Ukraine and the Gulf seem to be showing us that drones, like planes were in 1941, are the wave of the future. For all you military experts what are your thoughts? I can see smaller carriers and some sort of armored support but the 20th Century Soviet type battles we built our military around seem to be antiquated (maybe the Marines are right). Thoughts?

Most of the Marines I have contact with, both current and former think the recent shelving of tanks, tube artillery, sniper school, bridging, a lot of engineer capability and reduction in close air support is stinkin thinkin.
On top of that it seems the war gaming that supported those decisions was misrepresented.


edited 10:55 PDT

This message has been edited. Last edited by: wishfull thinker,

quote:

Originally posted by wishfull thinker:
Most of the Marines I have contact, both current and former don’t think the recent shelving of tanks, tube artillery, sniper school, bridging a lot of engineer capability and reduction in close air support is stinkin thinkin.
On top of that it seems the war gaming that supported those decisions was misrepresented.

I’m confused. I read your post as my sources don’t think (the changes) is stinking thinking, but it seems you might be meaning to say that your sources don’t think much of the decisions made. Curious…

Never let “fighting the last war” cause you to focus so hard on the "next war", that "this war" becomes your "final war"...

quote:

Originally posted by slosig:

quote:

Originally posted by wishfull thinker:
Most of the Marines I have contact, both current and former don’t think the recent shelving of tanks, tube artillery, sniper school, bridging a lot of engineer capability and reduction in close air support is stinkin thinkin.
On top of that it seems the war gaming that supported those decisions was misrepresented.

I’m confused. I read your post as my sources don’t think (the changes) is stinking thinking, but it seems you might be meaning to say that your sources don’t think much of the decisions made. Curious…

It's easy to see that you were confused because what I wrote before an edit didn't make any sense at all. I was trying to write while breathing in and out and apparently couldn't handle the overload.

Thanks for calling it out.

The destruction of armored vehicles in the Ukrainian War would seem to indicate that they are increasingly obsolete. I read that many advanced Tanks are being used as mobile artillery, not in front area assault. A lack of training in armored warfare tactics may be a factor too.
And our naval vessels seem be under a greater threat from drones and anti-ship missiles than ever before. I hope the Navy is taking steps to deal with the situation.
The Cold War and its equipment are over.

quote:

Originally posted by wishfull thinker:
Most of the Marines I have contact, both current and former don’t think the recent shelving of tanks, tube artillery, sniper school, bridging a lot of engineer capability and reduction in close air support is stinkin thinkin.
On top of that it seems the war gaming that supported those decisions was misrepresented.

Specifics please. Generalities aren't helpful.

From what I'm reading, we are seeing tanks and armored vehicles being destroyed right and left by drones. The Russian's Baltic fleet has suffered heavy losses to drones and missles forcing the Russian retreat/relocate to Sevastopol from the Crimea, and Ukraine is using tanks as mobile artillery because of their vulnerability. IOW, are we still geared up to fight the Soviet's coming through the Fulda gap and not a 21st century war?

What am I missing? Do we really need Ford class carriers and heavy MBT? We've already changed our view of helicopters. https://www.defensenews.com/ai...-now-will-never-fly/

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:
Never let “fighting the last war” cause you to focus so hard on the "next war", that "this war" becomes your "final war"...

Good advice, always. Also, don't let your imagination run wild with scenarios that haven't been thought through all the way.

The new structure is reportedly based on setting Marines on Pacific Islands to wait for Chinese ships to attack America or American enterests and in so doing eliminate virtually every other mission of the Marines. The new scenario eliminates a force in readiness and invents a force in sittingness. A soggy Maginot Line comes to mind.

I'm not by any means an insider in this stuff but reported by the MC Gazette and others the current plans to supply these outposts with beans, bullets and replacement missiles haven't been developed yet, just the part to divest material.

Don't get too hung-up on what's going on in Ukraine. Russia screwed itself by allowing a poorly trained and supported army conduct an invasion upon an enemy that had been receiving quite a bit of training by NATO for seven years prior. Russia did just about everything wrong and Ukraine was able to expose the Russian's sloppiness in both leaderships, poor organizational structure, poor logistics and poor training. This should've been a combined-arms, heavy armor maneuver fight like what was envisioned during the Cold War (or, the US operations for both Iraq fights), instead Russia could never establish any momentum or velocity its air force could never support its ground operation in any meaningful way and its logistics could never keep up. The Ukraine-Russia was is a case study of what NOT to do if you look at Russia and for the Ukraines, its a great study on how to conduct defense against an overwhelming enemy...Taiwan & Baltic States taking furious notes.

If you look at what a fight is being envisioned between US & China....it's going to be fast and very violent. Many ships will be sunk, lots of missiles will be launched and lots of airplanes will be shot down. There's going to be very little ground fighting as the battle space will span oceans and bodies of water. Electronic warfare will play an equal role to combatant units, and logistics will be more important to the US-side than the Chinese-side as they're pretty much will be the home team; ships rapidly refilling their magazines will be paramount. Loitering munitions and drones will be important but, only those robust enough to get through a heavy electronic warfare environment, we're seeing glimpses of it in Ukraine. Networking will be paramount which means all aspects will need to be tied together, something the US has been working on for nearly 30-years and is far ahead of everyone else. Super carriers will have their place, as the airwing will be the offensive punch and fleet defense will still be needed, smaller carriers would be nice but, it would require 3-4 of them to equal the combat power of a single super carrier. Naval warfare you still need to mass your combat power to deliver offense, whether its focused around a handful of capitol ships or, an array of smaller less-capable ships.

Tanks are just mobile artillery now.
Drones fitted with anti-tank weapons make them rolling tinderboxes.
Infantry with anti-tank weapons render them a burning hulk too.

Is it wrong to think that a properly equipped tank could be defended from drones by anti-RF weapons? Surely these drones are not autonomous. The must communicate over RF, right? Sure, the Predator probably has directional satellite uplinks, but these consumer grade things are almost certainly on RF, and perhaps even 2.4GHz/5.8GHz with Omnidirectional antennas?

No tank I'm aware of can super elevate the gun tube to truly provide indirect fires, so they're not artillery.

I know there are defensive systems (Shtora, Trophy, etc) that can defend against ATGMs that surely could be modified for use against drones. It's just a matter of time.

The tank isn't dead by a long shot.

quote:

Originally posted by AllenInAR:
No tank I'm aware of can super elevate the gun tube to truly provide indirect fires, so they're not artillery.

Using them as ersatz artillery has been a thing for about a century, since nearly the advent of the tank.

When additional elevation is needed, they're positioned on existing inclines, or ramps are constructed.

US tanks were provided with indirect fire tables through about the 1980s, but the practice continued in other armies even later.

US historical examples:

WW2:


Korea:



Vietnam:

That is absolutely insane using a tank for indirect.

Artillery uses a system called AFATDS which takes into account location of the cannon & target, weather conditions, charge, shell, etc. to calculate firing data. I'm not sure if such a system exists for tanks.

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
That is absolutely insane using a tank for indirect.

Artillery uses a system called AFATDS which takes into account location of the cannon & target, weather conditions, charge, shell, etc. to calculate firing data. I'm not sure if such a system exists for tanks.

Maybe not absolutely insane, but kind of. Using those ramps for the required elevation didn't do anything for accuracy, it's pretty much by guess and by God and a patient FO. Secondly it plays hob with the bearings, track work, torsion bars and wheels. All of the force from the shot that the tank expects to go backward goes downward and things break. That not withstanding you do what you gotta do.

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
That is absolutely insane using a tank for indirect.

Artillery uses a system called AFATDS which takes into account location of the cannon & target, weather conditions, charge, shell, etc. to calculate firing data. I'm not sure if such a system exists for tanks.

Joe will always find a way towards a field-expedient solution.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by AllenInAR:
No tank I'm aware of can super elevate the gun tube to truly provide indirect fires, so they're not artillery.

Using them as ersatz artillery has been a thing for about a century, since nearly the advent of the tank.

When additional elevation is needed, they're positioned on existing inclines, or ramps are constructed.

US tanks were provided with indirect fire tables through about the 1980s, but the practice continued in other armies even later.

Well, I can say for certain that the US wasn't doing that in 1988, and I never saw any Brits, Dutch or German tankers doing it either. 105/120mm HEAT would be an extremely poor substitute for 155mm HE.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: AllenInAR,

Every military asset as developed to exploit a weakness, and itself has weaknesses that are susceptible to being countered. There is no ultimate weapon that can defeat every other technology.

Drones are here. They work great on tanks and personnel, probably ships and the like. What they don't work great on are fighters and bombers with guided missiles targeting their command vehicles/structures. So, those structures and command vehicles need anti-aircraft and radar batteries. And those are susceptible to cruise missiles and artillery strikes, which themselves are susceptible to drone strikes....and the circle of life continues.

Soon, we're going to get drones that are AI operated with aerobatics and targeting that well exceed the reflex envelope of human control. Then we'll have AI operated interceptor drones that are smaller and faster to counter the larger munitions bearing drones. Then, to counter it, we'll start developing drones that are AI and networked so that the drones fight and strategize in swarms...and then it'll be swarms of drones fighting other swarms of drones , all AI controlled.

Eventually, we'll have to do a technological evolution such that others can't easily follow--orbital attack platforms with kinetic ballistic strikes. Then AI controlled hyper-speed space missiles to fight the orbital platforms. Then we keep pushing out further into space to maintain a defensive area until we're at the point where we're fighting space stations and ships at relativistic speeds.

(I read a lot of sci-fi.)

I wonder. I've thought for a long time that our beautiful multibillion $$$ aircraft carriers could be destroyed by one much less expensive tactical nuke.

I was in Armor during RVN, but I wonder about tanks too. We had to worry about RPGs, one just missed us, but now days the threats to tanks are way beyond RPGs.

quote:

Originally posted by rock185:

I was in Armor during RVN, but I wonder about tanks too. We had to worry about RPGs, one just missed us, but now days the threats to tanks are way beyond RPGs.

If I can enquire, what kind of armor?