[HN Gopher] When is a 'tank' not a tank?
___________________________________________________________________
When is a 'tank' not a tank?
Author : picture
Score : 75 points
Date : 2022-05-06 18:54 UTC (1 days ago)
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| ummonk wrote:
| On a side note, the story behind the etymology of "tank" is a
| funny read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank#Etymology
| gerdesj wrote:
| "If I was pressed for a hard definition, I'd say that a tank is a
| heavily armored and tracked combat vehicle whose purpose is to
| offer powerful direct fire capabilities against a range of enemy
| targets."
|
| That's nice but what do you keep your tropical fish in?
| master_crab wrote:
| Vehicles without rotatable turrets were generally called Assault
| Guns or Tank Destroyers during WW2.
|
| Most definitions of tanks rely on a heavily armored, tracked
| platform and a fully rotatable turret with armament capable of
| killing other similarly armored and armed vehicles.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Was the Panzer II a tank?
|
| Because the Panzer II only weighed 9 tons. So the modern M2
| Bradley has more armor _and_ a bigger gun. (Panzer II has a
| 20mm primary gun, M2 Bradley has a 30mm primary gun)
|
| --------
|
| I think the issue is that WW2 had definitions for tanks (light-
| tank, medium-tank, and heavy-tank). But today, armored-vehicles
| are classified by their tactics. (Ex: M2 Bradley would be a
| "WW2 Medium Tank", but the M2 Bradley's tactics / expected use
| case is really "IFV", infantry fighting vehicle).
|
| Back in Ww2 days, there weren't many kinds of armored vehicles,
| and the systems of classification (and tactics) were just not
| very well defined yet.
|
| Because today's wars are more complicated and have forced a
| change in military language to keep up with.
|
| Case in point: I'd argue that the "modern Panzer II" is maybe
| something like the M113 APC (yeah... not really modern but...).
| With a 20mm gun, only ~12 tons of weight, the M113 APC would be
| a "light tank" in terms of WW2 terminology.
|
| Of course, M113 is an "APC", not a tank. Panzer 2 wasn't a
| troop carrier either. But I think this example shows how the
| language has changed in the past 80 years, due to the change in
| armored-vehicle tactics.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Was the Panzer II a tank
|
| Yes, but definitions change with time. If you asked someone
| to describe a car, most people would probably include
| features that are absent from early car design.
| masklinn wrote:
| > Because the Panzer II only weighed 9 tons.
|
| How is that of any relevance to GP's comment?
| dragontamer wrote:
| Panzer II has almost no armor. 9 tons is ridiculously
| small.
|
| The M113 APC has thicker armor than a Panzer II. If we take
| the phrase:
|
| > Most definitions of tanks rely on a heavily armored,
| tracked platform and a fully rotatable turret with armament
| capable of killing other similarly armored and armed
| vehicles.
|
| Then M113 APC "is a tank". (Big enough gun to kill other
| M113 APCs, armored and tracked, rotatable turret)
|
| -------
|
| My overall point is that "WW2 terminology sucks",
| especially when describing modern vehicles.
| master_crab wrote:
| If you want to call a Bradley a tank, I don't think that
| matters. But if it's carrying troops to disgorge at a
| location then it is now no longer a tank but closer to an IFV
| or APC. It doesn't change the definition of what a tank is.
| ncmncm wrote:
| > When Is a 'Tank' Not a Tank?
|
| When it was a target.
| lambdasquirrel wrote:
| The gamer's language for these things actually seems to be pretty
| relevant. A tank needs to be able to move _forward_ into the
| thick of the battle, and be able to give and _receive_ a dishing.
|
| A WoW warrior class is a tank. It can give and receive a dishing.
| A DnD rogue class is not a tank. It would not move forward into
| battle in a frontal assault, with the intent of pushing a
| breakthrough.
| redisman wrote:
| That's a bit selective. I would say that a tanks main duty is
| to draw aggro from main damage dealers and support and act as a
| damage sponge.
| baud147258 wrote:
| though most video game tanks don't need to dish much damage,
| instead the damage is done by the dedicated DPSs
| periphrasis wrote:
| Eh, MMO lingo presumes that a "tank" class is supposed to take
| damage. Any tank crew that plans to rely on its armor to
| survive hits isn't going to live very long.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| For what it's worth, I'd give an M1 better odds of surviving
| hits than a B2.
|
| Being able to take unreal amounts of damage is sort of
| general to video games, and not specific to tank character
| classes. The medic in TF2 can survive more direct hits from a
| rocket-propelled grenade than a real-world battlefield medic,
| too.
| pestatije wrote:
| When quotes change meaning
| bell-cot wrote:
| This reminds me of a decades-ago conversation with a casual
| friend, who called something a "battleship" - which _to her_
| meant "biggish navy ship with prominent gun turrets, that isn't
| an aircraft carrier". So something like the HMS Galatia -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Galatea_(71) - would likely
| qualify. (Hint - the Galatia's main gun shells massed 50kg. Real
| battleships fired shells in the 500kg to 1500kg range.)
|
| In retrospect, my correction to her should have taken the angle
| "That's kinda like calling a Chevy Cavalier a 'limo', or a
| 'Rolls-Royce'. Yes, it has 4 wheels, a hood, a trunk, a motor, it
| drives on roads... And the Chevy fans and salesmen are talking
| about how great it is...but NO, it NOT a limo, and NOT a Rolls-
| Royce."
| c-cube wrote:
| have you considered that, perhaps, the average person has seen
| and driven many more cars (an everyday tool to billions of
| people) than warships? For what it's worth, even OP is annoyed
| at _journalists_ confusing tanks and similar armored vehicles,
| not at random people who have other concerns.
| logifail wrote:
| > even OP is annoyed at _journalists_ confusing tanks and
| similar armored vehicles
|
| Never mind journalists, how about the German ambassador to
| the United States?
|
| Although as the OP suggests, maybe less of the confusion and
| more of the deliberate misdirection.
| someweirdperson wrote:
| Hanlon's Razor.
|
| Modern German culture frowns upon anything military. Zero-
| knowledge is common. That includes ambassadors and
| politicians. The war has made some to start to learn. Media
| is making jokes about them.
| mwattsun wrote:
| I used to argue in semantic disputes, but they're really only
| meaningful in a court of law. Outside of that, it's mostly
| opinion (a waste of time imho)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_dispute
| curuinor wrote:
| this guy put the fact that he's a gigantic pedant right up
| front in the blog title, what'd you expect? let him go and do
| the pedantry thing, it's instructive
| mwattsun wrote:
| That's why I qualified "waste of time" with "in my humble
| opinion."
|
| What I didn't say is that's it's a giant trap that I fall
| into when organizing my files and that's what I meant when I
| said it was a waste of time.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| I'd argue it's not mostly opinion. This article is pretty
| bread-and-butter Brett Deveraux. His general thing is that he
| picks a topic, and gets really pedantic about in order to
| motivate (and provide a framework for) explaining some
| interesting aspect of military doctrine or history.
|
| In this article, he digs into tank/not-tank in order to fuel a
| discussion of the development of military doctrine around
| armored vehicles, including explaining the problems that
| different kinds of them are trying to solve, and even
| describing how different semantic distinctions used by other
| countries helps to highlight differences in their military
| thinking.
|
| I suppose whether or not one thinks that's a waste of time is
| ultimately down to how much of an interest one takes in
| military topics. But I'd be hard-pressed to concede that the
| author's choice to dig into semantics is a waste of time in and
| of itself. It's quite self-evidently a clever and effective
| expository tactic.
| coredog64 wrote:
| > tank/not-tank My college roommate used to joke that in the
| Air Force, gate guards would draw a picture of a tank on
| their hands and that's what they're doing when they salute
| people in: "Tank? Not-tank"
| kergonath wrote:
| Well, it _is_ a "Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry", after
| all.
| sschueller wrote:
| I'm not in any armed forces so I am clueless when it comes to
| this.
|
| Why do we still use tanks in modern times?
|
| They seem useless in anything urban. They are easy targets for
| aircraft and jawlines. They need support vehicles for fuel and
| ammo. The only positive thing I see is that they can traverse
| unpaved terrain.
|
| Being so vulnerable why are they not remote controlled? Human
| lives cheaper than the tech required? They don't even need to be
| autonomous, just remote controlled.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > Why do we still use tanks in modern times?
|
| Because a 120mm gun blows everything up. 120mm guns can do
| things such as:
|
| 1. High-explosive rounds (Chemical Energy, or CE) -- 50lbs of
| high-explosives delivered to a target will kill almost
| anything, even if that "thing" is hiding behind a tree,
| concrete, or even behind tank-armor.
|
| 2. Discarding Sabot / Kinetic Energy rounds (KE for short) --
| 50 lbs of depleted-uranium darts flying at Mach 1.6 destroys a
| lot of things, in ways that are complementary to #1. You can
| shoot through entire houses with these darts.
|
| 3. Canister rounds -- 50lbs of "shotgun pellets" can clear 500+
| meters. Yes, an entire-football field can be covered by a
| *SINGULAR* "tank shotgun" blast.
|
| Kinetic-energy rounds travel faster but have higher-penetration
| at short-distances (because KE rounds have more room for
| explosives to "launch" the shell). However, KE-rounds are
| supersonic and therefore get hit by a lot of air-
| resistance/drag.
|
| CE-rounds in contrast, travel much slower, but pack a lot of
| "explosives" at the end of their shot. As such, CE-rounds start
| off with much less penetration (bad at short-distances), but
| can be lobbed 3000 meters and still have just as much
| deadliness (since most of the "damage" of CE-rounds comes from
| the explosive, air-resistance literally doesn't matter aside
| from being computationally-difficult to aim. But modern
| computers can compensate easily these days)
|
| ---------
|
| These are the three main-types of ammo that a 120mm gun uses
| (aka, a tank gun). Now some questions.
|
| 1. 120mm guns weigh something like 10-tons -- How do you move
| them? With a big engine.
|
| 2. But a big engine + the gun itself is a sitting duck against
| even a 50-cal sniper rifle. We should cover the engine + gun in
| armor, to protect the crew and equipment.
|
| 3. But armor weighs a lot (especially depleted uranium armor).
| So we need a *bigger* engine. But the bigger-engine needs more
| armor to protect it. Etc. etc. etc.
|
| Eventually, we end up putting a LOT of armor, to cover the HUGE
| engine and the HUGE gun all together.
|
| That's about it. You need tanks to destroy enemy bunkers (what
| else are you going to shoot? AT4 / Javelins? Those heavy and
| slow weapons only have 1 or 2 shots. Tanks have *40* shots,
| more than enough to overrun any bunker you come across).
|
| -------
|
| Tanks are your biggest gun on the battlefield. They have armor
| as minor amounts of protection, not to actually be immune to
| enemies (though in practice, the armor is so thick they're
| immune to many smaller weapons). But the #1 purpose of any tank
| is to fire its big 120mm gun as often as possible on the front
| lines.
|
| Tank crews are __NOT__ used as "cover" or "shields" in the
| modern battlefield. They are just grounded large-gun platforms.
|
| -------
|
| > They seem useless in anything urban.
|
| Wrong. Tanks are the only weapon large enough to damage enemy
| houses, bunkers, or other fortifications. If the enemy is
| hiding behind a concrete wall, the Tank-gun can shoot right
| *through* it and kill everyone on the other side.
|
| Buttoned up tanks don't know where the enemy is however. (Tanks
| have night-vision and thermal-vision sensors, but can only
| focus those sights on a narrow line of vision) Tank crews rely
| upon friendly infantry to search for enemies. Tanks have awful
| visibility, but their big-gun is unparalleled on the
| battlefield.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U61Hrn1JZWQ
|
| Turns out that in practical urban combat, a lot of enemies hide
| behind concrete walls. What exactly is your battle-plan for
| that?
|
| Tanks can provide air-burst (shoot over the wall, explode, rain
| fragments DOWN upon the enemy), or *THROUGH* the wall. Tanks
| are exceptionally flexible weapons.
| H8crilA wrote:
| TL;DR: don't ask what they can do to the tank. Ask what the
| tank can do to them.
|
| Also, every single piece of military equipment can be
| destroyed about as easily as a tank if it's not integrated
| within some sensible mission. Maybe the method is more
| expensive for aircraft and for ships, but so are those pieces
| of equipment.
| jabl wrote:
| > Discarding Sabot / Kinetic Energy rounds (KE for short) --
| 50 lbs of depleted-uranium darts flying at Mach 1.6 destroys
| a lot of things,
|
| Er, they have a muzzle velocity in the range of 1.6 km/s or
| 1600 m/s, about Mach 5.
|
| As an aside, AFAIK the Rheinmetall 120mm used on the M1 and
| Leo2 tanks only have sabots and HEAT shells, no canister
| rounds or plain HE.
| winrid wrote:
| All nullified when a single drone can take out tanks AND do
| most of the other things you listed. Tanks are just not the
| future of urban warfare.
| buscoquadnary wrote:
| So I've been studying WW1 a lot recently and part of the
| problem that resulted in the mass slaughters early in the
| war we're the result of many of the technological advances
| in warfare not being tested at any significant scale forany
| years prior to the war.
|
| I've been wondering what it will be like when the next big
| war hits and what are the technologies that will change the
| battle field that haven't been considered yet and drones
| are on of the biggest changes I think we'll see on the
| modern battlefield the next time two sizeable opponents go
| at it.
|
| I think you've hit the nail on the head for part of it is
| the ability of drones to take out tanks is going to be
| huge, tanks are expensive, bulky and hard to conceal and
| have limited visibility and range. They are going to be
| sitting ducks for cheap drones.
|
| As an aside everytime I read about the description of the
| battleships of WW1 I can't help but think of the fighter
| and stealth planes of our current era, massive expensive
| constructions who require a massive supply chain in terms
| of men and equipment to be effective, can only be deployed
| in specific situations and are championed by an officers
| core that doesn't realize their time has passed. After all
| what good does having general air superiority do for you if
| any random platoon can establish temporary tatical air
| superiority by hauling around a drone with em to complete
| their mission and bugger off while your Fighter is just
| taking off 500 miles away.
| trhway wrote:
| >They are going to be sitting ducks for cheap drones.
|
| exactly https://youtu.be/BxaG4YdsHTg?t=31 - unspecialized
| small drone (22 V at 80 A) just dumping what seems to be
| like small mortar rounds onto the Russian tanks.
|
| To the comment below - the upper armor is much thinner.
| You don't even need an RPG warhead here.It easily can be
| just a small shaped charge bomblet from a disassembled
| cluster Smerch warhead. Such a bomblet pierces 5 inch RMA
| - well enough to take out the tank from the top.
| baud147258 wrote:
| I don't think the mortar rounds would have done any
| damage to those tanks. A much bigger threat would be
| artillery spotting though
| curuinor wrote:
| they're working on the drone tanks
|
| https://www.thedefensepost.com/2020/12/21/us-army-drone-
| tank...
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > Tanks are just not the future of urban warfare
|
| The recent events shows what the tanks is the urban warfare
| machine. It is only thing what can suppress and/or
| eliminate singular units operating from the high-rise
| apartments.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > All nullified when a single drone can take out tanks AND
| do most of the other things you listed.
|
| There is no drone that carries the same level of
| explosiveness as a singular tank round.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U61Hrn1JZWQ
|
| A tank can fire 40 of these at you in something like 5
| minutes.
|
| I'm not sure what kind of drone-platform exists to deliver
| 40x 50lb shells to the enemy 3000 meters at 500+ mph like a
| bunch of CE-rounds being fired from a tank-gun.
|
| -------
|
| Drones will change warfare. But drones are *NOT* a tank.
| They just don't have anything close to the destructive
| potential
|
| You can't just "ignore" enemy concrete walls like a tank
| can. See this particular timestamp of the video:
| https://youtu.be/U61Hrn1JZWQ?t=67
|
| Double-reinforced concrete walls / bunkers stand no chance
| against a typical tank round. What is a drone supposed to
| do against that?
|
| -------
|
| That above is a CE-round. Tanks can switch-it-up and shoot
| a SABOT round instead, if they need greater penetrating
| power (but less explosives):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnWCLJXwtsE
|
| As you can see, the "tank" is a platform for a tank-
| commander to sit and think about which round to use for any
| given situation. The tank isn't "just" a sabot gun or a HE-
| gun, its *BOTH*, with an intelligent tank-commander
| choosing their loadout and firepower for every target they
| come across.
|
| If the enemy is hiding behind 4 concrete walls, Sabot round
| to punch through all of it. If the enemy is just behind one
| concrete wall (but is very far away, like 3km or longer),
| HE round.
|
| How many concrete walls can one drone get through?
| https://youtu.be/GnWCLJXwtsE?t=76
| mumblemumble wrote:
| > There is no drone that carries the same level of
| explosiveness as a singular tank round.
|
| Yes. That seems to be why Ukrainian drones and Javelin
| missiles are having such an easy go of popping the
| turrets off of Russian tanks. You need just a small
| explosion to get thing started, and then the tank's
| onboard supply of explosives does the rest of the job for
| you.
|
| > A tank can fire 40 of these at you in something like 5
| minutes.
|
| Once it gets into position. The major limitations of
| tanks here are that they are direct-fire platforms, and
| that they are big and noisy and difficult to hide. That's
| a real problem if you're up against an enemy with modern
| indirect fire capabilities, or effective anti-tank small
| arms.
| Sharlin wrote:
| > You need just a small explosion to get thing started,
| and then the tank's onboard supply of explosives does the
| rest of the job for you.
|
| As mentioned in the article, the T-72/80/90 are uniquely
| vulnerable to this failure mode due to their carousel
| autoloader. Ammo cookoff in any MBT means you and your
| vehicle probably won't go to battle today, but at least
| it's not an immediate death sentence in most Western
| tanks.
| lazide wrote:
| I think the person you were replying to is pointing out,
| no one _NEEDS_ the giant gun when they can buy 20 drones
| that each can take out what the giant gun can, AND a tank
| for what a tank costs.
|
| The drone can just fly around the concrete wall and blow
| up the things on the other side, it doesn't need to go
| through.
|
| Drones aren't _going_ to change warfare. They already
| have. The ones who haven't woken up to that are the
| charred bodies on the battlefield right now.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > The drone can just fly around the concrete wall and
| blow up the things on the other side, it doesn't need to
| go through.
|
| Ukrainians are sitting inside of bunkers with 8-inch
| concrete doors and 8-inch thick concrete all around. How
| exactly are you "flying around" that?
|
| Now sure, Russians are absolute crap with tactics and
| maybe drones are all you need to kill the Russians. But
| I'm looking at things from the Ukrainian side as well.
| Ukraine is defending so well that I'm not sure if
| anything *EXCEPT* a 120mm gun can push into their
| positions.
|
| That's the thing: Ukraine is forcing Russia to advance
| with tanks. But Ukraine has a solid anti-tank strategy,
| so we see a lot of dead Russian tanks. But the
| alternative (ie: assaulting those Ukrainian bunkers with
| lol no armor) is probably a worse idea!
|
| -------
|
| Russian positions are just poorly dug dirt trenches right
| now. Of course tanks are unnecessary (for now). But if
| the Russians were actually as good as the Ukrainians (ie:
| bringing in that thick Concrete to reinforce their
| positions), then Ukraine would be forced to use tanks.
|
| Ukrainian positions in the Donbas region have so much
| concrete, that they ask for artillery support and shell
| *themselves*, confident that their bunkers can stand up
| to the abuse. (Air-burst artillery shot at your own
| bunkers will never harm the bunker, while unarmored
| enemies trying to storm the bunker would all die at the
| front-door.)
|
| This kind of defense practically requires a tank: you
| need the armor to protect yourself from airburst
| artillery, and you need the 120mm gun to punch through
| the 8-inches of concrete that the Ukrainians are hiding
| behind. Except Ukrainians __ALSO__ have anti-tank
| munitions, and just blow up the tank.
|
| Its not exactly easy to figure out how to push into the
| Ukrainian positions. But the tanks seem necessary (even
| though they take high casualties).
|
| Its not like drones have much armor. Airburst artillery
| would also destroy drones (airburst artillery covers
| something like 10,000 sq-meters in shrapnel per shot).
| Drones running into those positions would also be
| destroyed by this simple tactic.
| lazide wrote:
| A drone shooting a missile at said bunker, or flying up
| to the bunker and detonating a HEAT warhead it is
| carrying, or flying a new drone in when the old one gets
| hit by shrapnel all work great in these examples by the
| way.
|
| Fabricating a kamikaze drone with HEAT warhead on it is a
| $10k or less affair.
|
| Tanks are expensive, heavy sitting ducks. The only reason
| they haven't been completely obsoleted is manufacturing
| drones hasn't caught up yet.
|
| They're like horses in WW1 being used to charge machine
| guns in this fight.
|
| In most of these cases you don't even need a drone to do
| the dirty work though. Just one to find the bunker or
| whatever and let artillery or a cruise middle do the
| rest.
|
| Those drones can be less than $5k, but they do get more
| expensive if you want to be able to pilot them from the
| other side of the planet or whatever.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Mobile artillery with guided shells can perform many of
| the tasks tanks are used for while at a standoff
| distance.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Except tanks do the same thing with unguided shells.
|
| So the tank rounds are something like $500 each. In
| contrast, guided artillery shells are $100,000 or so
| each.
|
| I mean, Tomahawk cruise missiles ($1+ million bucks)
| probably have more destructive potential and accuracy
| than anything discussed here. But they're just too
| expensive to really be used as a bread-and-butter tactic.
|
| -------
|
| The artillery game is important for sure. But there's
| advantages to a direct-fire system that directly engages
| with the enemy. Besides, artillery + tanks work together
| as a team, a force multiplier. Tanks can call for
| artillery support after all.
|
| EDIT: Case in point, a tank can approach the front-lines,
| and use its thermal-imaging / night-vision to be an
| artillery-spotter from 3+km away from the target. The
| tank can also survive "closer" to the enemy (danger
| close, if you will).
| gherkinnn wrote:
| As others have put it, it isn't about a tank's vulnerabilities
| but its capabilities. A vital distinction.
|
| Horses were made (mostly) superfluous by lorries because the
| latter proved more capable.
|
| Humans are excessively vulnerable. Anything will put us out of
| action. And we're expensive to replace too. But because there's
| nothing more capable than a human at certain things, so we're
| still expected to face flying pieces of metal.
|
| So far nothing can project force and hold terrain on land quite
| like a tank does. Javelin teams in buggies can't. Neither can a
| drone. But a fast and protected box with a fearsome boomstick
| on one end does. Especially when used by well trained personnel
| and employed in a sane manner.
| smiley1437 wrote:
| While tanks are still necessary, your observations are not
| wrong - the US Marine Corps decided to get rid of tanks fairly
| recently:
|
| https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/flashpoints/2020/03/26/the-...
|
| Quite prescient considering what we are seeing in Ukraine a
| couple years later with tanks being vulnerable especially when
| deployed so haphazardly by Russian Federation.
|
| Bottom line - war games in 2018 showed that tanks and other
| armored vehicles in-range of near-peer drones, Anti-tank guided
| missiles (ATGMs) and Precision Guided Munitions (PGMs) were
| quite vulnerable - exactly like we're seeing in Ukraine.
|
| There were other factors but the top marine decided no more
| tank battalions and greatly reduced artillery (among other
| changes).
|
| Instead, these divestitures will be replaced by:
|
| 1. Precision long range fires (Naval Strike Missile\Joint
| Strike Missile (NSM\JSM), and possibly Extended Range Cannon
| Artillery (ERCA))
|
| 2. Unmanned lethal air and ground systems.
|
| That tells you what the war games revealed as being effective
| in future combat.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Marines got rid of tanks because Marines are focusing on a
| China vs Taiwan hypothetical conflict, where tanks would be
| nearly useless.
|
| China vs Taiwan would be largely about establishing control
| of islands, and maybe a few beach-assaults.
|
| Tanks don't work well on sand, and the 80-ton M1 Abrams is
| too heavy to fit on an assault-boat.
|
| ------
|
| US Army has constantly developed tanks (and anti-tank
| weapons) because the tank remains a major battlefield player
| in Europe (Hypothetical... no wait... the now real Russia vs
| Ukraine situation)
| periphrasis wrote:
| A few points that in the course of being typed out turned into
| a small essay:
|
| Modern conventional warfare is extremely deadly: essentially,
| if a target can be seen it can be destroyed. Anything in the
| open will eventually be destroyed. Tanks are not especially
| more vulnerable to this danger than any other ground vehicle;
| they are larger, more visible targets, but that is somewhat
| offset by their armor. If you're looking at all the wrecked
| Russian T-72s in Ukraine and asking "why have tanks?" you could
| just as easily look at all the wrecked BMPs and BMDs and ask
| "why have infantry fighting vehicles?" or at all the wrecked
| supply convoys and ask "why have trucks?" The answer of course
| is because you need the mobility and firepower that vehicles
| provide, but the trade off is that the battlefield is very,
| very deadly for vehicles.
|
| Tanks cannot take the lead in urban operations because the
| terrain is too restricted and their situational awareness too
| low. But, their direct firepower can be essential in urban
| operations: think of a rifle squad pinned down by sniper fire
| from the upper floors of a building at the end of the block,
| which is something a tank can easily destroy with minimal risk.
|
| As the above point alludes to, tanks and infantry fight more
| effectively as a team than they can separately. Depending on
| the mission, terrain, and enemy disposition, a tank can be a
| more effective weapon than infantry, and vice-versa. But by
| having both working together, they are able to compensate for
| the others weaknesses. In the course of a battle, the more
| effective arm at a given moment is liable to change back and
| forth multiple times: sometimes the infantry will be making the
| main effort, sometimes the tanks; sometimes the infantry will
| be maneuvering while the tanks support by fire, sometimes the
| tanks maneuver while the infantry supports by fire.
|
| The Russians have been particularly bad at this last point in
| Ukraine. Partly, this appears to a be a result of their
| infantry formations being significantly understrength; even if
| they were at full strength, their TOEs (Table of Organization
| and Equipment) for various infantry unit types suggest notably
| less strength than their western counterparts. The Battalion
| Tactical Group organization, as an ad hoc formation, also means
| that the infantry and armor in a given BTG have probably never
| trained to fight together as a team: it makes a big difference
| to go to war with people you've trained as a team with for
| months/years than with people you met two weeks ago.
|
| I think the big takeaway from Ukraine is not that tanks are
| especially vulnerable on contemporary battlefield, but that
| unprepared and disorganized Russian tankers are going to die as
| quickly as the rest of the Russian army when confronting a
| tough, well-trained, determined opponent equipped with weapons
| specifically engineered to destroy their vehicles.
| xoa wrote:
| Right, a key phrase here is "combined arms": nothing for
| capturing/holding at all on the modern battlefield combines
| speed, survivability, scale and effectiveness into a single
| package. It's all about each piece reinforcing the others,
| constantly making use of their own strengths and covering for
| the weaknesses of other pieces (and being covered in turn)
| and shifting to react to the opponents. Having all the
| various forces well trained together, with the autonomy to
| react fast to changing events at their own level, a good
| regular supply of information/theater oversight, and with a
| solid logistics chain behind them is vital. Without
| logistics, intel and trained, smooth combined arms
| effectiveness plummets no matter what else there is.
| zokier wrote:
| I would argue that tanks have already been de-emphasized in
| western military doctrine from their heydays. That can be seen
| for example in programs like the M8 tank getting perpetually
| cancelled and instead more mobile platforms like Stryker
| getting preferred.
| chiph wrote:
| An armor officer can answer this better than I can:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI7T650RTT8
|
| If you're watching the videos from Ukraine - the Russians are
| pretty much doing it all wrong. You do not send tanks into
| cities unless they're following infantry who are clearing
| houses & rooftops. You do not leave your tanks parked in a nice
| neat line on a country road. When your unit comes under fire,
| you do not just sit there.
|
| Why are the Russians doing these things when they know it's bad
| for their health? They don't have much of an NCO cadre. In a
| modern military, the NCOs have the experience and the authority
| to make sure stuff happens rapidly and correctly. They will
| have made sure the junior enlisted know how to operate and
| maintain their weapon & gear, and are able to do the mission
| without fucking up.
| deepsun wrote:
| They move in lines because that's a mine-cleared path. And
| they move on roads at the north because other terrain is mud
| that even tanks get stuck on.
| 323 wrote:
| > _Being so vulnerable why are they not remote controlled?_
|
| They are working on that - remote controlled ground vehicle
| with customizable upper part, one option with a cannon turret,
| another option with launch tubes for suicide drones:
|
| https://inf.news/en/military/c1587c15c63e5b9801ebb4e49a7fe2f...
| x3iv130f wrote:
| When it comes to semantics there needs to be a clear separation
| between common and technical terms.
|
| I once had someone try to argue can't use the word bison and
| buffalo interchangeably when sharing buffalo puns.
|
| _Bison_ is an old latin word for "wild ox". _Buffalo_ is an old
| greek word also meaning _wild ox_. They 've been used
| interchangeably for as long as greek and latin have been spoken
| together.
|
| Some scientist coming along and naming some animal a "Bison
| bison" doesn't overwrite thousands of years of history.
| onionisafruit wrote:
| Some of us take buffalo puns seriously. If a child of mine
| misnamed a buffalo for a cheap pun, I would only have two words
| for him, "bye son".
| Symmetry wrote:
| Yes, if one of my friends called a Bradley a tank that's close
| enough and I wouldn't bother to correct them. But if a reporter
| calls a Bradley a tank that shows that they're missing some
| basic "military 101" knowledge and it'll influence how much I
| trust what they're saying.
| lou1306 wrote:
| Or in the words of _Moby Dick_ 's Ishmael, "I take the good old
| fashioned ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy
| Jonah to back me".
| jokoon wrote:
| Today, there are two big families of armored vehicle, main battle
| tanks, light armor, and everything else.
|
| Main battle tanks are designed to sustain a hit from ammunition
| designed to defeat armor, meaning sabot, RPG, anti-tank missiles,
| shells, etc. There are some classified techs related to this.
| Reactive armor is one part, anti RPG measures too (the think that
| shoots a RPG rocket before it lands). MBT can also land shot from
| very far away with its 120mm cannon. Most tanks built before the
| 80s are pretty weak against most RPG with directed charges.
|
| Light armors are designed to mostly sustain small arms fire
| (rifle calibers carried by infantry, anything smaller that
| 50BMG), and will shoot stuff like 20mm or 30mm, but carry armor
| that can't really defeat 20 or 30mm.
|
| "Everything else" will usually not protect against small arms
| fire (except those high mounted things who are designed to
| survive improvised bombs).
|
| I think MBT are built to mostly survive 30mm shells, but "not too
| many", and increase its chance or surviving shells and other
| things.
|
| The reason there are two kinds of vehicles, is because MBT are
| very heavy (50 tons or more) and can get stuck in mud, and
| because it's important to transport troops quickly and safely
| "enough" (unless you encounter a MBT, then you dismount and
| hides).
|
| But you should not really read everything that I just wrote,
| because I don't know what I am talking about.
| choeger wrote:
| Funny thing: The "not a tank" Gepard actually is essentially a
| Leopard 1 MBT with a different turret. So it's the quintessential
| example for the definition the author uses: The role has changed
| and thus did the turret, but the rest of the car stayed the same.
| dragontamer wrote:
| In the USA, a "tank" refers to a "main battle tank", or the M1
| Abrams.
|
| In Germany, "tank" is translated to "Panzer", which roughly means
| armored vehicles. So "Flugabwehrkanonepanzer" (aka: Flakpanzer)
| is a Panzer.
|
| But a German-flakpanzer is NOT a USA-"tank".
|
| ----------
|
| I think a lot of the confusion is the difference in languages.
| Panzer =/= tank, its just the closest word between the two
| languages, so we kinda sorta equate them.
|
| USA's M2 Bradley is "not a tank", but probably would be
| classified as a German Panzer.
|
| --------
|
| The "proper name" is "Main Battle Tank", which does refer to a
| very specific kind of vehicle.
|
| -------
|
| This is reminding me very much of the "cube rule" for sandwiches.
| A "hot-dog" isn't a "sandwich", its a "taco" (hot-dogs have the
| starch covering 3x sides, with the "top" side open).
|
| Other "tacos" include hot-dogs, subs, and slice-of-pies (pies are
| covered on 3 sides after all)
| moron4hire wrote:
| Tacos are definitely sandwiches. Or as I usually say it,
| sandwiches are tacos.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Cube-rule is pretty funny.
|
| https://cuberule.com/
|
| Specifically this picture:
| https://cuberule.com/assets/15_cube_rule.jpg
|
| Of course, this rule is absurd, since it classifies hotdogs,
| pie, and subs as a "taco". I think the overall point remains,
| that no matter how you wish to "classify" things, you can
| always find a unique counter-example that messes up your
| classifications.
| NineStarPoint wrote:
| My main issue with the rule is that it calls pumpkin pie
| bent toast, when it is obviously a missing category of type
| (2) where instead of being disjoint like the sandwich, the
| 2 pieces of starch are connected at an edge. Likewise there
| should probably be a category of type (3) where all pieces
| of starch are joined at a corner and a category of type (4)
| where it's like a type (5) but with one of the sides
| removed. I believe with those three additions all
| rotationally-unique cube configurations would be accounted
| for by the rule.
| fragmede wrote:
| I never got that as the overall point because there are
| definitely classification systems (especially in math) that
| don't have counter-examples.
|
| Hotdogs and tacos _are_ the same, topologically speaking.
| We derive additional meaning between the two words because
| they 're not the same due to bread and filling used, but
| topology doesn't care about that. It's entertaining because
| it's food and everyone has experience with that, but
| there's some serious math once you look into it!
|
| I guess you could classify me as a structural purist -
| ingredient rebel on the sandwich alignment chart. I'm
| guessing you're a structural neutral - ingredient purist
| person.
| bombcar wrote:
| One thing ignored is the ingredients inside - a "taco"
| with one huge piece of chicken or steak would seem more
| like some other type of food.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > One thing ignored is the ingredients inside - a "taco"
| with one huge piece of chicken or steak would seem more
| like some other type of food.
|
| A taco with one huge piece of fish inside is typically
| called a "fish taco". One with a whole frankfurter inside
| is, apparently, a "taco de salchicha".
|
| So I'm not sure that your theory holds up.
| a3w wrote:
| Burgers are sandwiches. Many things are sandwiches. Earth is
| a sandwich since most of the time two slices of bread touch
| the ground at pretty-much-opposite sides[citation needed]
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > In the USA, a "tank" refers to a "main battle tank", or the
| M1 Abrams.
|
| That's not true, though the only tanks in the current inventory
| in the US are MBTs. The term "tank" in the USA does encompass
| light tanks, like the (retired) M551 Sheridan, (canceled just
| before operational) M8 Buford, and the (in development) as-yet-
| undesignated product of the Mobile Protected Firepower project,
| not just MBTs.
| ummonk wrote:
| A taco is mutually exclusive from a sandwich, because it's made
| from folded piece of bread, rather than sliced / partially
| sliced which is what defines a sandwich.
|
| Hot dogs and subs are sandwiches for this reason, as are
| burgers.
|
| Also, "taco" is a term for a specific kind of folded bread dish
| - even quesadillas aren't considered tacos.
|
| A pie is not a sandwich, taco, or quesadilla. It's a pie.
| gherkinnn wrote:
| "Panzer" in a very general protective sense translates to
| "Armour". Brustpanzer -> Chest armour. Even a turtle's shell is
| a Panzer. Typically a hard enclosure protecting the main body
| of a thing. But not its extremities. A "helmet" is a "Helm".
| Though any element can be "gepanzert", or "armoured".
|
| It is important to note that Panzer mostly refers to protection
| from violence. A civilian car is never "gepanzert", neither is
| a padded skateboarder. Unless you're mocking something. A
| Chelsea tractor is an Hausfrauenpanzer. One exception I can
| think of is the Ruckenpanzer, or spine protector.
|
| In a contemporary military context, a Panzer is any armoured
| vehicle. The definition is indeed looser than in English. The
| equivalent of tank (or main battle tank, MBT) is Kampfpanzer.
| Fighting tank.
|
| An IFV like the M2 is a Schutzenpanzer.
| Shooter/gunner/rifleman's tank.
|
| But when using Panzer to describe a specific vehicle, as
| opposed to a general category, I too would expect it to refer
| to an MBT. But I could be wrong here.
| a3w wrote:
| There are even civilian city tanks: SUVs... ok enough with the
| satire.
|
| I disagree with the author. What is a panzer is also a tank to
| the layman, and language changes with its (incorrect) usage. See
| also the last paragraph.
|
| Tank doctrine or tank building parts make a tank. Bergungstiger
| is a tank. Not having (,,tank") tracks, but armor, wheels and
| anti-tank weapons, is still a tank. ``Jagdpanzer''s (mostly front
| armored, no-turret tanks) are tanks.
|
| There is not even a definition for ,,salad" that we as humankind
| can agree on, but: if we see it, we know if it is a salad, tank,
| or both.
| Sharlin wrote:
| Hm, I don't think you disagree with the author, whose
| definition of "tank" in the article is basically "vehicle whose
| primary purpose is to engage ground targets with a direct-fire
| cannon while keeping the crew alive" (as opposed to, in
| particular, vehicles whose primary purpose is to transport and
| give fire support to infantry).
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| "tank" seems like a very headline (and tweet) friendly word.
|
| http://www.isabelperez.com/module4_tesis/headlines.htm
|
| I can imagine similar nerd discussions for some of those.
|
| (Interesting to note the only one that seems longer than the
| usual term is replacing 'strike').
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