WW2 Tanks.... A question....

[Anomalocaris]

They'll be able to cross open fields to get from battle to battle..but that isn't where the battles will take place.  Take a look at the spread of the pop.  I suppose that they could occupy a few beet farms with their tanks, but beyond that, not so much.

The desert is a great place to move with your tanks too.....and yet.....

The idea of the classic tank battle is WW2 mindset.  Even then it was pretty rough, but since then, in conflict after conflict, tanks have proven to be more of a liability than an asset to an invading force.

No, the decisive battles will not take place in cities and fortified locations unless you are a tactical genius like Hitler at Stalingrad in late 1942.  Nor should it occur by slamminh your armor head on into enemy armor ala operation Zitadelle.

The right way to use armor decisively will be to move far and quickly over board, easy terrain like much of Ukraine, bypass where enemy gather in strength where ever possible and take weakly defended beet farms and other locations that sit astride road and rail junctions that brings supplies to fortified locations and cities and permit the enemy to move his forces to meet you where you want to go.

Tanks win by being able to move quickly to locations where enemy defenses are found or be weak, punch through, move deep and far behind enemy lines and then concentrate quickly against key pressure points in the enemy’s dispersed network of transportation and communication.   This deprives the enemy of his ability to shift his forces to meet you, his ability to economize his forces by minimizing his threatened frontage, and his ability to wait you out.   When done right, tanks win by creating the situation where strongly fortified enemy cities, communication and logistic centers are suddenly cut off from reinforcement and exposed to attacks from all sides, not by actually attacking the fortified locations themselves.

The actual attack against fortified centers, if needed, should be done by infantry after softening up the target by bombarding it from all sides. Tanks should only be minimally involved if at all during the assault stage.   The only times when you throw your tank into an assault on a city are:

1. if you have already taken all the objectives in the open field you need to to completely paralyze the enemy communication and transportation network, and have no more immediate use for large mobile operations, so you can afford to squander your tanks to add weight to your assault, or

2. Your mobile forces by moving quickly appeared suddenly before the city, greatly surprised the enemy, and found the enemy disorganized and unprepared.   This gives you the fleeting opportunity to storm the city quickly with minimum loss before the enemy can get his act together and organize a proper defence.   In this case, attacking with as much Force as quickly as possible is critical. You should waste no time shifting forces to organize proper text book attacks. You should instead throw all your forces you have on hand into the attack directly from the march, even if they are tanks.

[The Grand Nudger]

Governments around the world have been letting their tank programs die for the simple reason that the tank is just not what it once was even though they've become exponentially more expensive to field.  Small arms are more lethal than they used to be...airpower is cheaper (and also more lethal), and less and less of a conflict plays out where a tank could even conceptually shine.  

Then there are the issues of engagements where tanks should have done well, but got rolled.  Often enough by the far cheaper but just as lethal afvs and their infantry buddies, without whom tanks can't operate anyway.

It can't be stressed enough that anyone thinking about ways to fight the past engagement has already lost the next.  In the mostly urban, low level, assymetric war of the future, a war that russia is itself pioneering, tanks are more tools of propaganda than instruments of battlefield superiority. They've become the sort of battleships of the land that they were always envisioned as....but, you know, see: battleship.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Drone AFVs, that's the future.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think russia is developing one right now.

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LOL< as soon as we figure out how to make a drone as flexible and dexterous as a human being, flesh and blood breathers will be out of the warfighting business too.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I think russia is developing one right now.

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LOL< as soon as we figure out how to make a drone as flexible and dexterous as a human being, flesh and blood breathers will be out of the warfighting business too.

[Jackalope]

I think russia is developing one right now.

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LOL< as soon as we figure out how to make a drone as flexible and dexterous as a human being, flesh and blood breathers will be out of the warfighting business too.

The day we do that, war becomes far easier to wage absent the human cost of meat soldiers.

I don't know that it would be an improvement.

[The Grand Nudger]

If the other guys drone army overwhelms my drone army, he's probably not going to stop there, shake my hand and say GG.

Don't worry, we'll -always- be coming for the women and children. 

[Anomalocaris]

Governments around the world have been letting their tank programs die for the simple reason that the tank is just not what it once was even though they've become exponentially more expensive to field.  Small arms are more lethal than they used to be...airpower is cheaper (and also more lethal), and less and less of a conflict plays out where a tank could even conceptually shine.  

Then there are the issues of engagements where tanks should have done well, but got rolled.  Often enough by the far cheaper but just as lethal afvs and their infantry buddies, without whom tanks can't operate anyway.

It can't be stressed enough that anyone thinking about ways to fight the past engagement has already lost the next.  In the mostly urban, low level, assymetric war of the future, a war that russia is itself pioneering, tanks are more tools of propaganda than instruments of battlefield superiority.  They've become the sort of battleships of the land that they were always envisioned as....but, you know, see: battleship.

No. The notion that tanks are the battleships on land is a totally inaccurate perception of the role of the tank and the role of the battleship.

In classical battleship era naval thinking, battleship is there to provide the ultimate muscle for sea control. Battleships are meant to take on the strongest component of enemy naval power - the enemy’s battleship - and slug it out until one side or the other loses the ability to exert sea control. Battleships enable the winning side to control the seas.

Tanks were never meant to control land. Nor were tanks really meant to slug it out with other tanks, the primary role of tanks is to avoid precisely those things. Instead they are mean to oil for weak points in enemy defenses, break through and attack vulnerable rear areas. Tanks don’t control land. It tries to find the path of least resistance, avoiding other tanks whenever possible, and infiltrate the enemy’s rear, leaving the enemy still in control of most of his land, but you attack a few crticiical points behind his front line. Controlling land is for infantry.

So ironically, the component of land forces most analogous to naval battleships ofvthe classical battleship era were not tanks but infantry.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I read a story once about information received that proved that Armageddon was coming up. The Military -Industrial Complex built a huge robot army to fight the forces of Satan. And guess what? They won! And then the angels descended from Heaven and took all the robot back with them. Humans left behind.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Instead they are mean to oil for weak points in enemy defenses, break through and attack vulnerable rear areas.

^^Exactly this. In fact, the original purpose of tanks in WWI was to break through barbed wire emplacements, opening a path for infantry.

Boru