Play World of Tanks here: tanks.ly/3jIOR9H Thank you World of Tanks for sponsoring this video. During registration use the code TANKMANIA to get for free: 7 Days Premium Account 250k credits Premium Tank Excelsior (Tier 5) 3 rental tanks for 10 battles each: Tiger 131 (Tier 6), Cromwell B (Tier 6), and T34-85M (Tier 6)
@@zbiggun7594 - and not every American was in favor of the Gulf War. Judging every Russian by their government's foreign policy is about as unfair as blaming every American for their government's foreign policy, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you're aware of how divided the American public is.
@@snupjeve Not what I meant. I meant the paradox of Ryan advertising a Russian company in the same video where he says bad things about Russia. Potentially insulting his sponsors.
The USMC didn't divest of tanks because they thought they were obsolete, the leadership felt it wasn't a good fit for a quick reaction force that would likely be needed in Southeast Asia. The MBT / Abrahms is probably a better-suited fit to a sizeable main Army force vs. an expeditionary force.
They just could not afford them. They needed to cut something to pay for their shift in strategy. They also will very much call on Army abrams if they need tanks.
@@WALancer "They also will very much call on Army Abrams if they need tanks" - Yes, this is a crucial point that often gets omitted when this subject comes up. The Marines and Army are almost always colocated in-theater, obviously work together and can share or coordinate assets.
Absolutely correct - Tanks have no place as a Marine asset. A hierarchy misunderstanding of who should be doing what................Tanks are for------ ARMY................duh
The Chieftain has put this one to bed, tanks aren't going away. Also, the Marines didn't get rid of tanks because tanks are bad. They got rid of them because tanks are the Army's job.
In particular, what they're *really* doing behind the scenes is getting ready for a new war in the pacific with the CCP. Their thinking is pretty obviously something along the lines of - we're not going to fit an abrams on a helicopter any time soon. Edit - not saying I agree with their thinking though. But what do I know. I'm just some guy.
@@bif24701you mean the Ukrainian counter offensive that was spearheaded by tanks and properly supported by infantry? Got lots of lands and freed Kherson.
Claims about the obsolescence of tanks have been made since at least the Yom Kippur war. Bad deployments were the issue, as was a fairly new threat, infantry guided antitank missiles.
Shortly after WW1, British officers concluded that the tank was an overspecialized response to the unique conditions of trench warfare and was unlikely to play a role in any future conflicts. That's right, experts have been saying that tanks are obsolete for _more than a century_ now.
I think US Army doctrine is about 4 Bradley's to one Abrams. Those 4 squads, the 25mm gun firing DU that can penetrate 110mm and the TOW 2 are doing something.
Seen a lot of footage from Ukraine of Russian/Separatist armor without infantry support in a urban setting, hatches all buttoned up. AFV's seem to be becoming more and more bullet magnets with ATGM's etc however they sure as hell beats walking.
As the great war hero Audie Murphy once quipped to a tank commander. "Must be nice to ride around in all that armor. " The tank commander replies "oh its not that thick" in which Audie replies " well its a lot thicker than this GI shirt. " Armor will be around until man can shrink it down and run 40 mph with it on.
The formation were made up by masses that would swarm battlemechs deploy mines onto the joints etc. Plus jump capable. Those are a versatile breakthrough unit.
@@Real_Claudy_Focan In that case, rather then getting out of the battleship, you fight the fire, because otherwise, your only option is to start swimming.
@@cleverusername9369 Hello cu. With a comment like yours I could come back with "wtf mate?" but since it's useless and banal I won't. So I suggest you re-read the original post and try to figure out my comment. Mate!
Supercarriers will be obsolete before tanks are. Imagine the loss of two Nimitz class carriers in a conflict. Carriers are almost getting too important to risk. We've got hundreds of M1s in storage that could be brought back in to service quickly.
We just talked about that on the ship on Saturday - I asked him what ships he thought should be built these days and super carriers were not the choice.
@@garywayne6083 Smaller carriers instead? Say HMS Queen Elizabeth size but with catapults and angled decks. Can't imagine there would be a case to completely do away with Naval Aviation at least not until some future aircraft generation that can cruise at hypersonic speeds with combat radiases of tens of thousands of kilometres so they can reach everywhere on the planet in reasonable time frames from ground bases.
@@AThousandYoung that's why I suggested Queen Elizabeth size and not the 30,000-40,000 ton range carriers that countries like Spain and Italy operate there are trade offa for having carriers get to big the 100,000 ton nuclear carriers America favours are only really feasible for America to operate and they make big high value targets that have been "sunk" in multiple training simulations by diesel submarines the escorts never noticed until after the carrier went down, the 65,000 ton range is a better target for literally every other country on the planet for the balance of capability vs cost.
Earlier today, I watched a film about USS New Jersey entering Astoria, Oregon to attend the Portland Rose Festival. While under tow, as she approached the Astoria bridge, several Greenpeace members hung from under the bridge to protest the ship's attendance. The film was about four minutes long. This happened in early June, 1990.Can we find out any more about this trip? Thanks. When speaking about tanks, US Army Lt. Col. Nick Moran, a former tank commander, also works for World Of Tanks as a military advisor and historian. He has a You Tube channel, The Chieftain. He would be a good person to speak with, as I've seen him visiting many other channels on You Tube as a guest and as a speaker. Another channel that I regularly watch, is Military Aviation History, with Chris Berg, aka "Bismark", and "The Chieftain" was on his channel speaking on the subject of tanks vs aircraft, especially Soviet tanks vs the Ju-87 Stuka. I would love to see two of my favorite presenters get together.
Hey how abt an Inside the Chieftain Hatch in one of the BB-62 NJ turret? Come to think of it battleships are like the prehistoric ancestors of tanks anw.
As Bernard from the MH not V noted, the death of the tank has been predicted repeatedly since 1919 Main difference with a tank vs a battleship is that there isn't a vehicle that combines firepower, protection and mobility like a tank. A battleship's role can be taken over by cheaper platforms like a destroyer.
with the advent of guided missile systems, yes the battleships can easily be replaced with a fleet of even frigates and corvettes, ground forces still rely quite heavily on the firepower from a tank to break through defensive lines
I agree with your analysis - battleships have been overtaken by technologies, but main battle tanks and other armored vehicles still have a place in land warfare.
Umm no as unlike a battleship there really is no real substitute for a Main Battle Tank whereas with a battleship despite there no dedicated replacement other systems have filled its role
Two words: “combined arms”. If your army doesn’t practice integrated operations with air and land and sea elements, you’re going to lose more tanks. And, you have to recognize where it is unwise to operate tanks.
It's an M60 series. The picture's size and resolution are not the best, but I think I can make out a thermal sleeve on the main gun tube, which would make it an M60A3. If the picture had better resolution, another cue we could go by from the same 3/4 view would be whether or not the right side rangefinder blister on the turret has a small lockable door over it. If so, that would also make it an M60A3, as the door covers the laser rangefinder emitter when not in use. And from that same view we might be able to discern whether or not the sight system protruding from the top of the turret in front of the TC cupola had some reflective glass, also an M60A3 characteristic.
Ex-Soviet tanks with poorly trained crews unsupported are routed by dissimilar forces with modern weapons. All this signifies is the correctness of western tank doctrine where quality is as important as quantity. But to say tanks are done would be as incorrect as if you said it about the French during the blitzkreig or the Iraqis at 73 Easting.
Thank you, I've been going crazy trying to understand why everyone thinks soviet tank doctrine being proven wrong over and over for 60 some years means "is this the end of the tank" every time they roll it out and start dying in droves
Battleships arent obsolete, they are just too expensive to be used (at the moment) Any BB flaws you mentionned can be parallaled to CV as well ! Everyship can be sunk at the end of the day.. but none of these capital ships are sailing alone !
Not really. There is no point in using an unguided weapon beyond a certain range, if you are shooting at a mobile target. The target will simply have gone elsewhere when your projectile arrives. Aircraft carriers avoid that issue by means of a manned delivery system.
The other issue in the tanks/battleship parallels is that: yes, you can counter tanks relatively cheaply (if they are unsupported), but you have nothing that replaces the tank on the battlefield. The battleship was largely replaced with the aircraft carrier (I say largely because the role of shore bombardment has not been adequately replaced). There is nothing that is replacing the tank's role on the battlefield. Manpads are certainly not going to do it. I think the better analogy here is comparing the manpads that counter tanks to the innovation of the torpedo boats. Torpedo boats did not render battleships obsolete, even though they were a credible asymmetric counter. It merely changed the doctrine of how battleships were employed and fitted: They operated with escorts of torpedo boat destroyers (which evolved into modern destroyers) and were fitted with smaller caliber, fast-firing guns to help target and counter fast moving torpedo boats.
Short answer - No, simply because there is nothing out there that can fulfill tank's role better or more cheaply than tank. Nothing out there can take a beating like a tank and still survive while carrying enough munition to be a threat to everything ground based (infantry, IFV, tank, ...).
What a shock that the guy with experienxe operating tanks against ill equipped mijahdeen and frankly never against a true military peer might have a skewed perspective. Fact of the matter is that even these incredibly rudimentary drones show incredible potential, even the low tech, civilian grade drones crudely dropping duct taped soviet era hand grenades against tanks have presented alot of difficulty in countering them and for pennies on the dollar to boot, mean while there are 10,000 effective known ways to counter a tank for a modern, peer military. Idk what is going to happen, it would take alot to shake up the combined arms doctrine in which Armour usage is so deeply intertwined, the current and future implications on combined arms warfare should actually be thr topic of discussion as opposed to simplifying it down to just tanks,but there is clearly a slowly advancing trend that l exists where cheaper and cheaper platforms are able to be more and more effective against traditional, more expensive ones, and I find it hard to conclude that the end point of this trend is anything other than entirely autonomous combat by indivually small, massive drone swarms utilized not unlike anti ship missiles, overwhelming defenses and destroying assets. Thunk about it industrially too, it will be much easier for modern, digital superpowers to mass produce drones and other small, mostly electronic equipment as opposed to the traditional war economies of wwii, as well as for unorthodox actors. People insisting tanks are not going obsolete, and then just leaning on a biased authoritative figure just seems so milk toast and unconvincing, I would be interested in seeing a actual debate on the topic between two informed parties.
Do you ever notice that this question only ever comes up when tons of old soviet era tanks are dying with soviet era tactics? It's the exact same tanks and tactics over like 50 years and each time everyone acts like this the death of the tank! No, it's just them!
With any attack there's always a counter. As long as the tank can still counter-attack it will still be necessary in modern warfare. And as far as the Germans during World War 2 with tirpitz. Consider this the Germans were able to get the British Air Force to focus on that ship instead of other things. Imagine all that air force that was used against the tirpitz during WWII and all those resources used during World War II by the British against the Tirpiz. That could have been used battlefield.
My opinion... no. Not yet. Militaries around just need to pay close attention to this war in Ukraine, and learn from it. Realize that tanks have major vulnerabilities, and address them. Tactics is a major one. Combined arms warfare, tanks really should have infantry nearby. Another is tech like active protection systems that can either jam incoming rounds (be it missiles or tank maingun rounds) or intercept those incoming rounds. And surveillance and targeting systems. Find the enemy, and kill the enemy before they see you. First shot is important, but you gotta make sure it hits.
Well, to be fair, most armies are not going to be as hellbent on throwing away all of their top tier assets in fruitless unsupported assaults as the Russians have been, so the conflict in Ukraine may be more of an outlier than a barometer of efficacy.
I am so bloody sick of hearing this. SOVIET TACTICS AND SOVIET TANKS DON'T WORK We aren't re-learning anything and there is not a single thing modern armour needs to play "close attention to" And tanks aren't EVER going away. Not. Ever. Vehicles can carry more guns and armor than men, end of story. Tanks will exist for all of human warfare in the future old soviet tactics and tanks still suck. They sucked for 50 years, they still suck now okay. T-72's and soviet tactics are not representative of armor. The RUSSIANS needed to learn this ... everyone else did IN WORLD WAR TWO
This analysis is off, Russia uses tanks in combined arms. The times we see them unsupported they are often lost, the video is edited, the the tanks are in transit and so forth. In other examples, like when you want to shell a defended apartment building fronted by open fields, how would infantry help? Look at the Wali interview, he states clearly Russia supports its tanks. Look at the doctrines, the training and so forth; Russia supports its tanks. Look at Russian telegram channels and reels and reels of footage, they support their tanks. We all agree Ukraine supports its tanks right, so where have all its tanks gone? Ukraine has been given over 80,000 ATGMS, it has a huge well trained army, larger than Germany, Spain, Italy, UK or France with all of NATO behind it, it has enormous reserves, more even than the USA. It has well trained well operated air defense, has been given enormous numbers of manpads and if we include all the gear its been given would be one of the best equipped militaries in the world. ATGMs have great range, Excalibur can hit them, conventional drone correct artillery can hit them, mines can hit them, suicide drones etc, how precisely are infantry going to nullify those factors. Do we think the UK with its 200 tanks, France with its 200 tanks, Italy with its 200 tanks, Germany with its 200 tanks, or even all combined, would they do any better, no they would all have been destroyed by Javlin, Nlaw, Excalibur, Matador, SPG-9, AT4, M72, Fagot, Metis, Kornet, Stuga-P, Corsar, Akeron, Tow, mines, loitering munitions and the list goes on. No one has faced such an extraordinary density of quality anti tank weapons on a modern battlefield.This can in no way be compared to things like the Iraq War. Russia at one stage had 160,000 vs 700,000, it is little wonder why Russia is losing tanks and getting beaten back, truly the question can be asked how Russia was holding on at all, indeed Petrious said it was all over for Russia back in September. I knew this would be bad right form the moment i hear 'unprovoked', the term unprovoked is not a synonym of unjustified. If i call you stupid, ugly and incompetent, and you punch me, that may be unjustified, but it is not unprovoked. Are we all so historically blind as to say it is completely unprovoked? Are we all watching so much bias media that we believe Russia doesnt know how to use tanks?
One counterpoint - it isn't the size of combat vehicles, but their cost for the effort of power and force projection. More modern tanks are becoming more expensive due to improvements in electronics and fire controls, and I might perceive a practical upper limit somewhere in there. If making a tank more expensive doesn't improve its mobility, firepower, or survivability by a sufficiently-justifiable margin, it isn't economical and doesn't get made and more economical solutions might be sought. I don't see this being applicable to tanks generally, though, as it's more an argument on specific developments. Even if the flavor of warfare were to radically shift to man-portable munitions capable of defeating any tank's armor, tank design could absolutely adapt with various flavors of active-protection systems and enhancements to stealth and vision.
ukraine was a provoked attack Ryan and tanks are starting to go away at least the heavy ones! the reason isn't cost of production though (but that's becoming an issue too!!) it's the logistic support transport costs and improving tech of 8x8's that will kill off the heavier ones sooner rather than later! right now it takes forever to move 70 plus ton tanks (AKA land whales!!) to a battlefield due to size and weight they immediately sink up to their hulls in soft ground and they have to be refueled every 4 to 8 hours so to kill a tank formation you don't hit the formation you kill it's supply convoy's! and 8x8's with big guns can do at least 85% of what a tracked tank can at present for around a fifth to fourth the cost of a tank (and needing only about an eighth to tenth the resupply of a tracked tank fuelwise!) on top of being able to be moved to the battlefield by plane if needs be so 8x8's will replace the big bastards eventually whereas the lighter sub 40 ton tanks will probably stay around a while longer!
I would say a tank that came to a "battleship" on land was the Maus..., bigger guns, bigger engine, bigger target, more guns, more crew, to much weight...project failed. Tanks may get obsolete, when the hand carried weapons get so powerful and mobile, that it just blasts through the armor like paper. So maybe they come up with shields, and since the massive armor won't protect in case of a shield failure, we can just use light armored vehicles or just a buggy
So happy that you've finally done this topic. I agree but I disagree. Heavy tanks (massively armored) died the same time that the battleship did. We still have warships, we still have tanks, both have become much more manuverabilty (and lighter armored) and more lethal. We have lost the large, over built slugger machines in favor of nimble and deadly highly maneuverable machines. The big question is would gun ships have continued to gotten better guns while shrinking if not for the missile...
Heavy does not refer to weight, it's a design concept. A heavy tank carries a big enough gun to kill anything it faces while also having enough armor that it was at least partially immune to most return fire. Think of it as being armored against it's own gun. Designers figured that as weapons got bigger they could just slap more armor and a bigger gun on a chassis and we got the Maus, IS-3, and T-29, and even the Land Cruzer concept. But aircraft advances were making big slow easy targets of these tanks. Sounds familiar... The modern MBT is a development of the Medium tank, where armor is important but so is manuverabilty. Essentially it's a medium tank with a heavy tank gun on it. It is not armored against itself. Weight wise they've gotten heavier but engine tech has allowed them to stay mobile. Compare a modern Burke class destroyer next to a Gearing class from the end of the war. Three times bigger but also much more lethal.
the complexity of tanks are higher, and the ease to get tank killers is easier, i think tanks corps are going through what the navy went through after the introduction of the aircraft carrier.
Ryan - you hit one of the points about the Russian use of tanks. Another issue is that the Russian tanks store their ammo in the crew compartment in part due to their using autoloaders. This results in the tanks turrets getting blown off when hit. In the Abrams, a lot of thought went into protecting the crew if the ammo cooked-off; including armor between the magazine and the crew compartment and blow-off panels on the top of the magazines in the turret bustle, where the ammo is stored.
After much Russian mathematical analysis and operations research the Russian designers calculated that the turret was several times more likely to be hit than in the hull so a carousel magazine low in the hull would be relatively safe. Then they stowed extra ammunition in the turret anyway.......? -The T90 tries to put the carousel a little lower and adds some Armour to the carousel. It also adds a bustle with blow out panels to stow the extra ammunition which has to manually be loaded to the carousel. -Nicholas Moran says he knows for sure that only the M1A2 Abrams hull magazine is protected by blow out panels. -No one is sure about the latest variant of the Leopard 2A7 but we know the 2A7V placed particular attention to making this magazine safer. LeClec and Challenger II similar issues but these compact cartridge like magazines are unlikely to be hit. -The latest Leopard ammunition propellant is so stable it doesn't even ignite when subject to droplets of metal from HEAT.
@@williamzk9083 Nicholas Moran is wrong. All versions from at least the M1A1 have hull blow out panels, I've personally climbed under the thing and dropped them to reseal them.
The core problem is that every time people say tanks are obsolete it's because russian tanks built during the cold war are dying! Why the world thinks that the T-72 dying in droves means tanks are over I just cannot understand
I think tanks are on the road to obsolesce because they require infantry and air assets in support. Modern armies are going leaner in personnel and numbers of vehicles. The platoon and choppers needed to protect a tank can be better utilized when divided into squads or fire teams with air support or as a forward unit. Cover more ground more quickly. Some years ago there was a debate as to whether infantry was going obsolete..... with modern firepower, commo and GPS, the well trained and equipped infantry soldier is perhaps your most effective projection of power. Easy to transport, support, conceal, track, communicate with versatile weapon loads and mission options.
Tanks as a concept are likely never going out of date. Modern tanks are going to need to adjust to have some kind of effective point defense systems, especially the active protection suites. The issue is going to be long term the next grade of armor and then the weapons that have to adjust from there. The defensive equipment for actually stopping ATGM's and the like, along with sabot rounds, is the single largest area for right now in terms of experimentation.
3:50 the problem also has to do with Russian doctrine, they don’t really use infantry to screen tanks. Both the Chieftain and Perun have made videos on this topic.
In the back and forth game of MBT vs ATGM the top attack missile currently has the advantage. When active protection systems become as common as ERA is now, tanks will again have supremacy vs infantry.
if you add aps (active protection system) besides the passive ones (era plates and composite armor plates), you will get a tank that is harder to take out and on top of that, if you use them correctly in your doctrine, you also wont lose as many, like the americans doesnt send their abrams into the more densely built city centers, they send them to places that is more open and the crew can find the threat most of the time before they are actually a threat for the tank and even then, the abrams isnt alone, they have back up support from bradleys, strykers, humvees or foot soldiers. one thing i can imagine could be necessary on future tank upgrade packs is a radar system to detect uavs (ie dji quad copters) and ucavs (ie bayraktar tb-2) and even loitering munition (ie the shahed drones)
World of Tanks and Established Titles should do a coop where you can drive your tank to your square inch of land and blast it with your favorite MBT round.
I do believe as long as one opponent is using tanks, the other side will have to field them, too. Even if ATGMs are pretty effective nowadays. Plus the former USSR states like Poland and Czechia have not just given their soviet-era tanks away. They have gotten modern western tanks in return (or at least a promise to get them, not sure if actual delivery has taken place). And sending Ukraine the soviet-era tanks first was a good move in general, since their troops were already trained on those and could basically just hop in and go. Same goes for the entire logistics and supply train for ammunition and spare parts/tech crews. With Germany now allowing the Leopards to be send (finally! I thought we would never do it), the Ukrainian tank crews need to train on them first. While driving them is probably not that different from the Soviet/Russian T-series, the gunnery certainly is.
I’m an engineer for NavGen International. We’ve been working on the Joint hybrid integrated amphibious vehicle. JHIAV. The JHIAV project marries the Iowa class battleship platform with a multi use land chassis to create a vehicle capable of traversing any physical obstacle. With the firepower of an Iowa class battleship combined with the overland capabilities of a modern MBT the JHIAV will be a battlefield game changer.
“Just a couple of dozen aircrew” ?? Er… aircraft are kind of famously highly demanding in terms of the support required. Maintenance, armorers, a viable flight training program, bases, a whole freaking aerospace industry unless you’re only buying foreign, all the educational institutions you need to train the people to fill those jobs, etc etc. Supporting “a few dozen aircrew” is VASTLY more complicated than building and crewing a BB, which is relatively low tech. The tomahawks USS NJ carried were far more complex than she is.
Just like a battleship has a group of ships surrounding it (cruisers, destroyers, etc.) Tanks usually are assisted by armored infantry and artillery to help counter enemy infantry, anti tank batteries etc. In my opinions where tanks suffer they're major drawback is when they get into urban fighting. From what i gather the fighting going on in Ukraine right now is less clearing streets and buildings, but more fighting in fields, trenches, forest ambushes. This environment I believe is where tanks can really excel and be used to their strengths.
Technically, zero American battleships were sunk by torpedoes (or otherwise) in WWII because Pearl Harbor happened before the US officially joined the war.
Oh, and Littorio was only saved by deliberate grounding. Certainly would have sunk otherwise. And forgot to mention pearl harbor. Oklahoma, West Virginia, California, Utah. And the Prince of Wales. And Asahi. That makes a full dozen. Wouldn't be surprised if there's more too. I would say the point is made though.
Something I read recently about the initial Invasion of Iraq, was that it was used as a test bed for newer military strategies. The foremost of these was the emphasis on Maneuver Warfare specifically in the Marines. The thinking behind it was: upon contact with a sizable enemy force, instead of outright beating them with overwhelming firepower; a large friendly force will still maintain contact but a smaller yet very agile force should be used to flank and destroy the enemy. You can obviously tell what category tanks can fit into in this role, so no the idea of tanks being obsolete is utter rubbish. BUT their role on the modern battlefield is very dedicated and needs proper support. Keep in mind folks the war in Ukraine is a text book case of improper use of military resources
There is so many factors involved. Tanks weak spots needs to be protected from Air power weapons (missiles, bombs), infantry weapons (anti-tank, mines), artillery, and drones (information and attack from). Bringing a tank into an operational area, the tank needs to have air superiority , assistance from mobile artillery, and infantry support to protect it. Tanks would need to be in a zone of protection for it to operate effectively. Eliminating the tanks weaknesses and foes, makes the tank more effective. Tanks are mobile. Tanks provide a forward big gun for infantry and mobile attack, and carries sensors to detect objects in the distance (infra-red and optics/cameras). Be the first to fire, and that means tech to find targets. For a mobile force, you might see more light tanks with more lightweight defense tech to counter anti-tank weapons, with a heavy tank to provide support. Definitely will be a swing to lighter tank body/infantry carrier that can have different functions. Anti air, Anti personnal (machine gun), anti-infrastructure (smaller tank gun). Then there is logistics. Have to consider the type of environment and the expected enemy reaction. Wooded, grassland, plains, hilly. The reason battleships lost its preeminence during WW2 was air power. With aircraft carriers becoming the new ship type. But the successful US fleet still used the battleship as a anti-aircraft battery (very impressive battery too). Today the job is done by CIWIS. Ships today should have 3-5 CIWIS to protect from planes and missile (mostly missiles). If a CIWIS works properly, a ship only has to be armored for shrapnel... (why 3-5 Ciwis- because if your shooting at a ship you send 3 to 10 missiles to make sure the ship gets hit. 1 Ciwis will get the first 2 missiles and then might be out of ammo and needs a reload. So additional Ciwis gives you peace of mind) A battleship if protected from air threats and torpedoes, would be a major threat, due to number of missiles and its big guns and armor.
So...tanks are not obsolete and can be used....as long as we keep planes, people, artillery, drones away from them. Then they are ok. Got it. Sounds like tanks are going the way of the battleship....but hey that's just me.
Like battleships, tanks don't work well by themselves. Without control of the air and a buffer zone around the tanks, the tanks will get slaughtered. However against fortified positions, troops will get slaughtered without tanks.
Guy basically owns a battleship, and he just wishes he had a tank. I'm sure Bovington wishes they had a battleship. Yet more proof that stuff can't buy happiness-yet still we try! 😆 In all sincerity, thanks (as always) for the excellent content. I always learn something fascinating.
@@Theporkchopsandwhich jury rig it to a couple of aircraft catapults and claim it was a crazy unimplemented ww2 Amphibious Assault design to get tanks to shore quickly.
I think one can make the case that the role of tanks will never go away, just as the role of battleship hasn't gone away; a guided missile submarine has taken the place of a battleship in every way that matters. It is still the same thing because it does the same thing. The shape of tanks may change, but their role won't.
Tanks have to work in conjunction with infantry to protect the tanks from enemy infantry armed with an anti tank weapons. I think with 3 different western tanks, logistics will be an issue to maintain them. During the stress of battle crews fall back on training and muscle memory. This could be a problem for crews previously trained on Soviet Tanks.
I agree with your conclusion, but your argument that tanks aren’t obsolete because the Ukraine still wants some is bad logic, They get them for free. THey’d probably be happy to have a couple dozen free Colorado class battleships too, if they’re free.
Tanks are nor obsolete, they can do support nothing else can accomplish. I am a Vietnam vet and served with 1/10 Cav at Ankhe VN. Our M-48s when supported by M113 personnel carriers could provide fire power, the Infantry which I served my first 6 months in country could not hope to match. I was a logistics Radio Operator and we kept them supplied with ammunition and fuel. We secured QL-19 after 4th Infantry went back to the states. We had 5 convoys hit at one time and without the Cav and it's tanks and PCs it would have been a bad day. I saw 3 tanks abreast in a perimeter attack, they lost a man to the sappers, because he slept with his PC to keep the ammo from being stolen. ( LONG STORY that should be told but I won't tell it here) They were not M1s but boy they were awesome and got one of the sappers trying to recross the river along the perimeter. I had always thought them death traps but they could hold their own in a fight. We only lost one to an penetrator RPG and the crew got out fine because they mostly rode up top for that reason. The tanks and tankers were brave troops and I and proud to have served with them.
Mate, I bet anything that the first time you heard the tank was obsolete it was because of soviet tanks and soviet tactics leading to losses. And now you are hearing it again with the *exact same tanks and tactics* decades later because somehow these geniuses can't comprehend that it's a problem with soviet tank equipped nations with soviet doctrines in use. I bet your grandkids will see some T-80's die unsupported in 50+ years and someone will say "is this the death of the tank?!??" I hate it so much. It's like saying "economics doesn't work" because trickle down/horse and sparrow ruins countries.
Mobile armored gun platforms will always have a role. British officers claimed the tank was obsolete after WW1, and a hundred years on they're still here.
If anything, tanks have gotten cheaper in the modern battlefield. This may sound rich when we talk about 10 million dollar equipment but *destroyers* cost a thousand times of that to acquire. Sure, the modern destroyer does a lot more and I'd honestly re-classify all of them as cruiser. Even FFGs should be classified as (light) cruisers. Regardless the surface combatants are slowly going the way of the battleship with their growing sizes and complexity. Smaller nations are long incapable to afford these vessels. Fighter jets are going the way of the battleship. They are so complex and expensive that 100 million dollars to acquire one is considered a bargain (and you will spend multiple MBT's worth yearly just to keep them operational). Tanks in comparison are only somewhat more expensive than other armored fighting vehicle. So the most you would pay for fielding them is logistics and only if you're the USA and want to send them on expeditions across the world.
Nope. Still much cheaper than even the smallest seagoing ship, properly used they still can rule the battlefield. Note that "preoperly used" does NOT mean wandering across an open field without supporting infantry. The USMC got rid of their tanks because they redefined their mission as to operate on the littoral area rather than as a heavy (or even light) brigade/division, and as such they would always be within range of naval gunfire. As a former tanker, I can categorically state that World of Tanks is MOST DEFINITELY an arcade game and not realistic in any way. Even War Thunder is more of an arcade game than a simulator. You want a tank simulator, go for Gunner-HEAT-PC (GHPC). And I understand that WoT sponsored this video.
What's going to happen to newer tanks is they're going to turn into glass cannons. Enough armor to stand up to small arms fire and active protection systems against lower-tech attacks like RPGs, but carrying a big gun. Basically, light or low end medium tanks with a big gun. The reason for this is that literally any modern vehicle can be a tank killer. Modern anti-tank guided missile systems are literally just bolt-on self-contained systems either attached to an existing turret or in a small remote weapons station. You could literally mount one in the bed of a pickup truck and have a guy in the back or passenger seat operating it. And that's not even factoring in man-portable systems like the Javelin. There's not going to be any point to heavy armor anymore because no amount of practicable armor is going to be able to defeat modern threats. But there will always be a need for highly maneuverable big guns that render light infantry useless.
Tanks are going the way of the battleship, but not in the way people are thinking. Modern warships have lighter armor but multiple anti-missile systems. Using US equipment, SM-2MR for the long range defenses of that ship specifically, ESSMs for mid range self defense, RAM/SeaRAM for close range self defense, and finally the CIWS system for last ditch point defense. And they have chaff, flares, jammers, and decoys on top of that. Tanks are going to end up with multiple APS on them. Both active and passive. Jammers, decoys, chaff/flares, and smoke cover the passive side. Using existing APS, they'll have Iron Hand for the long range, Trophy for short range, and Iron Curtain for the last ditch point defense. Tanks still have a doctrinal role, in terms of a big gun to support infantry. The armor is there to allow the gun to do the job. So until that doctrinal role goes away, tanks will still exist.
No, absolutely not. Like you said, Ryan, tanks are kept at a consistent size, weight and armament. Nothing too big has been in blueprints since the Maus and E100 Germany was making during WW2. Tanks can go anywhere, literally (on land obviously). I don't see tanks getting phased out anytime soon. As much as I love battleships, especially the Iowa's, I understand why they were replaced with alternatives. Also, I think I read that they're coming out with a successor of the M1 Abrams. So short answer, no. Tanks aren't going anywhere.
I think those that belive that tanks aren't going the way of the battleship, are in the same mindset of those that thought that aircraft were not going to play a major role during WW2. The fact of the matter is cost per unit. How much does it cost to make a MBT? (lets say we cap that price to a unit built 5 years ago). About 6.21 million for an abrams, 5.27 million for a Leopard 2 (so lets say about 6 million). Cost of an RPG 7 is $2500. On the high end A javalin is $200,000, even if you outfit some troops with a handful of these, you can likely remove the combat effectiveness of one of those tanks with a simple ambush (let me say this, if it takes 29 Javalins on one target, you are still losing less money than the enemy). Until some sort of extremely advanced technology is developed to level the playing field again, I feel this will result in a long term demise of the mobile and airborne calvary.
If tanks are obsolete why is the Ukraine asking for more tanks? Many "experts" predicated tanks were gong away after the 1973 October (Yom Kippur) War which saw heavy tank losses due to the introduction ATGMs. Heavy aircraft losses due to SAMS did not mean the end of aircraft int he war either. What is really meant was a required change in tactics when to use tanks. Same thing now. Look at the videos of Russian tanks being destroyed, what is lacking?-Infantry support , good recon etc.
There will always be an advantage of going relatively fast and relatively protected over a battlefield while carrying strong weapons. During medieval times knights were basically the equivalent, armoured, fast when mounted on a horse which would have been standard and considering trained cavalry vs relatively untrained infantry, they often had a weapons advantage as well. And even though there are now weapons like the Javelin, it is just one of the newest ways to destroy a tank. The 88mm guns didn't made WW2 tanks obsolete. And neither will modern weapons. Tanks are just too powerful as an asset and there isn't really a vehicle capable of doing their job instead
Are tanks obsolete? NO, because nothing has come along to replace the tank. Battleships on the other hand were legitimately replaced by Aircraft Carriers. Why? A Battleship can more or less control everything within about 20 miles of where it is, whereas a World War Two Aircraft Carrier could control everything within about 200 miles of where it is. And before you say that a Battleship fires a heavier shell than a dive-bomber can carry, the Japanese converted Battleship shells to use as bombs, plus, most of the firepower of a Battleship is going against the heaviest armor of its opponent, whereas the dive-bomber is attacking the much thinner deck armor. Two places that I'd like to see on Battleship New Jersey are the Fuel Tanks and the Ships (as opposed to the Flag) Radio Rooms.
Tanks are not obsolete, and they won't be as long as tech-savvy armies develop defensive weapons such as reactive armor. Tanks provide mobile artillery and heavy machine gun support to infantry, they perform breakthrough roles in combined arms attacks, and they just look damn cool, too. Seriously, tanks have a future. Battleships could have had a future given a navy with enough swab-jockeys and enough cash-money American to pay for them. They'd still be useful today as arsenal ships mounting hundreds of missiles for air defense, tactical and strategic offense, etc. Sadly for the BBs, they're too expensive in terms of manpower, construction and upgraded tech to find a place in today's Navy. Still, I can't believe the Marines are giving up their tanks. I see a painful lesson in their future, and wish the survivors well. Ned in Nevada
This kind of thinking is exactly the problem with modern armies. Battleships never were obsolete. Now repeat that! They were NEVER obsolete. The problem was after world war II they never received upgrades, or were given any consideration for that matter. But just think if a battleship had all of today's modern technology? CWIS and anti air systems, 18 inch guns, cruise missiles, pinpoint targeting systems that could calculate in milliseconds, nuclear propulsion, ablative armor, radar absorption surfaces, rail guns. I could go on and on, but you get the picture. It's basically a giant gun platform which could be modified to carry any type of weapon you want and a lot of them too. Personally, I think after Pearl harbor, It left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouth thinking about all the men that died and the fact that we had to use carriers to fight a war is about the only reason we gave up on them.
The ONLY real reason they decommissioned the Battleships, is because there's only 4 of them, and to properly refit them for the future would be so expensive, the cost effectiveness is better made up with newer designs built from the ground up. In reality, if we wanted to spend the revenue, the Battleships could be converted to Nuclear propulsion, modernized with proper defense capabilities, and kept in service as flagships and fleet defenders. The only real issue is cost. Tanks are different, in that "old" tanks are easily obsolete. Modern Tanks with different armor, and modern defensive measures, are FAR from obsolete.
This is more nuanced discussion than most I've seen on the issue, however, I disagree with the conclusion. Tanks have had a bad time of it in Ukraine, but they also have had a bad time of it in practically every conflict where the enemy has had air superiority or 1970s-ish ATGMs or better combined with some degree of asymmetric warfare. That does not describe every conflict, but it describes many of them, and I wonder if countries will start dropping their tank fleets because they fill too narrow of a niche, similar to how countries dropped battleships despite them still being useful shore bombardment platforms.
You’re right that tanks are not obsolete. This however has not prevented growth in size (minimal), weight (which runs into limitations due to infrastructure), and technological advances (which has been the biggest driver of costs). Costs have turned tanks primarily into a rich nation’s weapon. A fact that is true for the world’s navies as well. The U.SN. is one of the few that has a cruiser class. And many nations can’t even afford a destroyer. Frigates and offshore patrol vessels now dominate. While there’s been an increase in nations with aircraft carriers, most growth in large aircraft carrying ships has been in big deck amphibious ships with multi role capabilities that can serve more effectively in humanitarian operations. Similarly, on land, while the costs of tanks have many countries abandoning them, armored personnel carriers (APC’s) and infantry fighting vehicles (IFV’s) have become more common. Using antitank weapons they can engage tanks, their guns are adequate for fighting each other, they carry their own troops as mutual support, and they can be modified to use for a wide variety of missions. They are not immune to the costs increases that plague tanks, but they can take advantage of those on a lighter and more versatile platform.
Agree with many here it is not what you have but how you use it. That being said I have seen footage of a T-72 being taken out by an ATGM despite being at good range and even peek shooting from behind cover. Anti projectile tech needs to catch up
Career tanker here. They're not obsolete at all. They do require combined arms tactics though. The infantry keeps hand held stuff away from the tanks, the tanks keep big stuff away from the infantry and air support protects tanks and infantry. Russian tanks are absolute trash, they've always relied on quantity over quality. As you said, they violate their own doctrine with their tactics.
Decide upon what size is best, and make superfast racing drones that self destruct or explode on contact and have a.i. or software that will recognize the enemy and fly themselves and then make em by the 1,000,000's
There will always be a need for something that can move fast and control territory. That means some mixture of guns, vehicles, and people. Aircraft can do a lot, but they can't control territory; they can devastate it, but that's not quite the same thing. As for tanks specifically, it could be that in future the tank will be regarded as an unhappy hybrid of an APC and a mobile howitzer, with neither enough people in it nor enough firepower on it.
Tank design seems more flexible. Due to their small size and ability to be produced in numbers specific to their needs. They can be designed for specific, and narrow purposes. Or mass produced for more generic roles. Warfare doctrines and theaters can change but tanks can change at a similar enough pace to stay relevant. Improper application does not mean that the design is bad and I think that notion comes from video games and table top games. Speaking of WoT, it can create a skewed perception of tank capabilities. Even though you say it doesn't feel arcade-like, it essentially is, right down to its ability to continually pull money out of its users pockets. Ships is the same way, that's the one I played the most.
Tanks have changed jobs over the years. They were initially developed to break trench warfare stalemates then became a fast offensive weapon. Right now the only tanks worth having are the most advanced designs that can withstand the majority of what the enemies abilities are to stop them. Russian tanks are, let's face it, quite inferior to the latest nato tanks. But more importantly, our "cheap" anti tank weapons can defeat them and their anti tank weapons can't defeat our armor technology. That's all there is to it. The Russians never developed anything near the capability of tow, javelin or hellfire. The Russian/Soviet solution to warfare is to throw tons of people and inferior weapons at the enemy and overwhelm them. It's really too bad they decided to go back to a hardline stance 30 years after the fall of the USSR.
I'm not even sure Battleships are obsolete. I think there's a need for sustained long-range shore bombardment. Now, that may not be a WWII era design, but build an armored hull with some sort of supergun that can sent precision-guided munitions a hundred to a thousand miles or more while operating alone with enough defensive firepower to protect against SSMs, and maybe it would project power on a scale between aircraft carriers and ballistic missile submarines.
Tanks are like battleships in that the idea of large tank on tank engagements are a thing of the past. One side WILL have air superiority and that sides tanks will never see a functional enemy tank. Now just like when battleships became obsolete you still need warships. But you have cheaper less heavily armored ships not primarily designed to fight other tanks/warships. Tanks will evolve back into the infantry supporting role that they were born from.
Did battleships really get more expensive because they got bigger or did the guns they carry drive the cost? And secondly, what exactly got obsolete? Isn't it closer to the truth that naval guns got obsolete? If just the battleship had become obsolete, navies would still build old style cruisers and destroyers. They do not.
Nice analysis. Throwing a bunch of tanks into the fray, disregarding combined arms fundamentals of integrating infantry, armor, artillery, and combat aviation is a recipe for a bunch of destroyed tanks and dead infantry.
As long as there is mechanized infantry on the battlefield, there will be an absolute need for battle tanks to remove "obstacles" for the advancing mobile infantry - and in return is protected by infantry. There is no substitute for the mobility, flexibility, firepower and survivability of a main battle tank. Not to mention the psychological effect on the enemy.
The problem is propaganda has lead people to believe that tanks are invulnerable beasts which just isn’t the case. They’re very much are vulnerable but less vulnerable than infantry think skinned vehicles IFVs etc.
Tanks and battleships are so efficient in their jobs that they attracted so much attention and investments to counter them that their lebensraum is restricted, a lot: but tanks can still roam the earth, despite being endangered by portable missiles, portable rockets, planes, helicopters, wheeled fast IFVs, mines, guided shells and so on you name it. They are rhinoceros: obsolete , heavy, difficult to haul up to the battlefield, earmarked for extinction. Only problem, try to convince the one that managed to find you that it is extinct before it smokes your modern, elegant, fast, hi-tech light platoon. It is not easy to bring them to bear, requires care and attention and communication and intelligence and support from infantry and from the air, but they still rock like anything else.
Play World of Tanks here: tanks.ly/3jIOR9H
Thank you World of Tanks for sponsoring this video.
During registration use the code TANKMANIA to get for free:
7 Days Premium Account
250k credits
Premium Tank Excelsior (Tier 5)
3 rental tanks for 10 battles each: Tiger 131 (Tier 6), Cromwell B (Tier 6), and T34-85M (Tier 6)
Yeah the British are sending the Challenger 2 MBT that weren't going to be upgraded to Challenger 3
Now then... if you put tracks on an Iowa class, and rode it into battle at 30 miles an hour... I would pay a nickle to see the Chieftain's face. 😯
Is anyone going to note that Wargaming is Russian? I know they moved, but it's still a Russian staff.
@@zbiggun7594 - and not every American was in favor of the Gulf War. Judging every Russian by their government's foreign policy is about as unfair as blaming every American for their government's foreign policy, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you're aware of how divided the American public is.
@@snupjeve Not what I meant. I meant the paradox of Ryan advertising a Russian company in the same video where he says bad things about Russia. Potentially insulting his sponsors.
The USMC didn't divest of tanks because they thought they were obsolete, the leadership felt it wasn't a good fit for a quick reaction force that would likely be needed in Southeast Asia. The MBT / Abrahms is probably a better-suited fit to a sizeable main Army force vs. an expeditionary force.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see the USMC adopt the MPF for infantry support if it works well for the army.
They just could not afford them. They needed to cut something to pay for their shift in strategy. They also will very much call on Army abrams if they need tanks.
They're just desperate to be somehow different from the Army...it's kinda their raison d'être. And I'm allowed to say that 'cos I have the tattoo.
@@WALancer "They also will very much call on Army Abrams if they need tanks" - Yes, this is a crucial point that often gets omitted when this subject comes up. The Marines and Army are almost always colocated in-theater, obviously work together and can share or coordinate assets.
Absolutely correct - Tanks have no place as a Marine asset. A hierarchy misunderstanding of who should be doing what................Tanks are for------ ARMY................duh
The Chieftain has put this one to bed, tanks aren't going away. Also, the Marines didn't get rid of tanks because tanks are bad. They got rid of them because tanks are the Army's job.
In particular, what they're *really* doing behind the scenes is getting ready for a new war in the pacific with the CCP. Their thinking is pretty obviously something along the lines of - we're not going to fit an abrams on a helicopter any time soon.
Edit - not saying I agree with their thinking though. But what do I know. I'm just some guy.
Sorry pal, tanks are done. It’s very clear if you pay attention to the current war
@@bif24701you mean the Ukrainian counter offensive that was spearheaded by tanks and properly supported by infantry? Got lots of lands and freed Kherson.
Yup, Ryan Mcbeth, MHV, Tank Museum, Imperial War museum also had their comments.
Yes, he did, as did others. As he said, the question is not what you can do the the tank, it's what the tank can do to you.
Any tool must be used properly to ensure it's efficacy.
Claims about the obsolescence of tanks have been made since at least the Yom Kippur war. Bad deployments were the issue, as was a fairly new threat, infantry guided antitank missiles.
Exactly.
Slight correction: claims about the obsolescence of tanks has been made since 1918
Claims about the Obsolescence of tanks have actually been made since the end of the first world war. So yeah, they are probably fine..
Agreed. Tanks deployed without adequate infantry cover have been easy targets since the Second World War, if not before.
Shortly after WW1, British officers concluded that the tank was an overspecialized response to the unique conditions of trench warfare and was unlikely to play a role in any future conflicts. That's right, experts have been saying that tanks are obsolete for _more than a century_ now.
If you send in tanks without air and infantry support, they will get slaughtered. We are taught that in basic Armour school.
I think US Army doctrine is about 4 Bradley's to one Abrams. Those 4 squads, the 25mm gun firing DU that can penetrate 110mm and the TOW 2 are doing something.
That was true in 1916 when tanks first went into combat. Nothing has changed there
Seen a lot of footage from Ukraine of Russian/Separatist armor without infantry support in a urban setting, hatches all buttoned up. AFV's seem to be becoming more and more bullet magnets with ATGM's etc however they sure as hell beats walking.
@@Ragefps Walking subjects one to air burst artillery and direct fire from small arms.
@@williamzk9083 was supposed to write beats walking. my bad
As the great war hero Audie Murphy once quipped to a tank commander. "Must be nice to ride around in all that armor. " The tank commander replies "oh its not that thick" in which Audie replies " well its a lot thicker than this GI shirt. " Armor will be around until man can shrink it down and run 40 mph with it on.
Basically, when Elementals from Battletech become practical.
If technology advanced that far then a tank would still be a better option as it could carry more guns and armour than that infantry unit.
@PFCSanteezy Elementals carried a small laser, disposable 2 shot short range missile and a close combat claw for the personal business
The formation were made up by masses that would swarm battlemechs deploy mines onto the joints etc. Plus jump capable. Those are a versatile breakthrough unit.
Ryan and Chieftain should really make a video together. Ryan showing Nicholas the battleship, Nicholas showing Ryan around a tank!
Great idea !
And the famous "OH bugger, the Battleship is on fire"
@@Real_Claudy_Focan In that case, rather then getting out of the battleship, you fight the fire, because otherwise, your only option is to start swimming.
Typo in the thumb nail. My wife and her battle hips are here to stay I can assure you
Burr. We are all mortal. So your wonderful wife and her battle hips will pass eventually. Your memories may be immortal perhaps. I hope so.
@@roderickcampbell2105 wtf mate?
@@cleverusername9369 Hello cu. With a comment like yours I could come back with "wtf mate?" but since it's useless and banal I won't. So I suggest you re-read the original post and try to figure out my comment. Mate!
Many tank designs are obsolete, but plenty are very effective on the battlefield.
Supercarriers will be obsolete before tanks are. Imagine the loss of two Nimitz class carriers in a conflict. Carriers are almost getting too important to risk. We've got hundreds of M1s in storage that could be brought back in to service quickly.
We just talked about that on the ship on Saturday - I asked him what ships he thought should be built these days and super carriers were not the choice.
@@garywayne6083
Smaller carriers instead?
Say HMS Queen Elizabeth size but with catapults and angled decks.
Can't imagine there would be a case to completely do away with Naval Aviation at least not until some future aircraft generation that can cruise at hypersonic speeds with combat radiases of tens of thousands of kilometres so they can reach everywhere on the planet in reasonable time frames from ground bases.
@@Kakarot64. Agreed - smaller but more of them that way a lot of what we have in the region isn't all in one target
@@Kakarot64. Carrier efficiency is based on size. Bigger is better for carriers. The small ones just don't work as well.
@@AThousandYoung
that's why I suggested Queen Elizabeth size and not the 30,000-40,000 ton range carriers that countries like Spain and Italy operate there are trade offa for having carriers get to big the 100,000 ton nuclear carriers America favours are only really feasible for America to operate and they make big high value targets that have been "sunk" in multiple training simulations by diesel submarines the escorts never noticed until after the carrier went down, the 65,000 ton range is a better target for literally every other country on the planet for the balance of capability vs cost.
Earlier today, I watched a film about USS New Jersey entering Astoria, Oregon to attend the Portland Rose Festival. While under tow, as she approached the Astoria bridge, several Greenpeace members hung from under the bridge to protest the ship's attendance. The film was about four minutes long. This happened in early June, 1990.Can we find out any more about this trip? Thanks.
When speaking about tanks, US Army Lt. Col. Nick Moran, a former tank commander, also works for World Of Tanks as a military advisor and historian. He has a You Tube channel, The Chieftain. He would be a good person to speak with, as I've seen him visiting many other channels on You Tube as a guest and as a speaker. Another channel that I regularly watch, is Military Aviation History, with Chris Berg, aka "Bismark", and "The Chieftain" was on his channel speaking on the subject of tanks vs aircraft, especially Soviet tanks vs the Ju-87 Stuka. I would love to see two of my favorite presenters get together.
Hey how abt an Inside the Chieftain Hatch in one of the BB-62 NJ turret?
Come to think of it battleships are like the prehistoric ancestors of tanks anw.
Oh, bugger. My battleships on fire…
As Bernard from the MH not V noted, the death of the tank has been predicted repeatedly since 1919
Main difference with a tank vs a battleship is that there isn't a vehicle that combines firepower, protection and mobility like a tank. A battleship's role can be taken over by cheaper platforms like a destroyer.
with the advent of guided missile systems, yes the battleships can easily be replaced with a fleet of even frigates and corvettes, ground forces still rely quite heavily on the firepower from a tank to break through defensive lines
Aircraft and the Aircraft Carrier.
I agree with your analysis - battleships have been overtaken by technologies, but main battle tanks and other armored vehicles still have a place in land warfare.
Umm no as unlike a battleship there really is no real substitute for a Main Battle Tank whereas with a battleship despite there no dedicated replacement other systems have filled its role
PoV: You saw the thumbnail and are in the comments preparing for war.
Two words: “combined arms”. If your army doesn’t practice integrated operations with air and land and sea elements, you’re going to lose more tanks. And, you have to recognize where it is unwise to operate tanks.
Can you please do a video with the Chieftain and maybe also Ian from Forgotten Weapons? That would be a great collaboration video
If I'm ever back in the NJ area...
@@TheChieftainsHatch and battleship New Jersey cross over episode series please.
What tank is in the picture above? I'm thinking M-60.
Looks like a DS era USMC M-60 Patton.
It's an M60 series. The picture's size and resolution are not the best, but I think I can make out a thermal sleeve on the main gun tube, which would make it an M60A3. If the picture had better resolution, another cue we could go by from the same 3/4 view would be whether or not the right side rangefinder blister on the turret has a small lockable door over it. If so, that would also make it an M60A3, as the door covers the laser rangefinder emitter when not in use. And from that same view we might be able to discern whether or not the sight system protruding from the top of the turret in front of the TC cupola had some reflective glass, also an M60A3 characteristic.
Tanks can't go the way of battleships, they don't have enough buoyancy and would sink even faster than Moskva did
Some tanks float. LOL
😂😂
No they truly aren't. Russia was simply totally incompetent in its deployment and tactics for armored units.
Ex-Soviet tanks with poorly trained crews unsupported are routed by dissimilar forces with modern weapons. All this signifies is the correctness of western tank doctrine where quality is as important as quantity. But to say tanks are done would be as incorrect as if you said it about the French during the blitzkreig or the Iraqis at 73 Easting.
Thank you, I've been going crazy trying to understand why everyone thinks soviet tank doctrine being proven wrong over and over for 60 some years means "is this the end of the tank" every time they roll it out and start dying in droves
Battleships arent obsolete, they are just too expensive to be used (at the moment)
Any BB flaws you mentionned can be parallaled to CV as well !
Everyship can be sunk at the end of the day.. but none of these capital ships are sailing alone !
Not really. There is no point in using an unguided weapon beyond a certain range, if you are shooting at a mobile target. The target will simply have gone elsewhere when your projectile arrives. Aircraft carriers avoid that issue by means of a manned delivery system.
The other issue in the tanks/battleship parallels is that: yes, you can counter tanks relatively cheaply (if they are unsupported), but you have nothing that replaces the tank on the battlefield. The battleship was largely replaced with the aircraft carrier (I say largely because the role of shore bombardment has not been adequately replaced). There is nothing that is replacing the tank's role on the battlefield. Manpads are certainly not going to do it.
I think the better analogy here is comparing the manpads that counter tanks to the innovation of the torpedo boats. Torpedo boats did not render battleships obsolete, even though they were a credible asymmetric counter. It merely changed the doctrine of how battleships were employed and fitted: They operated with escorts of torpedo boat destroyers (which evolved into modern destroyers) and were fitted with smaller caliber, fast-firing guns to help target and counter fast moving torpedo boats.
Spoiler: Nope. 😊
Short answer - No, simply because there is nothing out there that can fulfill tank's role better or more cheaply than tank. Nothing out there can take a beating like a tank and still survive while carrying enough munition to be a threat to everything ground based (infantry, IFV, tank, ...).
No. End of. Nicholas Moran goes into this topic multiple times in detail.
Excuse me sir, his name is the Chieftain and you will address him as such
@@cleverusername9369 Facts
@@cleverusername9369 I use both. I don't think he minds. :P
What a shock that the guy with experienxe operating tanks against ill equipped mijahdeen and frankly never against a true military peer might have a skewed perspective.
Fact of the matter is that even these incredibly rudimentary drones show incredible potential, even the low tech, civilian grade drones crudely dropping duct taped soviet era hand grenades against tanks have presented alot of difficulty in countering them and for pennies on the dollar to boot, mean while there are 10,000 effective known ways to counter a tank for a modern, peer military.
Idk what is going to happen, it would take alot to shake up the combined arms doctrine in which Armour usage is so deeply intertwined, the current and future implications on combined arms warfare should actually be thr topic of discussion as opposed to simplifying it down to just tanks,but there is clearly a slowly advancing trend that l exists where cheaper and cheaper platforms are able to be more and more effective against traditional, more expensive ones, and I find it hard to conclude that the end point of this trend is anything other than entirely autonomous combat by indivually small, massive drone swarms utilized not unlike anti ship missiles, overwhelming defenses and destroying assets.
Thunk about it industrially too, it will be much easier for modern, digital superpowers to mass produce drones and other small, mostly electronic equipment as opposed to the traditional war economies of wwii, as well as for unorthodox actors.
People insisting tanks are not going obsolete, and then just leaning on a biased authoritative figure just seems so milk toast and unconvincing, I would be interested in seeing a actual debate on the topic between two informed parties.
@@TheAtomicSpoon I'm just happy enough anyone is talking to me, I'm not that picky on it.
Not someone I expected a tank video from. Would recommend the Chieftain for that.
The Chieftain has answered this question. He asked what would replace the tank.
A renamed tank.
Do you ever notice that this question only ever comes up when tons of old soviet era tanks are dying with soviet era tactics?
It's the exact same tanks and tactics over like 50 years and each time everyone acts like this the death of the tank!
No, it's just them!
With any attack there's always a counter. As long as the tank can still counter-attack it will still be necessary in modern warfare. And as far as the Germans during World War 2 with tirpitz. Consider this the Germans were able to get the British Air Force to focus on that ship instead of other things. Imagine all that air force that was used against the tirpitz during WWII and all those resources used during World War II by the British against the Tirpiz. That could have been used battlefield.
Wow a sponsor, thats awesome. Happy to see the channel growing
My opinion... no. Not yet. Militaries around just need to pay close attention to this war in Ukraine, and learn from it. Realize that tanks have major vulnerabilities, and address them.
Tactics is a major one. Combined arms warfare, tanks really should have infantry nearby.
Another is tech like active protection systems that can either jam incoming rounds (be it missiles or tank maingun rounds) or intercept those incoming rounds.
And surveillance and targeting systems. Find the enemy, and kill the enemy before they see you. First shot is important, but you gotta make sure it hits.
Well, to be fair, most armies are not going to be as hellbent on throwing away all of their top tier assets in fruitless unsupported assaults as the Russians have been, so the conflict in Ukraine may be more of an outlier than a barometer of efficacy.
I am so bloody sick of hearing this.
SOVIET TACTICS AND SOVIET TANKS DON'T WORK
We aren't re-learning anything and there is not a single thing modern armour needs to play "close attention to"
And tanks aren't EVER going away. Not. Ever. Vehicles can carry more guns and armor than men, end of story. Tanks will exist for all of human warfare in the future
old soviet tactics and tanks still suck.
They sucked for 50 years, they still suck now okay.
T-72's and soviet tactics are not representative of armor.
The RUSSIANS needed to learn this ... everyone else did IN WORLD WAR TWO
This analysis is off, Russia uses tanks in combined arms. The times we see them unsupported they are often lost, the video is edited, the the tanks are in transit and so forth. In other examples, like when you want to shell a defended apartment building fronted by open fields, how would infantry help? Look at the Wali interview, he states clearly Russia supports its tanks. Look at the doctrines, the training and so forth; Russia supports its tanks. Look at Russian telegram channels and reels and reels of footage, they support their tanks. We all agree Ukraine supports its tanks right, so where have all its tanks gone? Ukraine has been given over 80,000 ATGMS, it has a huge well trained army, larger than Germany, Spain, Italy, UK or France with all of NATO behind it, it has enormous reserves, more even than the USA. It has well trained well operated air defense, has been given enormous numbers of manpads and if we include all the gear its been given would be one of the best equipped militaries in the world. ATGMs have great range, Excalibur can hit them, conventional drone correct artillery can hit them, mines can hit them, suicide drones etc, how precisely are infantry going to nullify those factors. Do we think the UK with its 200 tanks, France with its 200 tanks, Italy with its 200 tanks, Germany with its 200 tanks, or even all combined, would they do any better, no they would all have been destroyed by Javlin, Nlaw, Excalibur, Matador, SPG-9, AT4, M72, Fagot, Metis, Kornet, Stuga-P, Corsar, Akeron, Tow, mines, loitering munitions and the list goes on. No one has faced such an extraordinary density of quality anti tank weapons on a modern battlefield.This can in no way be compared to things like the Iraq War. Russia at one stage had 160,000 vs 700,000, it is little wonder why Russia is losing tanks and getting beaten back, truly the question can be asked how Russia was holding on at all, indeed Petrious said it was all over for Russia back in September.
I knew this would be bad right form the moment i hear 'unprovoked', the term unprovoked is not a synonym of unjustified. If i call you stupid, ugly and incompetent, and you punch me, that may be unjustified, but it is not unprovoked. Are we all so historically blind as to say it is completely unprovoked? Are we all watching so much bias media that we believe Russia doesnt know how to use tanks?
One counterpoint - it isn't the size of combat vehicles, but their cost for the effort of power and force projection. More modern tanks are becoming more expensive due to improvements in electronics and fire controls, and I might perceive a practical upper limit somewhere in there. If making a tank more expensive doesn't improve its mobility, firepower, or survivability by a sufficiently-justifiable margin, it isn't economical and doesn't get made and more economical solutions might be sought. I don't see this being applicable to tanks generally, though, as it's more an argument on specific developments. Even if the flavor of warfare were to radically shift to man-portable munitions capable of defeating any tank's armor, tank design could absolutely adapt with various flavors of active-protection systems and enhancements to stealth and vision.
ukraine was a provoked attack Ryan and tanks are starting to go away at least the heavy ones! the reason isn't cost of production though (but that's becoming an issue too!!) it's the logistic support transport costs and improving tech of 8x8's that will kill off the heavier ones sooner rather than later! right now it takes forever to move 70 plus ton tanks (AKA land whales!!) to a battlefield due to size and weight they immediately sink up to their hulls in soft ground and they have to be refueled every 4 to 8 hours so to kill a tank formation you don't hit the formation you kill it's supply convoy's! and 8x8's with big guns can do at least 85% of what a tracked tank can at present for around a fifth to fourth the cost of a tank (and needing only about an eighth to tenth the resupply of a tracked tank fuelwise!) on top of being able to be moved to the battlefield by plane if needs be so 8x8's will replace the big bastards eventually whereas the lighter sub 40 ton tanks will probably stay around a while longer!
The russian invasion started way back in 2014 I believe. 2022 was just stage 2.
I would say a tank that came to a "battleship" on land was the Maus..., bigger guns, bigger engine, bigger target, more guns, more crew, to much weight...project failed.
Tanks may get obsolete, when the hand carried weapons get so powerful and mobile, that it just blasts through the armor like paper.
So maybe they come up with shields, and since the massive armor won't protect in case of a shield failure, we can just use light armored vehicles or just a buggy
So happy that you've finally done this topic. I agree but I disagree. Heavy tanks (massively armored) died the same time that the battleship did. We still have warships, we still have tanks, both have become much more manuverabilty (and lighter armored) and more lethal. We have lost the large, over built slugger machines in favor of nimble and deadly highly maneuverable machines.
The big question is would gun ships have continued to gotten better guns while shrinking if not for the missile...
Not in Western countries. Leopard II, Abrams and Challenger II are all comfortably over the 60 ton mark, rising into the 70s with extra armour.
@@mathersdavid5113 I think Fire304 is talking more like the American T-28 tank that was 95 short tons (2k pounds per short ton)
Heavy does not refer to weight, it's a design concept. A heavy tank carries a big enough gun to kill anything it faces while also having enough armor that it was at least partially immune to most return fire. Think of it as being armored against it's own gun.
Designers figured that as weapons got bigger they could just slap more armor and a bigger gun on a chassis and we got the Maus, IS-3, and T-29, and even the Land Cruzer concept. But aircraft advances were making big slow easy targets of these tanks. Sounds familiar...
The modern MBT is a development of the Medium tank, where armor is important but so is manuverabilty. Essentially it's a medium tank with a heavy tank gun on it. It is not armored against itself. Weight wise they've gotten heavier but engine tech has allowed them to stay mobile. Compare a modern Burke class destroyer next to a Gearing class from the end of the war. Three times bigger but also much more lethal.
New Abrams tanks are heavier than the King Tiger.
@@Mortablunt again, the definition of heavy is not weight, it's use. See my explanation above
the complexity of tanks are higher, and the ease to get tank killers is easier, i think tanks corps are going through what the navy went through after the introduction of the aircraft carrier.
Ryan - you hit one of the points about the Russian use of tanks. Another issue is that the Russian tanks store their ammo in the crew compartment in part due to their using autoloaders. This results in the tanks turrets getting blown off when hit. In the Abrams, a lot of thought went into protecting the crew if the ammo cooked-off; including armor between the magazine and the crew compartment and blow-off panels on the top of the magazines in the turret bustle, where the ammo is stored.
After much Russian mathematical analysis and operations research the Russian designers calculated that the turret was several times more likely to be hit than in the hull so a carousel magazine low in the hull would be relatively safe. Then they stowed extra ammunition in the turret anyway.......?
-The T90 tries to put the carousel a little lower and adds some Armour to the carousel. It also adds a bustle with blow out panels to stow the extra ammunition which has to manually be loaded to the carousel.
-Nicholas Moran says he knows for sure that only the M1A2 Abrams hull magazine is protected by blow out panels.
-No one is sure about the latest variant of the Leopard 2A7 but we know the 2A7V placed particular attention to making this magazine safer. LeClec and Challenger II similar issues but these compact cartridge like magazines are unlikely to be hit.
-The latest Leopard ammunition propellant is so stable it doesn't even ignite when subject to droplets of metal from HEAT.
I'm pretty sure that to Russian commanders and government the crew is considered the cheapest part of the tank as awful as that sounds.
@@williamzk9083 Nicholas Moran is wrong. All versions from at least the M1A1 have hull blow out panels, I've personally climbed under the thing and dropped them to reseal them.
The core problem is that every time people say tanks are obsolete it's because russian tanks built during the cold war are dying!
Why the world thinks that the T-72 dying in droves means tanks are over I just cannot understand
@@chrisfrazier2002 Nicholas Moran isn't wrong just because some random dude misunderstands him and uses his name to make a wrong point
the size of a tank is restricted by the infrastructure around moving them, meaning they need to fit on trains and trucks
I think tanks are on the road to obsolesce because they require infantry and air assets in support. Modern armies are going leaner in personnel and numbers of vehicles. The platoon and choppers needed to protect a tank can be better utilized when divided into squads or fire teams with air support or as a forward unit. Cover more ground more quickly. Some years ago there was a debate as to whether infantry was going obsolete..... with modern firepower, commo and GPS, the well trained and equipped infantry soldier is perhaps your most effective projection of power. Easy to transport, support, conceal, track, communicate with versatile weapon loads and mission options.
Tanks as a concept are likely never going out of date.
Modern tanks are going to need to adjust to have some kind of effective point defense systems, especially the active protection suites.
The issue is going to be long term the next grade of armor and then the weapons that have to adjust from there.
The defensive equipment for actually stopping ATGM's and the like, along with sabot rounds, is the single largest area for right now in terms of experimentation.
3:50 the problem also has to do with Russian doctrine, they don’t really use infantry to screen tanks. Both the Chieftain and Perun have made videos on this topic.
I think we need to get the hell out of Ukraine and help the American citizens in Ohio.
In the back and forth game of MBT vs ATGM the top attack missile currently has the advantage. When active protection systems become as common as ERA is now, tanks will again have supremacy vs infantry.
Nope.
Tanks aren't obsolete, certain tactics are.
if you add aps (active protection system) besides the passive ones (era plates and composite armor plates), you will get a tank that is harder to take out and on top of that, if you use them correctly in your doctrine, you also wont lose as many, like the americans doesnt send their abrams into the more densely built city centers, they send them to places that is more open and the crew can find the threat most of the time before they are actually a threat for the tank and even then, the abrams isnt alone, they have back up support from bradleys, strykers, humvees or foot soldiers.
one thing i can imagine could be necessary on future tank upgrade packs is a radar system to detect uavs (ie dji quad copters) and ucavs (ie bayraktar tb-2) and even loitering munition (ie the shahed drones)
World of Tanks and Established Titles should do a coop where you can drive your tank to your square inch of land and blast it with your favorite MBT round.
I do believe as long as one opponent is using tanks, the other side will have to field them, too. Even if ATGMs are pretty effective nowadays.
Plus the former USSR states like Poland and Czechia have not just given their soviet-era tanks away. They have gotten modern western tanks in return (or at least a promise to get them, not sure if actual delivery has taken place).
And sending Ukraine the soviet-era tanks first was a good move in general, since their troops were already trained on those and could basically just hop in and go.
Same goes for the entire logistics and supply train for ammunition and spare parts/tech crews.
With Germany now allowing the Leopards to be send (finally! I thought we would never do it), the Ukrainian tank crews need to train on them first.
While driving them is probably not that different from the Soviet/Russian T-series, the gunnery certainly is.
I’m an engineer for NavGen International. We’ve been working on the Joint hybrid integrated amphibious vehicle. JHIAV. The JHIAV project marries the Iowa class battleship platform with a multi use land chassis to create a vehicle capable of traversing any physical obstacle. With the firepower of an Iowa class battleship combined with the overland capabilities of a modern MBT the JHIAV will be a battlefield game changer.
:-) Good one, I like it! It reminds me of the Ratte. Except that was only a land CRUISER.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landkreuzer_P._1000_Ratte
I think we need to reactivate the New Jersey's 16 inch guns and shoot an Abrams tank with it. For um.....Science!
If deployed properly tanks are still viable. Tanks, like battleships and aircraft carriers are useless without supporting elements.
“Just a couple of dozen aircrew” ?? Er… aircraft are kind of famously highly demanding in terms of the support required. Maintenance, armorers, a viable flight training program, bases, a whole freaking aerospace industry unless you’re only buying foreign, all the educational institutions you need to train the people to fill those jobs, etc etc. Supporting “a few dozen aircrew” is VASTLY more complicated than building and crewing a BB, which is relatively low tech. The tomahawks USS NJ carried were far more complex than she is.
Just like a battleship has a group of ships surrounding it (cruisers, destroyers, etc.) Tanks usually are assisted by armored infantry and artillery to help counter enemy infantry, anti tank batteries etc. In my opinions where tanks suffer they're major drawback is when they get into urban fighting. From what i gather the fighting going on in Ukraine right now is less clearing streets and buildings, but more fighting in fields, trenches, forest ambushes. This environment I believe is where tanks can really excel and be used to their strengths.
Yeah had the Germans not sent Bismarck out, Hood would not have been sunk
Yeah how many battleship were sunk by torpedoes in WW2? Considering that WW1 saw more battleships sunk
Yamato.....Mushai...Royal Oak..
Technically, zero American battleships were sunk by torpedoes (or otherwise) in WWII because Pearl Harbor happened before the US officially joined the war.
@@ablewindsor1459 kongo....barham....conte di cavour....
@@ColonelSandersLite Yup and Counting....No Battleship took four or more Torpedoes and made it back to port.
Oh, and Littorio was only saved by deliberate grounding. Certainly would have sunk otherwise.
And forgot to mention pearl harbor. Oklahoma, West Virginia, California, Utah.
And the Prince of Wales.
And Asahi.
That makes a full dozen. Wouldn't be surprised if there's more too. I would say the point is made though.
Something I read recently about the initial Invasion of Iraq, was that it was used as a test bed for newer military strategies. The foremost of these was the emphasis on Maneuver Warfare specifically in the Marines.
The thinking behind it was: upon contact with a sizable enemy force, instead of outright beating them with overwhelming firepower; a large friendly force will still maintain contact but a smaller yet very agile force should be used to flank and destroy the enemy. You can obviously tell what category tanks can fit into in this role, so no the idea of tanks being obsolete is utter rubbish. BUT their role on the modern battlefield is very dedicated and needs proper support.
Keep in mind folks the war in Ukraine is a text book case of improper use of military resources
There is so many factors involved.
Tanks weak spots needs to be protected from Air power weapons (missiles, bombs), infantry weapons (anti-tank, mines), artillery, and drones (information and attack from). Bringing a tank into an operational area, the tank needs to have air superiority , assistance from mobile artillery, and infantry support to protect it. Tanks would need to be in a zone of protection for it to operate effectively. Eliminating the tanks weaknesses and foes, makes the tank more effective.
Tanks are mobile. Tanks provide a forward big gun for infantry and mobile attack, and carries sensors to detect objects in the distance (infra-red and optics/cameras). Be the first to fire, and that means tech to find targets.
For a mobile force, you might see more light tanks with more lightweight defense tech to counter anti-tank weapons, with a heavy tank to provide support. Definitely will be a swing to lighter tank body/infantry carrier that can have different functions. Anti air, Anti personnal (machine gun), anti-infrastructure (smaller tank gun). Then there is logistics.
Have to consider the type of environment and the expected enemy reaction. Wooded, grassland, plains, hilly.
The reason battleships lost its preeminence during WW2 was air power. With aircraft carriers becoming the new ship type. But the successful US fleet still used the battleship as a anti-aircraft battery (very impressive battery too). Today the job is done by CIWIS. Ships today should have 3-5 CIWIS to protect from planes and missile (mostly missiles). If a CIWIS works properly, a ship only has to be armored for shrapnel... (why 3-5 Ciwis- because if your shooting at a ship you send 3 to 10 missiles to make sure the ship gets hit. 1 Ciwis will get the first 2 missiles and then might be out of ammo and needs a reload. So additional Ciwis gives you peace of mind)
A battleship if protected from air threats and torpedoes, would be a major threat, due to number of missiles and its big guns and armor.
So...tanks are not obsolete and can be used....as long as we keep planes, people, artillery, drones away from them. Then they are ok. Got it.
Sounds like tanks are going the way of the battleship....but hey that's just me.
I’d compare tanks more to gunboats instead of battleships. Losing a BB is a catastrophe; losing a gunboat is sad.
We have not maxed out the potential of active protection systems yet. This is what will guarantee the future of tanks
Like battleships, tanks don't work well by themselves. Without control of the air and a buffer zone around the tanks, the tanks will get slaughtered. However against fortified positions, troops will get slaughtered without tanks.
Guy basically owns a battleship, and he just wishes he had a tank. I'm sure Bovington wishes they had a battleship. Yet more proof that stuff can't buy happiness-yet still we try! 😆
In all sincerity, thanks (as always) for the excellent content. I always learn something fascinating.
Well to be fair it is easier to take a tank out for a drive than it is a battleship.
If Ryan could get one donated I'm sure they'd park it out front in the parking lot
@@Theporkchopsandwhich
jury rig it to a couple of aircraft catapults and claim it was a crazy unimplemented ww2 Amphibious Assault design to get tanks to shore quickly.
I think one can make the case that the role of tanks will never go away, just as the role of battleship hasn't gone away; a guided missile submarine has taken the place of a battleship in every way that matters. It is still the same thing because it does the same thing. The shape of tanks may change, but their role won't.
Tanks have to work in conjunction with infantry to protect the tanks from enemy infantry armed with an anti tank weapons. I think with 3 different western tanks, logistics will be an issue to maintain them. During the stress of battle crews fall back on training and muscle memory. This could be a problem for crews previously trained on Soviet Tanks.
I agree with your conclusion, but your argument that tanks aren’t obsolete because the Ukraine still wants some is bad logic, They get them for free. THey’d probably be happy to have a couple dozen free Colorado class battleships too, if they’re free.
Tanks are nor obsolete, they can do support nothing else can accomplish. I am a Vietnam vet and served with 1/10 Cav at Ankhe VN. Our M-48s when supported by M113 personnel carriers could provide fire power, the Infantry which I served my first 6 months in country could not hope to match. I was a logistics Radio Operator and we kept them supplied with ammunition and fuel. We secured QL-19 after 4th Infantry went back to the states. We had 5 convoys hit at one time and without the Cav and it's tanks and PCs it would have been a bad day. I saw 3 tanks abreast in a perimeter attack, they lost a man to the sappers, because he slept with his PC to keep the ammo from being stolen. ( LONG STORY that should be told but I won't tell it here) They were not M1s but boy they were awesome and got one of the sappers trying to recross the river along the perimeter. I had always thought them death traps but they could hold their own in a fight. We only lost one to an penetrator RPG and the crew got out fine because they mostly rode up top for that reason. The tanks and tankers were brave troops and I and proud to have served with them.
My dad was with the 1/9 Cav D troop in Phoc Vinh. December of 68 to 69. He got some good pictures of those quad 50's on the gun trucks.
Mate, I bet anything that the first time you heard the tank was obsolete it was because of soviet tanks and soviet tactics leading to losses.
And now you are hearing it again with the *exact same tanks and tactics* decades later because somehow these geniuses can't comprehend that it's a problem with soviet tank equipped nations with soviet doctrines in use.
I bet your grandkids will see some T-80's die unsupported in 50+ years and someone will say "is this the death of the tank?!??"
I hate it so much. It's like saying "economics doesn't work" because trickle down/horse and sparrow ruins countries.
The tank will be obsolete. Not suddenly but eventually in next 50 years for the most advanced armies ..
Mobile armored gun platforms will always have a role. British officers claimed the tank was obsolete after WW1, and a hundred years on they're still here.
@@TheAtomicSpoon no they will go obselete
"unprovoked" lol
If anything, tanks have gotten cheaper in the modern battlefield. This may sound rich when we talk about 10 million dollar equipment but *destroyers* cost a thousand times of that to acquire. Sure, the modern destroyer does a lot more and I'd honestly re-classify all of them as cruiser. Even FFGs should be classified as (light) cruisers. Regardless the surface combatants are slowly going the way of the battleship with their growing sizes and complexity. Smaller nations are long incapable to afford these vessels. Fighter jets are going the way of the battleship. They are so complex and expensive that 100 million dollars to acquire one is considered a bargain (and you will spend multiple MBT's worth yearly just to keep them operational). Tanks in comparison are only somewhat more expensive than other armored fighting vehicle. So the most you would pay for fielding them is logistics and only if you're the USA and want to send them on expeditions across the world.
Nope. Still much cheaper than even the smallest seagoing ship, properly used they still can rule the battlefield. Note that "preoperly used" does NOT mean wandering across an open field without supporting infantry.
The USMC got rid of their tanks because they redefined their mission as to operate on the littoral area rather than as a heavy (or even light) brigade/division, and as such they would always be within range of naval gunfire.
As a former tanker, I can categorically state that World of Tanks is MOST DEFINITELY an arcade game and not realistic in any way. Even War Thunder is more of an arcade game than a simulator. You want a tank simulator, go for Gunner-HEAT-PC (GHPC). And I understand that WoT sponsored this video.
What's going to happen to newer tanks is they're going to turn into glass cannons. Enough armor to stand up to small arms fire and active protection systems against lower-tech attacks like RPGs, but carrying a big gun. Basically, light or low end medium tanks with a big gun. The reason for this is that literally any modern vehicle can be a tank killer. Modern anti-tank guided missile systems are literally just bolt-on self-contained systems either attached to an existing turret or in a small remote weapons station. You could literally mount one in the bed of a pickup truck and have a guy in the back or passenger seat operating it. And that's not even factoring in man-portable systems like the Javelin. There's not going to be any point to heavy armor anymore because no amount of practicable armor is going to be able to defeat modern threats. But there will always be a need for highly maneuverable big guns that render light infantry useless.
Tanks are going the way of the battleship, but not in the way people are thinking.
Modern warships have lighter armor but multiple anti-missile systems. Using US equipment, SM-2MR for the long range defenses of that ship specifically, ESSMs for mid range self defense, RAM/SeaRAM for close range self defense, and finally the CIWS system for last ditch point defense. And they have chaff, flares, jammers, and decoys on top of that.
Tanks are going to end up with multiple APS on them. Both active and passive. Jammers, decoys, chaff/flares, and smoke cover the passive side. Using existing APS, they'll have Iron Hand for the long range, Trophy for short range, and Iron Curtain for the last ditch point defense.
Tanks still have a doctrinal role, in terms of a big gun to support infantry. The armor is there to allow the gun to do the job.
So until that doctrinal role goes away, tanks will still exist.
No, absolutely not. Like you said, Ryan, tanks are kept at a consistent size, weight and armament. Nothing too big has been in blueprints since the Maus and E100 Germany was making during WW2. Tanks can go anywhere, literally (on land obviously). I don't see tanks getting phased out anytime soon. As much as I love battleships, especially the Iowa's, I understand why they were replaced with alternatives. Also, I think I read that they're coming out with a successor of the M1 Abrams. So short answer, no. Tanks aren't going anywhere.
I think those that belive that tanks aren't going the way of the battleship, are in the same mindset of those that thought that aircraft were not going to play a major role during WW2. The fact of the matter is cost per unit. How much does it cost to make a MBT? (lets say we cap that price to a unit built 5 years ago). About 6.21 million for an abrams, 5.27 million for a Leopard 2 (so lets say about 6 million).
Cost of an RPG 7 is $2500. On the high end A javalin is $200,000, even if you outfit some troops with a handful of these, you can likely remove the combat effectiveness of one of those tanks with a simple ambush (let me say this, if it takes 29 Javalins on one target, you are still losing less money than the enemy).
Until some sort of extremely advanced technology is developed to level the playing field again, I feel this will result in a long term demise of the mobile and airborne calvary.
If tanks are obsolete why is the Ukraine asking for more tanks? Many "experts" predicated tanks were gong away after the 1973 October (Yom Kippur) War which saw heavy tank losses due to the introduction ATGMs. Heavy aircraft losses due to SAMS did not mean the end of aircraft int he war either. What is really meant was a required change in tactics when to use tanks. Same thing now. Look at the videos of Russian tanks being destroyed, what is lacking?-Infantry support , good recon etc.
There will always be an advantage of going relatively fast and relatively protected over a battlefield while carrying strong weapons. During medieval times knights were basically the equivalent, armoured, fast when mounted on a horse which would have been standard and considering trained cavalry vs relatively untrained infantry, they often had a weapons advantage as well. And even though there are now weapons like the Javelin, it is just one of the newest ways to destroy a tank. The 88mm guns didn't made WW2 tanks obsolete. And neither will modern weapons. Tanks are just too powerful as an asset and there isn't really a vehicle capable of doing their job instead
Are tanks obsolete? NO, because nothing has come along to replace the tank. Battleships on the other hand were legitimately replaced by Aircraft Carriers. Why? A Battleship can more or less control everything within about 20 miles of where it is, whereas a World War Two Aircraft Carrier could control everything within about 200 miles of where it is. And before you say that a Battleship fires a heavier shell than a dive-bomber can carry, the Japanese converted Battleship shells to use as bombs, plus, most of the firepower of a Battleship is going against the heaviest armor of its opponent, whereas the dive-bomber is attacking the much thinner deck armor.
Two places that I'd like to see on Battleship New Jersey are the Fuel Tanks and the Ships (as opposed to the Flag) Radio Rooms.
Tanks are not obsolete, and they won't be as long as tech-savvy armies develop defensive weapons such as reactive armor. Tanks provide mobile artillery and heavy machine gun support to infantry, they perform breakthrough roles in combined arms attacks, and they just look damn cool, too. Seriously, tanks have a future. Battleships could have had a future given a navy with enough swab-jockeys and enough cash-money American to pay for them. They'd still be useful today as arsenal ships mounting hundreds of missiles for air defense, tactical and strategic offense, etc. Sadly for the BBs, they're too expensive in terms of manpower, construction and upgraded tech to find a place in today's Navy.
Still, I can't believe the Marines are giving up their tanks. I see a painful lesson in their future, and wish the survivors well.
Ned in Nevada
This kind of thinking is exactly the problem with modern armies. Battleships never were obsolete. Now repeat that! They were NEVER obsolete. The problem was after world war II they never received upgrades, or were given any consideration for that matter. But just think if a battleship had all of today's modern technology? CWIS and anti air systems, 18 inch guns, cruise missiles, pinpoint targeting systems that could calculate in milliseconds, nuclear propulsion, ablative armor, radar absorption surfaces, rail guns. I could go on and on, but you get the picture. It's basically a giant gun platform which could be modified to carry any type of weapon you want and a lot of them too.
Personally, I think after Pearl harbor, It left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouth thinking about all the men that died and the fact that we had to use carriers to fight a war is about the only reason we gave up on them.
The ONLY real reason they decommissioned the Battleships, is because there's only 4 of them, and to properly refit them for the future would be so expensive, the cost effectiveness is better made up with newer designs built from the ground up. In reality, if we wanted to spend the revenue, the Battleships could be converted to Nuclear propulsion, modernized with proper defense capabilities, and kept in service as flagships and fleet defenders. The only real issue is cost.
Tanks are different, in that "old" tanks are easily obsolete. Modern Tanks with different armor, and modern defensive measures, are FAR from obsolete.
This is more nuanced discussion than most I've seen on the issue, however, I disagree with the conclusion.
Tanks have had a bad time of it in Ukraine, but they also have had a bad time of it in practically every conflict where the enemy has had air superiority or 1970s-ish ATGMs or better combined with some degree of asymmetric warfare.
That does not describe every conflict, but it describes many of them, and I wonder if countries will start dropping their tank fleets because they fill too narrow of a niche, similar to how countries dropped battleships despite them still being useful shore bombardment platforms.
You’re right that tanks are not obsolete. This however has not prevented growth in size (minimal), weight (which runs into limitations due to infrastructure), and technological advances (which has been the biggest driver of costs). Costs have turned tanks primarily into a rich nation’s weapon. A fact that is true for the world’s navies as well. The U.SN. is one of the few that has a cruiser class. And many nations can’t even afford a destroyer. Frigates and offshore patrol vessels now dominate. While there’s been an increase in nations with aircraft carriers, most growth in large aircraft carrying ships has been in big deck amphibious ships with multi role capabilities that can serve more effectively in humanitarian operations. Similarly, on land, while the costs of tanks have many countries abandoning them, armored personnel carriers (APC’s) and infantry fighting vehicles (IFV’s) have become more common. Using antitank weapons they can engage tanks, their guns are adequate for fighting each other, they carry their own troops as mutual support, and they can be modified to use for a wide variety of missions. They are not immune to the costs increases that plague tanks, but they can take advantage of those on a lighter and more versatile platform.
Agree with many here it is not what you have but how you use it. That being said I have seen footage of a T-72 being taken out by an ATGM despite being at good range and even peek shooting from behind cover. Anti projectile tech needs to catch up
Tanks are a little like guns; just having one is not good enough, you have to know how to use it effectively.
Career tanker here. They're not obsolete at all. They do require combined arms tactics though. The infantry keeps hand held stuff away from the tanks, the tanks keep big stuff away from the infantry and air support protects tanks and infantry. Russian tanks are absolute trash, they've always relied on quantity over quality. As you said, they violate their own doctrine with their tactics.
Decide upon what size is best, and make superfast racing drones that self destruct or explode on contact and have a.i. or software that will recognize the enemy and fly themselves and then make em by the 1,000,000's
There will always be a need for something that can move fast and control territory. That means some mixture of guns, vehicles, and people. Aircraft can do a lot, but they can't control territory; they can devastate it, but that's not quite the same thing. As for tanks specifically, it could be that in future the tank will be regarded as an unhappy hybrid of an APC and a mobile howitzer, with neither enough people in it nor enough firepower on it.
Tank design seems more flexible. Due to their small size and ability to be produced in numbers specific to their needs. They can be designed for specific, and narrow purposes. Or mass produced for more generic roles. Warfare doctrines and theaters can change but tanks can change at a similar enough pace to stay relevant. Improper application does not mean that the design is bad and I think that notion comes from video games and table top games. Speaking of WoT, it can create a skewed perception of tank capabilities. Even though you say it doesn't feel arcade-like, it essentially is, right down to its ability to continually pull money out of its users pockets. Ships is the same way, that's the one I played the most.
Tanks have changed jobs over the years. They were initially developed to break trench warfare stalemates then became a fast offensive weapon. Right now the only tanks worth having are the most advanced designs that can withstand the majority of what the enemies abilities are to stop them. Russian tanks are, let's face it, quite inferior to the latest nato tanks. But more importantly, our "cheap" anti tank weapons can defeat them and their anti tank weapons can't defeat our armor technology. That's all there is to it. The Russians never developed anything near the capability of tow, javelin or hellfire.
The Russian/Soviet solution to warfare is to throw tons of people and inferior weapons at the enemy and overwhelm them. It's really too bad they decided to go back to a hardline stance 30 years after the fall of the USSR.
I'm not even sure Battleships are obsolete. I think there's a need for sustained long-range shore bombardment. Now, that may not be a WWII era design, but build an armored hull with some sort of supergun that can sent precision-guided munitions a hundred to a thousand miles or more while operating alone with enough defensive firepower to protect against SSMs, and maybe it would project power on a scale between aircraft carriers and ballistic missile submarines.
yes, they are.
Tanks are like battleships in that the idea of large tank on tank engagements are a thing of the past. One side WILL have air superiority and that sides tanks will never see a functional enemy tank. Now just like when battleships became obsolete you still need warships. But you have cheaper less heavily armored ships not primarily designed to fight other tanks/warships. Tanks will evolve back into the infantry supporting role that they were born from.
Did battleships really get more expensive because they got bigger or did the guns they carry drive the cost?
And secondly, what exactly got obsolete? Isn't it closer to the truth that naval guns got obsolete? If just the battleship had become obsolete, navies would still build old style cruisers and destroyers. They do not.
Nice analysis. Throwing a bunch of tanks into the fray, disregarding combined arms fundamentals of integrating infantry, armor, artillery, and combat aviation is a recipe for a bunch of destroyed tanks and dead infantry.
As long as there is mechanized infantry on the battlefield, there will be an absolute need for battle tanks to remove "obstacles" for the advancing mobile infantry - and in return is protected by infantry. There is no substitute for the mobility, flexibility, firepower and survivability of a main battle tank. Not to mention the psychological effect on the enemy.
The problem is propaganda has lead people to believe that tanks are invulnerable beasts which just isn’t the case. They’re very much are vulnerable but less vulnerable than infantry think skinned vehicles IFVs etc.
Tanks and battleships are so efficient in their jobs that they attracted so much attention and investments to counter them that their lebensraum is restricted, a lot: but tanks can still roam the earth, despite being endangered by portable missiles, portable rockets, planes, helicopters, wheeled fast IFVs, mines, guided shells and so on you name it. They are rhinoceros: obsolete , heavy, difficult to haul up to the battlefield, earmarked for extinction. Only problem, try to convince the one that managed to find you that it is extinct before it smokes your modern, elegant, fast, hi-tech light platoon. It is not easy to bring them to bear, requires care and attention and communication and intelligence and support from infantry and from the air, but they still rock like anything else.