like easy targets to me.

and if you bring one to the octagon you're at quite the disadvantage too...

[Valmy]

I don't know anything about modern military equipment and tactics, but I could imagine that the best equipment and tactics for fighting a counter-insurgency in the Middle East or fighting a mechanized army in the Northern European plains could be different. Maybe main battle tanks work better in the latter environment than the former.

Maybe. But they seem like easy targets to me.

and if you bring one to the octagon you're at quite the disadvantage too...

But you dont even need a drone. Any anti tank aerial munition can take out ANY tank. Deploying tanks on the modern battlefield without achieving and maintaining air superiority is ridiculously suicidal.

And then, even if your air defense keeps enemy aircraft away, light infantry carries a little toy called Javelin that can take out any tank as well.

So says a professional soldier with years of actual combat experience

[Malthus]

Again, none of that is truly new. Moving tanks around if you don't have air superiority was already a problem in WW2; man-portable tank-killers already existed then, too.

Yet tanks were still useful.

Now, it could be argued that modern weapons are simply so powerful that they have tilted the balance fundamentally.

[Berkut]

<pontificate>

I actually find the idea that the MBT could be obsolete, or soon to be so, not at all far fetched.

As the lethality of weapons increases over time, the question is whether or not the "armor" (and by this I mean any counter system employed, whether that be physical armor, ECM, etc., etc) available can increase along with it making the current system continue to be viable.

History very clearly tells us that the answer at some points in time is often "no". Knights went away when infantry personal weapons became more deadly faster than the armor a horse can carry could improve to counter it. That saw the end of cavalry and the armored knight as a primary battlefield weapon system.

Tanks came along when the ICE was invented that allowed one to move around a weight of armor it was not at all possible that an individual infantry weapon could defeat, and so that became a primary weapon system for going on about 100 years now...but that will change as well. Perhaps it has changed already, but we haven't had enough of a sustained "experiment" to know for sure. We could be in the opening days of WW2 as it relates to the capability of the battleship, for all we know, were we are heavily invested in a weapon system that is mostly obsolete, but we don't really know it for sure yet.

But it would be foolish to stop building battleship in 1935 without the benefit of hindsight. You simply do not know. And we don't know right now.

Once thing I am kind of confident on though is the idea that the modern high intensity battlefield is largely an unknown. So much technology has changed since the last time true conventional forces of modern militaries have clashed in a sustained conflict, that I suspect whatever the "truth" is, nobody actually knows it yet.

Hopefully we don't ever find out.

</pontificate>

But individual infantry weapons *could* defeat a tank. Even in WW2, there were bazookas, panzerfausts, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzerfaust

By the 1970s, there were wire-guided man-portable missiles that could (and did) knock out tanks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M14_Malyutka

This did not make tanks obsolete, though. Just added complexity to the rock-paper-scissors of an all-arms battle. The Israelis, who lacked such missiles, eventually overcame the Egyptians, who had them - after learning a sharp lesson about the vulnerability of their tanks. The Israelis still use tanks, though.

Now, it could well be that some future tech makes tanks wholly obsolete. Maybe it is already here, and kept secret from us.

Those weapons were not effective enough to really impact the overall viability of the tank though.

Panzerfaust had less than a 100m range. Bazookas maybe 200m, at best. And even the bazooka was hardly a sure kill, if you could hit.

Those weapons, in WW2, were better than nothing, but not actually decisive. They were reasons why it was dangerous for armor to go up against infantry in close terrain - they were not effective against tanks in general.