For the past four months or so the world has watched agog as events have evolved in Ukraine.
In particular, Russia’s immense losses in main battle tanks (MBTs) and armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs) at the hands of small, determined groups of defenders aided by arms supplied by the west has led to many questioning the value of such vehicles in modern, conventional warfare. At the time of writing, Ukraine’s claimed losses it has inflicted on Russia’s MBTs and AFVs stand at 1,200 and 2,750 respectively.
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Whilst such claims have to be approached with some caution, there is little doubt that their Russian enemy has suffered grievously. Ukraine’s own losses are harder to determine but are likely to be significant also.
There are many lessons to be garnered for the UK and other western countries from the progress of the war so far. I have written elsewhere that declarations that the age of the tank are premature and misguided, but there is little doubt that we in the UK need to address the changes in armoured warfare we have witnessed if we are to have any hope of prevailing in a future conflict of this nature and intensity.
First and foremost amongst these lessons is the need for numbers. It’s no accident that victory usually goes to the big battalions, and of course the old adage that quantity has a quality all of its own still applies. If you look at the level of MBT and AFV losses incurred by both sides in the Ukraine to date, you do have to wonder how long the UK’s current tank fleet might last at this level of conflict. My impression is that if the UK’s three tank regiments with their fifty or so tanks apiece were committed at the same time they might last a week at best before becoming combat ineffective.
The problem is that we have no immediately available replacement tanks to refurbish and re-equip so we can go again. This will be exacerbated when, on current plans, Challenger 3 comes into service around 2030, Insh’Allah. On present plans the UK is planning to procure only 148 of these, which basically equates to two regiments’ worth plus the balance for training and maintenance reserves. This will make the Royal Armoured Corps (RAC) a “use once only” force, because in anything approaching a peer-on-peer conflict it will be expended quickly.
The quick-fix solution for the UK? Buy from abroad, and do so quickly. The obvious options are either the US M1A1 series or Germany’s Leopard 2 (which many of us thought that the UK should have bought instead of Challenger 2 in the first place). Apparently the USA may have as many as 3,000 + of the M1/M1A1 Abrams in storage, and who knows how many Leopard 2s might be in hangars and warehouses across Europe. Either would be a speedy and effective solution to the UK’s woeful tank numbers.
Next, we need to look at MBT and AFV protection against attack. Most are now familiar with the American Javelin and the UK/Swedish NLAW (Next generation light anti tank weapon) which have been, together with guided artillery shells, knocking lumps off Russian tanks and AFVs in Ukraine. Javelin and NLAW use a top attack mode which targets an MBT’s thinner top armour. While we have marvelled at the vulnerabilities of Russian vehicles to these weapons systems, there is nothing to suggest that western tanks would fare any better. In fact, the treatment meted out to the Turkish Leopard 2s in Syria in 2016 may have been partly due to such attack modes. I very much doubt if Challenger 2 in its current mode would prove any more survivable.
What is to be done? Again, as I have written previously, there are countermeasures available to defeat the top attack threats from anti-tank missiles, drones, and loitering and “suicide” munitions, both passive and active. At the same time, remote weapons systems (RWS) – as seen in action in some footage from Ukraine against ground targets – can be optimised to counter the threats from above. The problem here is that UK MBTs and AFVs don’t field any of these, not yet anyway, and the proposed purchase for the Challenger 3 fleet currently amounts to only 60 active protective systems (APS) between 148 MBTs. We need to move rapidly to equipping the whole tank fleet at the very least.
Then there is the combined arms aspect. As any fule kno, successful combat operations demand practiced all-arms cooperation between tanks, infantry, artillery, engineers, etc, but above all air defence. While much has been made of the success in Ukraine of the British Starstreak and Martlet surface-to-air missiles, and rightly so, we don’t have sufficient of them, which again needs to be rectified as fast as. Add cannon-based anti-air capability while you’re at it too. Plus, infantry equipped properly to accompany tanks in close country and urban environments can prevent the enemy having the opportunity to engage with short range anti-armour weapons by flushing them out in advance. But the infantry need to have a modern infantry fighting vehicle to accomplish this; Warrior, the current British tracked IFV, is obsolescent and, looking at Ukraine, I’m not sure that its wheeled replacement, Boxer, will necessarily be up to the job. We’ll see.
I could bang on about other parts of the British army – artillery, engineers etc – and the need to modernise their equipment but I think you get my point. However, I think we should briefly touch upon air power and logistics. I terms of the former, it is clearly a prerequisite for successful ground operations that air superiority is achieved, even it is limited by time and geography to specific actions. Is the UK sure it could guarantee this for its ground troops – in fact, can NATO – in the face of a peer or near-peer foe? And secondly, the Ukraine war has highlighted once again the vast quantities of materiel that modern high-tempo conventional operations consume. Do we have the wherewithal to sustain such combat operations? I suspect we do not.
Let me be the 94th person to say that the current war in eastern Europe has been a bit of a wake up call for militaries around the globe. For the UK, and to a lesser extent the rest of NATO, it has also illustrated how the last twenty years of asymmetric warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq has been no preparation in equipment, training, or tactics for the real thing. The British army is underfunded, under-manned, and poorly equipped to take on such an enterprise now or in the near future. Only timely and appropriate action by politicians and senior leaders can pull this one out of the fire.
Over to you, Ben Wallace and CGS!
© Stuart Crawford 2022
Both the Abrams and L2 have gapping faults, as do all MBTs.
Maybe massive Investment in anti armour drones would be money better spend….
correct
I think I might go further. These pesky drones and flying weapons might be the way to destroy targets but because they are fast and agile they might avoid becoming a target themselves. Do we really have to put people in harms way driving a lumbering hunk off metal because we are too arrogant to accept it’s time is up.
Mark,
Have you thought it through, logically.
Do we take all troops out of AFVs? Out of tanks, IFVs, APCs, armoured recce vehicles, SP artillery, PM vehicles? Where do we put them then? Do they all become drone operators? Do they operate the drones from a nice safe deep bunker?
What do we do about the people in soft-skinned ‘B’ Vehicles who have zero protection? What do we do about dismounted troops who have zero protection and zero mobility?
Hi Graham. The logic goes something like this.
Hi Mark, I think I am bemused by the recent revelation to some that ATWs kill tanks – they have done that since first fielding ATGM in 1955 (or 1917 if you want to go back to the Mauser T-Gewehr).
When I served in the army, we did not dwell on our vulnerability to enemy fire, no matter whether we were dismounted, in B Vehs or AFVs – we focussed on the mission. For those on foot or in B vehs, we especially did not focus on our considerable vulnerability. For those of us in AFVs, whether tanks or not, there was a certain amount of faith in the armour protection but a recognition that vehicles still had to be handled tactically soundly and with all-arms cooperation to minimise receipt of effective enemy fire.
The enemy will invariably not waste an expensive ATGW round on anything other than a tank or a key non-tank AFV and of course not against dismounted troops – but has other weaponry at hand for less important AFVs.
When we are only buying 60 Trophy APSs for 148 tanks (an error in my view) the chances of the Treasury stumping up enough cash for such a system for all AFVs is zero… and, as mentioned, there is no need to defend low value targets against ATWs.
The use of hunter-killer drones to sanitise an area before troops enter is a good one, but it will take a lot of attack drones to cover huge areas, and there will the loss of surprise. Recce troops would not want their imminent arrival in an area to be announced by swarms of attack drones, probably. Different for manouevre trooops on the offensive – the area sanitisation by armed drones could be very useful.
Perhaps too much store is put in drones – they have their downside – they can be jammed or shot down, the more sophisticated weaponised ones are not cheap if bought in quantity – and they require infrastructure C2 vehicles, trained operators etc). Drines also cannot seize and hold ground so they will not replace tanks and infantry.
Something along these lines might be a possible option?
“Following the infantry combat and combat support vehicle,Rheinmetall has introduced a mechanised fire support variant of the LYNX IFV. The variant is called LYNX 120, with the 120mm smoothbore gun derived from the LEOPARD 2 MBT as the main armament.”
https://euro-sd.com/2022/02/articles/exclusive/25391/lynx-120/
“In today’s world, adequate protection of soldiers and their vehicles is no longer achieved simply by covering them with armor. A principle of multiple, coordinated layers of protective measures enables the highest possible level of safety in each case.
“Our innovative, high-performance ADS is clearly one of our greatest technical achievements,” comments Dr Stefan Nehlsen, Head of Protection Systems at Rheinmetall. “ADS is the only protection system in the world that can defend against attacks even from the immediate vicinity of the vehicle.”
https://www.rheinmetall-defence.com/en/rheinmetall_defence/public_relations/themen_im_fokus/active_defence_system_ads/index.php
I am impressed by Rheinmetall’s ADS – possibly better than Trophy APS – and may well justify a lighter vehicle structure. This vehicle may well be a possible replacement for classic heavy MBTs. Certainly easier to transport strategically and operationally, cheaper to buy and maintain. What’s not to like!
Not my area of expertise, but I was thinking along the same lines as you mention.
The war in Ukraine tends to suggest a lighter more agile approach rather than the traditional heavy tank variants and would sit nicely within the army’s transformation of how we will operate as a quick reaction force within NATO going forward.
With a 120mm smoothbore gun that can fire the latest DM11 programmable multi-purpose ammunition, it will pack quite a punch on the battlefield.
Such drones instead of tanks? How do they seize and hold ground?
I was about to make this point. Would love to know how a drone is a strategic replacement for the MBT
Thanks Aaron. I think some are concerned at the safety of soldiers in combat and would have all soldiers in AFVs replaced by drones. What about the soldiers in soft-skinned ‘B’ vehicles though – replace them too?
Got bigger issues like Jackal and Coyote need replacing because if tanks are an issue then open topped recce vehicles have to be.
Why replace it with drones? Soldiers would then be in danger of damaging their eye site from looking at screens all day. Who’d have thought war would be dangerous?
There is this huge focus (for some a revelation) on Russian tanks being destroyed by anti-tank weapons. All soldiers on the battle field are vulnerable, especially those with little protection, more so than those with a lot of armour around them. Jackal and Coyote need to be employed carefully and skillfully to avoid enemy attention, as do troops in Land Rovers and trucks and dismounted troops. War is dangerous, as you say. Massive drone fleets will not do everything our soldiers can do – they are a useful tool though.
The Russians are using all kinds of nasties like fragment ammunition and other banned items. Needs to be a rethink on how we can destroy at long range and defend against Russian rocketry.
We should allow no limits on weapons for the Ukraine. If Putin wants a war give it him till he is utterly destroyed. He will do the same till he has destroyed Ukraine. Cant we see this? I’m really sorry to say this but we are dealing with a ruthless madman on the scale of Hitler and we should act accordingly.
I fully agree that we need to see Russia’s conventional land and air forces severely written down such that they no longer pose a threat to any nation in eastern (and western) Europe. Currently it is a proxy war with Ukraine doing the heavy lifting. It is hard to see how NATO could get involved in direct confrontation with Russian forces.
Aaron I don’t think it is a strategic replacement. The question is can MBTs take and hold ground against an enemy armed with modern ATW. If not we either need to find an alternative which can at least clear the ground such that it is safe for other forces advance. Kit like NLAW seem like a disaster for advancing forces. Are drones the only solution or is there something else?
MBTSs can take and hold ground against an enemy armed with modern ATW; examples abound from the latter stages of the Yom Kippur war thorough to the Gulf Wars.
The accompanying infantry aided by well-cued artillery and attack helos clear the ATW.
Or in other words… MBT can’t take and hold ground against an enemy armed with modern ATW, but they can take and hold ground against an enemy that used to have modern ATW’s?
Forget my historic example as it has clearly confused.
Don’t think I said that MBT can’t take and hold ground against an enemy armed with modern ATW.
My point is that they can, when used in an all-arms grouping and the infantry take out the ATWs early – and that route selection and tactics are sound.
Clearly the Russians though have not mastered the above so their tanks are being taken out before they can seize and hold ground.
But the simple truth is you hold ground with an armed man or woman in a uniform. Therefore you need to get that man or woman to said ground, so you need a transport of some kind to safely get them there, unless they are going to be able to march to said ground. Then you need to protect that transport from anti transport weapons and clear out those….
combined arms has developed vastly from the cannon, musket, pike and Calvary to the modern infantry solder, fires, air power, infantry fighting vehicles, heavy armour, active defence systems, integrated air defence systems, EW etc etc, drones add another layer to the combined arms, but in the end it all focused on the Infantry either to take or hold the ground. Which means we will always have armour of some description, as armour is there to support the infantry moving around the battle field, without armour infantry become stuck and you all dig trenches and move to attrition of manpower.
That does not mean we ignore drones and autonomous systems, but we must understand their limitations, they do not think, they are not creative, they have limited endurance and can be affected by many environmental factors or things like EW. Drones are a weapon system no more than a rifle is, you still have to have people on the battle field and they will need moving around in protected vehicles with an ability to defend and attack.
Superb summary. GBAD and control of the skies are any prerequisite for ground operations.
The confusion of connected thinking is self evident when the author suggests in one paragraph that the Leopard 2 would have been a better purchase for the U.K.’s tank forces, to the next that points out the apparently superior Leopard fared very badly in one of the very few conflicts it has appeared in.
Not just in the Ukraine War but elsewhere, the utility of main battle tanks in conventional warfare has been questioned; indeed last century, one poor fellow ended his career by suggesting the then Red Army based on massed armoured forces that swept the Germans aside in 1944-45, might be obsolete. We have our answer today.
I believe we are at a turning point in large scale all arms war fighting and as usual few have noticed. But how crucial too is the determination and organisation of any force? Last century the British concentration on ‘character’ was lampooned; the American way of overwhelming materiel and deployment has produced only a series of lasting diplomatic chasms that will require deft policy and footwork to heal, if ever. No. Ukraine proves the older hands were right, courage as much as technology are central. When one has something worthwhile to fight for, that counts.
Buying Leopard or Abrams as a stop-gap fails to address the issue, I agree. Increasing tank numbers with odds would cause more issues than it would solve; we’d be spending money we don’t have, on tanks we can’t crew, supported by a logistics system we don’t operate, that are vulnerable to all the same problems our existing vehicles have.
I do believe MBTs will remain a leading conventional asset. Poor utilisation and logistics have been the cause of the majority of tank losses in the previous two decades, judging the utility of a platform by how badly someone else deploys it isn’t helpful to anyone.
While character, courage, and individual training are vital skills in their own right, Ukraine isn’t outright proof that those are more important than technology. Remember Ukraine is being flooded with advanced Western weapons and support systems, as well as intelligence from satellites and aircraft, while the Russians throw a largely outdated arsenal at them. If I remember correctly (and if the story is true) one Russian jet that was shot down was found with a sat-nav taped on the dash for navigation.
‘judging the utility of a platform by how badly someone else deploys it isn’t helpful to anyone.’
Take your point but if you don’t take lessons (I accept though not exclusively) from how tactics and weaponry operate in others wars and circumstances then surely that leaves you operating on your own historic use (maybe 25 to 50 years or more old), or strategists looking at fundamentally unused weaponry and arguing how they might work out on physical/digital blackboards or in pre conceived training exercises which has so often proved completely out of touch with reality when the real thing arrives and it’s often too late to change. One of the main reasons the Russians have faired so poorly is precisely because, despite arguably better recent experience than us, stuck to similar tactics and thinking that won them the war in the East in 1945.
I see what you mean, my original point does read as saying “ignore them, they just did it wrong”. It’s reminiscent of the battlecruiser argument; in theory, and in the situations where they were used as intended (e.g. the Battle of the Falkland Islands), the concept was excellent, and only failed when they were used to fight other heavy ships. In reality though, they were too big, well-armed, and expensive to just leave at home for the big battles.
That same rationale should be applied now. The concept of the tank is still sound today, but they also require the right conditions to risk using such expensive assets. Thus the question comes back to, do tanks do what they do better than the alternatives?
Not sure the Russians have anything that amounts to better recent experience than us. The last really major conventional war we fought was the Gulf, true, but Iraq and Afghanistan at least kept combat experience fresh. The Russians, haven’t fought a conventional conflict since when, 1945? Everything since has basically been border skirmishes and crushing rebellions.
What do tanks do? Act as a deterrent force, can be used a sa show of force, deliver shock action, kill enemy tanks, support the infantry with direct fire, seize and hold ground as part of a combined arms team.
Attack drones can’t do all of the above. They are not miracle weapons either – they have less endurance, carry lighter wepons payloads, are prone to jamming and being shot down, need to be operated by highly skilled personnel who need protected C2 centres – and they are not as cheap as they should be.
I mean in fairness, the Turkish use of Leopards in static emplacements in Syria wasn’t something that anybody in the British Army needed to take a lesson from, you could go up to any Tanker, describe their tactics, and (without even asking you about their equipment) they’d be able to tell you how that would have gone.
The writing is on the wall. Agility in manoeuvre, excellent all round intelligence and a foe who makes elementary mistakes based on masses of critically ill prepared forces – how often military history shows the outcome. Ukraine was not initially flooded with western aid. I despair! Iraq in the last decade and Afghanistan last year well equipped by the U.S. forces collapsed when attacked by militias! I don’t mean to be offensive, but the Ukrainians are being portrayed as ‘saved by the Yanks’ when quite obviously they fought magnificently from the start, come what may.
The U.K. cannot fight big wars alone – in fact it never has tried to. Yet in my life time it fought and won two – or was it three? – so-called ’emergencies’ or ‘confrontations’. hardly anyone knows much about and I don’t include the Falklands. As Basil Liddle-Hart pointed out almost a hundred years ago, our great strengths are in unconventional war fighting, the unadvertised soldiering we are good at.
I certainly didn’t mean to suggest that the Ukrainians are being “saved by the Yanks”, or even the West at large. Their willingness to fight for every inch of their home stands in stark contrast to Afghanistan, where the armed forces effectively dissolved and fell back on regional and tribal loyalties.
However, Ukraine isn’t a simple example of courageous underdog against villainous power. Ukraine is fighting with strategic and technical advantages usually held by the more powerful nation, and let’s not forget they’ve spent the past 8 years preparing for this exact situation.
I did not see any contradiction by the author. The proposed choice for Leo 2 instead of Challenger 2 is mostly due commonality of ammunition due to it having a 120mm smoothbore gun that every NATO uses, instead of rifled gun of Challenger II.
Yet he wants to buy a new platform, which is the same age as our existing Chally 2s.
with no infrastructure or repairs tools or spares.
he makes it sound like the Army can purchase a pair of boots.
Because if you want more tanks there is no production line for Challenger but it exists for Leo.
It would also probably mean cancelling the CH2 upgrade called CH3 like if it was new.
Leo 2 has already been improved to the level of Challanger 3. So that part of development cost that haven’t been spent yet would not not be necessary.
In Western world there are basically 3 tank working production lines: M1. Leo, Merkava(at low rates). Then our 2 Asian allies: Japan and S.Korea. I am excluding India because they assemble Soviet designs.
Both the M1 and leopard are legacy tanks that both the Americans and Germans are looking to replace! This has been discussed at length on other threads on here so to bring it up again🙄
Do you think there will be a new Western tank in operation in next 15 years?
Why you did not included Challenger in legacy tanks?
I mean M1 is in its concept more modern of the 3 with all ammunition in blow out panels.
Because buying more Challengers isn’t being debated obviously.
No but the discussion is around the future of UK armoured divisions – and the article discusses M1 & Leopard as alternatives to CH …so in reality by association it is..
Unless we just stick to the arguement as to whether the UK (or anyone else for that matter) shoud be looking to devlop and/or buy new tanks or just get rid of them.
My tu’pence worth is the goevrnment would love to get the doctrine changed so we no longer required tanks purely to save the money….and I disagree with that. The tank has its place it just needs to be defined and protected- and we need enough numbers to ensure that can be implemented.
No, it isn’t. Challenger is in inventory, there is no scope to buy more. Why would you buy a tank that will be replaced in the near future?
Near future? 15-20 years or more?
Do you know the mess the supposed French-German tank is in and that is the only program in town – do not know much about the Israelis are doing with their new one.
How much the world would change by then?
No, and neither do you, so don’t lie and act like you know what the status of that program is please. It’s a bit pathetic when you do.
However, 15 years isn’t that long, considering that whatever we buy will take half that time to reach FOC, whether it’s a upgraded challenger or an upgraded foreign legacy tank.
Pathetic is you dismissing information other people have.
I do there is heavy infighting between the French and the Germans concerning the gun and industrial issues, the program is barely moving forward.
Oh hey look, another claim at insider information you don’t have. Get lost.
150 are to be upgraded, with the rest to be stored. so if a Budget became available more could be upgraded.
The article, with much of this ilk is risible in detail and analysis. The CH2 is as good as any out there and the CH3 will be better. The UK has “observer” status on the future euro tank and will probably buy “if” tanks are still relevant at the time. It seems obvious to me that you will have “slaved” UAT’s (unmanned automated tanks/howitzers) which are the next logical step. Naturally these will have APS built in and possibly drones for battlefield surveillance/targeting. The author added nothing to the debate.
Your missing one important part of your and this writers advice. COST PER UNIT. Which has been covered over and over LEP 2 unit cost new $10m. A1 cost New $9m. so if we say to purchase 150 with spares and support. you could be looking at a 2 Billion cost. conversion and upgrade of 150 Challly 3s is a 1 Billion package.
so if you take the £1b and you could buy maybe 50-65 Lep 2s or A1s.
we would have less tanks than some of our Nato Partners. and you still could update and upgrade the remaining chally 2s.
the Writer strikes me as the sort of Commander that just got 100s of men killed by playing Tank Commander in Ukraine. buy just throwing numbers at it, much like WW2 without considering human life.
Chally 3 gives the ARMY 150 MBT, at a budget,
A lot of the old and bold wanted to buy Leo back in the day, Challenger was largely chosen to support British Industry, and some, like Stuart, can’t really let go of the idea.
agree, for whatever reason, Stuart is still living in cold wat world, and screws a living out of it. would like to blow the entire MOD budget on a new MBT, when everything MBT in the British Army is based on or around a Challenger chasis. makes you wonder what he drives as a car. BMW – AUDI- MERCEDES as he has a socket in his forehead for his penis.
MBT is a bad fit now in a modern European war,
where a $100k drone can destroy a modern MBT.
Like this fella who served in the cold war, yet never faced tank to tank.
those who cannot do Talk about it,
A panzerfaust or a bazooka also could destroy a tank in 1945.
An 82p rifle bullet can kill a man. Is the Infantry a bad fit now?
Good point. Leopard 2 has been destroyed in combat by Third World soldiers. No Chally 2 has been lost in combat to an enemy – perhaps it was the best choice after all.
I am not complacent – CR2 needs an upgrade – and it is finally getting one.
You have seen poorly designed, poorly built, poorly logistically supported and poorly handled tanks, without infantry support, being lost to an enemy with grit, determination and excellent wester weapons – and assume that all tanks might be obsolete? Might you draw another conclusion? That western/NATO/British tanks would fare much better.
Ground Forces without air cover are all a soft targets, and we should be looking at MBT numbers held by other Nato partners and the low numbers. if we need to use MBTs in the UK. its already to late.
I am optimistic that NATO air cover is substantial and effective and that NATO ground troops would therefore be well served. It is puzzlng that the Russian Air Force has been so poor.
Continental European nations should provide the bulk of the armoured warfare forces – UK should contribute a modest, but not tiny, armoured formation.
I cannot envisage a scenario where we are required to defend the UK with tanks.
Good points. Where Leo2 has performed badly in combat due to its vulnerabilty, Challenger (both Marks) has performed superbly on operations, including kinetic ones.
We need the quantity of manpower and materiel (including tanks), provided by the US, and by aggregated European nations – and the quality of western morale, morals, doctrine and training. Which is what we have in NATO.
The Russian failure to use tanks well (and the dubious quality of their tanks) should not lead to a belief that tanks in general are obsolete.
Large scale all arms warfighting is poorly done by Russia – hopefully NATO is far better at it. Might be wise to ponder if the reduction in BATUS training is a good idea.
BL, well said
I don’t belive the UK needs vast quantities of tanks. How many would it need to defend the UK mainland? In all, honesty if the enemy has landed sufficient quantities of armoured vehicles on our shores to be a threat, we have probably already lost. If working in NATO, there are 30 countries. If each of the 30 countries provides as much to a land based fight as the UK can, then there should not be a problem. UK priority should be ensuring it can secure the skies and seas around it. Land based warfare should not be our priority, although we have to prepare for it. Other European nations should place a higher emphasis on land base warfare
Sorry, but your emphasis on Europeans all making a contribution to their and our defence is naive. Look at the way that Germany and France have had to be almost embarrassed into providing arms to Ukraine. The US only joined the party when the realised that Russia could have made a big mistake and it was a opportunity to undermine a serious rival to them. No,our big fundamental mistake has been relying on NATO as a first line of defence instead of viewing NATO as a back stop.
Why should it be our responsibility to make the contribution then? If we step up, just gives a greater justification for other nations shirking their responsibilities. We as a nation are not responsible for the whole of Europe. We are responsible for the defence of the UK. We can be a leading player in air and maritime defence, and offer support and expertise to NATO in these fields, but why do we need to be a major player in a land war? Let some of the other 29 nations step up. We should have a supporting role in any European land war, not be the principal aggressor, whilst we need to be one of, if not the principal player in sea and air based wars.
👍
Spot on, that will make the difference over alternatively supplying large numbers of tanks when providing one will inevitably compromise the other in whatever budget is provided.
You bang on about defence of the UK. That is a given. NATO expect us to do a bit more than to stay at home and guard our shores and skies. We contribute SF, sea, land and air forces to support the wider NATO community. We don’t say that we have weak land forces because we are an island – that won’t cut it with NATO.
explain France and Germany’s stance. Germany expects USA to do all its fighting they just sell the weapons
Hang on Russian tanks can only reach us through those Countries so I would hope they don’t just wave them through blowing kisses.
Thankfully with Sweden and Finland in NATO that will cover its weakest flank which was a great worry to me. If we were really worried about being attacked by Russia without Continental Countries getting involved as you suggest, then surely it would be in the air and at sea that we would be vulnerable and tanks would be a negligible consideration in defending these islands in that circumstance.
There are several major flaws with that logic. First and foremost, defence of the UK has effectively nothing to do with the mainland. There hasn’t been a realistic threat of invasion of Britain since Nelson won Trafalgar. Russia and China are thousands of miles away with almost no expeditionary capability.
However, economically we’re so globally tied in with our trading partners that any disruption to them causing major issues here, of which Ukraine is a clear example.
I agree our focus should primarily be on naval and air power, but realistically we need a strong land force as well, and the will to use it.
Don’t disagree with your sentiments, in fact you end up saying what I have said. We need a land force, but one that can integrate into a bigger unit … we are not and should not be aiming to win a land war on our own.
It is hard to think of many times, outside of colonial confrontations, that the British Army has fought without allies.
I agree the calculus has to be made what balance of weapons and skills we can best supply to defend Western Europe as a whole witting whatever budget we de ide we can afford. It’s not how many tanks we can have to defend Britain as in the case of Australia in that disastrous scenario it would be how much defeat can be delayed, so it’s how many we should exploit on the Eastern borders or as reserves if others cannot hold the line balanced against the alternative of utilising and thus buying other weapons to best support that scenario. Wouldn’t want to make those decisions as we can’t have it all. But in reality Germany, Poland France and others will have a higher priority on heavy weaponry of this type than we inevitably will. It’s getting the balance right for a military based out of the western flanks and how we best support that core of heavy tanks.
Perhaps more importantly I certainly feel it almost laughable as big numbers of one of the best, greatest ranging and lightest 155mm howitzers in the World are being sent to Ukraine this British designed weapon doesn’t exist in our stocks nor anything even of similar size and capability. Especially when it seems over half of tanks have been knocked out by such heavy artillery supported by sighting drones. If there were a breakthrough of allied tanks at the front these would probably be of greater lethality than whatever tanks we could offer even if both would be nice if budgets allowed it.
Doesn’t Ukraine and the future fall out it will bring prove that our horizons certainly don’t end at Western Europe’s frontiers?
There are already food riots and collapsing governments across the globe on account of the disruption to food supplies from Ukraine and we are still living off last year’s harvest. Consider this is what triggered the Arab spring and the Syrian debacle.
The Ukraine crisis is a key dimension of the cost of living crisis sweeping the globe now and may well end up pushing all of us into a global economic recession and a decade of economic turmoil. Moreover, the BoE governor is talking about apocalyptic food prices next year – for us…imagine the impact on the developing world.
We are probably looking at seismic geo-political changes in the coming years that will reshape the global political and economic settlement significantly and will almost certainly result in more armed conflict and death because we judged our horizons by geography and not politics and trade.
Absolutely, each NATO member brings to the party the disposition of arms most relevant to their own defence. The UK priorities are Sea > Air > Land. Whereas say Poland’s are Land > Air > Sea. USA can do everything of course 🙂 But otherwise, it’s really that simple.
If Russia kicked off, our primary task would be to help secure the North Atlantic, North Sea, Norwegian Sea etc. It would be Poland’s to help secure the front line on land.
You don’t want UK to have. avast number of tanks. Rest easy – we will only have 148.
Defence of the UK mainland is not reliant on a home-based tank force.
We invented the tank in 1915 for expeditionary (overseas) operations, not home defence.
UK priority in NATO is not merely to defend our own country – it is to deploy expeditionary forces to defend our threatened or attacked neighbour.
1) Accept low quantity of UK armour but equip everything with the best hard-kill and soft-kill tech. Explore options for attaining economies of scale on these technologies.
2) Develop networked hard-kill SHORAD/C-RAM systems that can integrated down to the smallest unit sizes. Drones, loitering munitions and low-level enemy aircraft are well discussed issues. Artillery though has been the biggest killer of armoured vehicles in Ukraine. Given that it’s almost impossible to hide in modern warfare and the proliferation of long range fires it’s therefore important to be able to survive under bombardment.
3) Begin integrating UGV’s into armoured units for scout and assault roles. It’s simply too dangerous for manned armoured vehicles to assault or recce via force given the proliferation of devastating lightweight anti-tank weapons.
4) Begin developing domestic UGV industry capable of delivering mass to the British army through unmanned systems. This industry needs to be capable of scaling up delivery at short notice if peer conflict becomes a significant likelihood.
Must admit seeing how that Carl Gustav, a type of weapon all but the Swedes pretty much dismissed 20 years back, took out a T90 from a side engagement really does show you how vulnerable even modern tanks truly are to hand held weapons operating in cover.
Apparently not just any T90A, but the latest and greatest T90M. Which supposedly has better passive side armour and the newest ERA over the older model.
Don’t see why the surprise.
Even with the tandem charge warhead. The Carl Gustav in theory should struggle to penetrate the front or sides of a T90M. if the blurb and propaganda over the tank is to believed. According to one of the Twitter feeds, the warhead hit between the upper track guard and a road wheel. From the video, it doesn’t seem to have initiated the ERA, but as the video was taken from a UAV it is hard to tell.
The point is that there are a lot of places in the tank ( and other tanks as well) that it can penetrated from the side. M1 and Challenger, Leo etc can be also side penetrated by the Carl Gustav.
Catastrophic results is another matter and Russian tanks are much more vulnerable there.
But that’s the whole point. By anti-tank standards the Carl Gustav’s HEAT shell is pretty weak when compared to other types of warhead such as RPG-29 for example. The T90M was supposed to have the latest Relikt ERA, that covers the tank’s front, sides and turret. It is supposedly able to defeat tandem charge warheads. It clearly didn’t work!
As the video was taken from quite a distance away from the attack. It’s hard to tell if the warhead was a tandem charge and if the tank’s ERA activated. If they did you’d see two closely spaced flashes, as the precursor warhead activates the ERA, then see the second flash as the main charge activates.
There have been several videos showing attacks on Russian tanks, where it seems the ERA didn’t activate when hit. Maybe because the ERA didn’t have the explosive filling or perhaps the ERA was well past its shelf life.
There is no tank that is protected all around for 400 mm penetration oi CG
And i remember in 90’s CG had a 900mm HEAT penetration round, this was heavier than normal round.
US Army like the Charlie G too.
It wasn’t a Carl Gustav it was a Russian tank. The black blast was in the wrong positon.
I think the current force would have lasted more than a week in Ukraine, degraded yes, but still capable for a few weeks. And by the looks of the Russian armour’s performance, 100 Chally’s could probably take one 3/4 times that number of Russian tanks. If anything this conflict has shown us that training, maintenence (and having the readily available spares for) and logistics are key. You talk about mass but the Russians started with about 2000 tanks and that hasn’t got them anywhere. An increase to 200/250 CH3 would be nice but the army has other priorities like SHORAD and renewed Artillery that need funding too.
Indeed we simply can’t supply enough extra that would turn round a European campaign and that needs to be a consideration in any balanced acquisition of weaponry. If we had originally used the Challenger 3 buy to develop an ongoing tank/armoured vehicle capability and used it to develop new competitive designs ( like a military JCB) and thus managed to sell them abroad like the Germans (and we are now doing with frigates) then it might be different but that horse has bolted sadly so there is only really a cost to acquiring them now.
I will say though that while you are right a Chally might take out 3 or 4 Russian tanks before succumbing itself few tanks in Ukraine have fallen to tank fire so their degradation would likely have little to do with the tanks they face.
Not even close. But that also depends on its use and function.
If the exercise is that 100 Challengers replace T-80 and 72 in Russian offensive they would last 1 week and that is even a question mark.
We wouldnt be just sending 100 C2s on their own into combat though. They would have stormer and starstreak support. Flanking infantry (the best soldiers in the world) as well as top cover by reaper/ predator drones Eurofighter typhoon and some deep marrauding F35Bs.
Combined arms tactics still matter.
A MBT with a 120mm gun still matters.
Just need to consider the MBTs as the lynch pin and byild an adequate defence for them to operate. So APS. Enough IFVs with APS. Enough artillery. Enough SHORAD. Air superiority by RAF and above all else enough infantry. Apache and UAVs.
In war like in engineering there are many contradictory factors: you want no losses you go slow – at leg infantry speed- but then the enemy can react to your every move in time, so when combat happen you need quantity overmatch(or a century technical superiority) which you don’t have.
A bunch of Iskanders and other Russian long range artillery in your tip of the spear and you loose a couple of infantry battalions, then what?
Doesn’t matter what you give the Russians, as long as they’re tactics and operational lack of doctrine don’t change, they won’t last long.
The first question has to be: will the Russian army that eventually extricates itself from Ukraine still be a peer competitor?
Not really a peer. If somehow you had a U.K. versus russia war it would be a messy affair but I don’t think there would be a winner.
If Russia had not had the massive quantity of kit from the Soviet Union days or the soviet era designs it would be a small force. Large enough to defend Russia.
Russian defence budget was always a mystery. How can it have a massive land force, nuclear weapons, submarines, loads of aircraft and maintain and upgrade it all at the same time. The answer as we see is it can’t. Even before Ukraine invasion Russia has been in decline. It’s ships are old, most of its land forces are using soviet era kit etc etc. I couldn’t of possibly replaced everything it had with new stuff so would of shrunk.
Main thing why Russia will always be important is it’s massive, has a presence at the UN and has nuclear weapons. Also someone has always got to be seen as the bad guy.
It’s clear that the balance in these matters ebbs and flows between one and the other. In this case the tank and the drone. It’s commonsense that unless a good system to detect drones can be put in place, the tank is too vunerable. Once the drone is detected it’s relatively easy to deal with. The mod needs to protect all its 148 tanks. The lesson I think at this stage is the UK needs a lot of “cheap” lethal drones if it’s to go in against a pier. We usually use tanks to protect ground and the Russians use them as the point of the spear. I think they have learnt that lesson now.
Really? We are only beginning to understand how best to take out drones only larger ones are ‘easy’ to take out while I keep seeing and hearing how drones are detected and yet the forces have little to engage them with, small arms fire is practically useless. Saw a documentary a few years ago where an ex military sniper tried to down a standard commercial drone and though it was stationary he only succeeded when it was within a mile away.
you can’t always have Martlets available to do the job and it’s an expensive way of taking out smaller drones of which hundreds even thousands might be available and easily replaced. So electro magnetic or other innovative means will have to be developed to target them on mass. Nobody knows as yet how the balance between drone and counter measures will go, I suspect it will ebb and flow though with a big improvement in defence over the next defence no doubt. Larger drones operating at low and medium altitude will I suspect be suffering the most, indeed over enemy territory already do but increasingly sophisticated and capable small drones will always be a tough nut to crack and though mostly for surveillance will become increasing adept at targeting for other increasingly sophisticated missiles and artillery from various means. So all difficult to project how this all goes.
I’m in the minority but i’m deeply sceptical about the future of MBT’s in the British Army. The direct cost of tanks with APS tech for example is rapidly closing the gap on other systems like attack helos. The indirect cost including Anti Air/Drone plus what is rarely mentioned R.E. support for things like bridging. Which is also affected by the enormous growth of the sheer weight of modern MBT’s like Challenger when equipped with enhanced armour. It all reminds me of the battleship in the 30’s and 40’s. Battleships didn’t go extinct because they were no longer usefull they disappeared because the cost of keeping them usefull { deck armour proof against 1,000lb bombs } made them unviable. Could attack helos and drones do the same jobs as MBT’s for less cost ? I believe they could.
Helicopters are much more expensive – you have to include replacements and training – and are much more vulnerable.
We’ll agree to disagree on helos.
Exactly. Weapon systems come and go, the battleship race – ‘We want eight and we won’t wait!’ – produced no war winning punch and the phase lasted barely thirty years. Where next will take a lot of crystal ball gazing but the time of the tank is up. It doesn’t even intimidate civilians nowadays.
LOL what was it the treasury wanted 4 the Navy wanted 6 so they compromised on 8 ! My fave Churchill quote.
The time of the tank will be up when tank-owning nations order no more, do not upgrade what they have and scrap their fleets – who is doing that? The threat nations in the world have thousands of tanks and are not giving them up anytime soon. Only Belgium has phased out tanks, a financial savings measure and not because they were convinced that the tank was obsolete.
Tanks remain the best protected, most highly mobile, largest calibre direct-fire weapon system on the battle field. A drone or attack helo does not have all these attributes – and have disadvantages too.
You would scrap tanks solely because the Russians have bad tanks and use them incompetently?
David, I beg to disagree. It is no recent revelation that MBTs can be taken out – that has been the case since 1917 – tank designers have always reacted to counter-systems and produced ever better integral armour, add-on armour and now APS. The tank remains the best protected vehicle on the battlefield, by far. Why is no-one bothered at the survivability of troops in open structure vehicles (eg Jackal), lightly armoured vehicles, soft-skinned vehicles?
The Russians have lost a lot of tanks because they are badly designed, badly made, have low quality & demotivated crews and are handled tactically appalingly. We western nations would not be in the same boat in combat – in fact look at our track record.
I doubt that the cost of Trophy APS so dramatically increases the cost of tanks that their purchase price approaches that of an attack helicopter. Such helos are phenomenally expensive to purchase, maintain, logistically support and to train aircrew and maintainers for.
MBTs do the following: Deterrence, Show of Force, Deliver Shock Action, provide close fire support for the accompanying infantry, seize and hold ground. What helo or drone can do all that?
Seems to me that being in a tank is a pretty unhealthy place with kamikazi drones and laser guided artillery around – and it seems difficult to believe this will change much despite improvements to protection. Not suggesting they are obsolete but am far from convinced that a few more wore would make any real difference in a fight with a peer. I’d be putting my money on very long range guided artillery, recon / target marking drones, killer drones, ISTAR in general and better air defence to deny the other side the same abilities.
I tend to agree, once you get into having to include serious anti missile and shell defences with all the complexities that involves I get very worried about it’s ability to survive. Based on what we are seeing and likely advances in prose tiles and accuracy even at manheld level how many times even the most sophisticated defence system defend against such attacks. I fear what works on the test ground will be far, far less effective in the heart of battle esp as current often quite old and relatively dumb weapons are having rather greater success at penetrating armour than we were led to believe was likely.
I favour that if resources are not enough. But depends much on terrain/weather. Not all weapons types have same success in all operational theatres.
I’m not going to say any more because I’ve said it many times,
but the era of tanks are over.
Tanks are no longer the main character in ground battles.
Royal army’s already have Challenger 2, that’s enough.
“Royal army” !!!!!!??????
I meaming “British Army” .😂
Royal Armoured Corps?
Am I the only one who noticed the word insh’alla in the 5th paragraph lol. “ This will be exacerbated when, on current plans, Challenger 3 comes into service around 2030, Insh’Allah.”
It’s a common phrase, meaning God-willing.
Albeit in this case I believe used to signal that the C3 is unlikely to be delivered on schedule – in other words, implying that the use of inshallah at the end of a sentence is used by those peoples who can’t or won’t carry out a promise. Am a little surprised this made it past the moderators actually. It was in keeping with the rest of the ‘chat in the pub’ writing style – but since it was mentioned, I at least felt it was a little over the line.
Hi there, if you wish to discuss this further, please e-mail our editor at [email protected]
Not a big deal – more a suggestion for consideration of the author for future posts. Thanks.
Currently and i say this with a smile, all the proposed elements are currently on track with some supply issues reported. as the proposed elements were well tried and tested form some schemes.
But as soon as a Knob Jockey from the Army much like the writer of this story, is when it turns to shite.
not that common no one on here knew it.
I respectfully disagree. There are other comments on this article which suggest otherwise.
Never heard of it. Thanks for the info. Everydays a school day.
Derp wrote:
The Miltary have form for borrowing words and sayings from other countries such as:
Dhobi and Dhobi dust
Buckshee
Ulu
Chogie waller.
Doolally
Blighty
Jodhpur
Cummerbund
khaki
Gucci
Pretty sure, others can add to the list
Oh and heres something I found out the other week SCRAN comes from the Royal Navy who in order to combat scuvy used to issue Sailors with Sultanas Currants Raisins And Nuts
And never forget Sanger!
Char wallah – bloke with tea urn.
So many holes in UK forces, where to start. If Challenger 3 is on time/budget & working, then order an extra 52, to make 200. All need an active protection system.
More Boxer variants. Oerlikon Skyranger for anti drone work. Restart the Skystreak upgrade. The Cockerill 105mm variant would also be good, as would a Brimstone launching variant.
Order 1000 6.8×51 rifles/LMG for experience, before NATO adoption.
More helicopters/drones for AAC.
A SAM system that can cope with Iskander type ballistic missiles, SAMP-T, THAAD, or similar.
No chance for more Challengers, production line closed long ago.
The option is M1 since Congress is keeping them in production against US Army wishes…for jobs and votes…
M1 has to survive to the New MBT platform, breaks cover which the UK is signed upto.
issue is where do you use MBTs if you dont control the skies. as proven in the Ukraine. no air cover, turns you MBTs into cookers.
Remember that Challenger 3 is a deep upgrade/overhaul of existing Challenger 2 & that the British Army got 386 C2. So there should be enough old hulls about to get to 200 C3, if we wanted to.
We are only currently upgrading 148 out of 227 C2 hulls, so there are clearly enough hulls to get to your 200 figure.
It’s okay. I got your point, even if it went over Alex’s head like one of those fancy drones.
NAO office does say that of the 447 built there are 300 in MBT format, rest either retired or modified to other formats. so the potential for further numbers is there.
There are supposedly 227 CR2 on the books , timescale would extend by a couple of years before extra were completed !
NAO states there are 300 in MBT format, there was a number in Canada on that training range, but how many are in service could be the 227 with the rest in maintenance.
I don’t think the m1 Abrams has been built new for a while. There are however a lot originally built sitting around.
How many Challenger 2 chassis in the current motor pool of the 447 built some have been converted to other platforms. NAO reports states that there are 300 in Chally 2 format. so while no new chassis, potential to upgrade more is there. the 150 is the budget limit.
CR3 is converted from CR2 – we bought 386 CR2s, so there will be a few more (more than 148) available for conversion to CR3 if we wanted to do that.
I doubt those chassis are available in any usable form.
You probably can count of a total number of 227 upgradable.
Will say there are holes in every Armed Forces,
Budgets spent on kit they may never be required or fired again.
Falklands led to a design change.
Afghanistan led to a design change.
and yet now we are left with tech and kit that is no use in Europe.
cannot buy a 1000s bullets just to store them in case.
7
What was with the ‘Insh’Allah’ in that article by the way.
Every combat vehicle should have anti drone capability. Boxer if they get guns or machine guns should be able to fire 80-90º with fire control ready for anti drone..
Tracking tech for drones is limited, but anti drone signal defence is at a advance stage.
but its one of those kept on the low, ie Russia while has the biggest and the fastest of every developed weapon in its box.
Yet cannot defend its tanks from a $100000 drone. or its capital ships from missiles.
so chances of them developing a attack drone that carries more than a lolly stick
Here we go again,
an expert who served NO WHERE. and never went Tank to Tank.
But likes to spunk the UK TAXPAYERS money. stick to advising the SNP on its Army and its Ferries.
arseclown
I tend to agree with most of the artical in the we need more of every thing, But there was a big piece that is missing in that most of Nato dose not fight like the Russians who have (or did have) more heavy armour than you an point a stick at so do not mind if a few get zapped on the way through to the objective.
We (the UK and most of Nato) have to protect our heavy assets with infantry flanking the advancing armour so that pushes out any anti armour that the enemy have out to 700 to 1000m reducing the effectiveness of the anti armour.
Also we normally operate under air cover which will take out anything identified by the infantry flanking screen.
The Russians are now realising that the WW2 tactics that they have been operating with since 1945 do not work any more with modern weapons. But if defeated I believe the Russians will come back with lessons learnt and will be far more formidable.
So I do agree with the statement that we have far too few tanks and AFVs but the way we operate then they will last longer.
So a just buy more of everything solution that isn’t.
Even if we upgraded all 227 Chally 2, that’s still 3 regiments. 4 if we cut to 44 per. Should we buy 1k M1A2SEPV3 so we can have a armoured corps on the Vistula?
Yes, the British Army has issues. So does most other militaries in Europe. Most European nations couldn’t absorb these types of losses.
There does need to be a good look at the equipment and renewing it but we shouldn’t have a BAOR just because. Leave that to other nations, we should focus on support and lighter, rapid and hard hitting units.
Agreed. We have a highly trained and focussed military culture. Agility and total understanding of the battle space tied to clear objectives. Invest in other important areas – upgrading wearable kit, logistics and swift power projection, co-operation with key allies, training operations (as in Ukraine and the Baltics) and not least polish up our strong military traditions; others admire then even if the M.S.M. (I’m looking at you B.B.C. etc.) don’t!
I’m so bored of endless ‘we don’t have enough army’ articles to defend ourselves. We won’t be defending ourselves. We will be defending each other. Start with how NATO would defend against a Russian invasion and then what role we can best play as part of that…across all the domains. Cos Russia isn’t going to act in one domain if it invades s neighbour. See black sea. And within the land component, consider where we can add most value alongside land powers like Poland, Germany (and in time Finland).
Seems we are making progress with British Army’s Robotic Platoon Vehicle (RPV) program. Today-
Silent Sentinel to equip British Army UGVs with electro-optical systems (janes.com)
The Turkish leopards 2s in question were all A4s which Turkey purchased from Germany in 2005. The thing is Germany built the A4s between 1985 and 1992 and thus remains a tank designed during the 70s, built predominately during the 80s they didn’t start designing the Challenger 2 until 1986 with it coming into service until 1998. The Leopard 2 was designed for fast moving mobile warfare (as was the standard German SOP during the 70s and 80s) so the vast majority of armour was placed at the front, with much weaker sides and rear. The British instead went for protection and gun over speed and so has much better armour. Now the Germans recognised the weakness of the Leopard 2 sides and rear and started upgrading theirs (as did other users) to A5, (1995) A6 (2001) and A7 (ongoing)
The Turks had a plan to upgrade their Leopard 2A4s to the Leopard 2A6 standard (Aka Leopard 2 NG) but that plan was dropped in which to concentrate on the new Turkish Altay tank . However after the dismal showing of the Leopard 2 in Syria , the Turks purchased a load of single shot Ukrainian Zaslon Active Protection to fit on all their tanks which they then claimed was a Turkish design which they named ‘Akkor Pulat, they also admitted their mistake and started upgrading all their Leopard 2 tanks to an improved NG (next generation) standard and simplified things by slapping the turret of their new Altay tank onto the Leopard 2 chassis.
Personally I feel that there are many reasons why the Leopard 2 did so badly across Syria. These are:
1) Culling of the Military by the Ruling Islamist party (which resulted in poor leadership such as taking up position exposed on a Hill top with no sentries and then after a couple of ATM strikes, not only did nobody pop smoke, they did absolutely nothing
2) Corruption,
3) Arrogance (Refused to take note of how the Rebels had been using ATMs across Syria)
4) Collusion (The Turks actively supported ISIS and when they moved into ISIS held al-Bab 2016 presumed that ISIS would move to one side , huge mistake
The Challenger 2 whilst still vulnerable to ATMs would offer more opposition to them than the Turkish Leopard 2 A4, then add the better training of British Soldiers , who wouldn’t harbour up on the top of a Hill leaving vehicles exposed for miles around and who would have reacted on the first strike of an ATM
A spot on assessment Farouk…. Again, conscription means you loose….
No tank survives a Kornet from the side if it hit the right parts. Without APS it is irrelevant except in borderline cases which tank it is.
Why not? if the order was to control a top of a hill and there would not be enough troops to build a defence position and control all slopes the only alternative is to put a tank there.
Alex wrote:
Actually whilst the odds favour the Kornet (or any third gen ATM) there are many examples of armour surviving hits not only from the Kornet but other ATMs.
a) Israel Armour (Have a butchers at their Heavy APCs such as the Achzarit,Nakadon and Nagmachon which are the only APCs allowed to openily patrol the Gaza border and are designed to take missile hits on mass.
b) Turkish M60T which were upgraded by Israel
But yes you are correct in stating if it hits the right spot. That said the mainstay for all ATM is a chemical warhead, Chobham armour is most effective against chemical warheads.
Alex wrote:
Which is why i alluded to poor leadership due to culling. Have another look at that video those tanks are silhoetted (the least they could have done is gone hull down, (which is why Tanks are fitted for dozer blades ) so not a good move, not only that but they should have placed sentries out, then after the first strike, nobody reacted, watch that ACV 15 on roving picket, it went around like a chicken with no head not only that, but the driver reversed course and went back the way he came , no popping smoke (from anybody) no reaction as in arms fire in the direction of the ATGM firings (which a sentry would have picked up)
Sorry that isnt how I was taught to knock out a harbour area, or the placing of sentries with arcs of fire.
Also, like Infantry: Tanks are not supposed to remain stationary.
Exactly. The Israelis got a shock in 1973 when their tanks were hit by Russian anti tank missiles. The tank crews themselves came up with kicking up lots of dust/sand whenever they came near potential Egyptian missile positions. Immediately cut Israeli tank losses, yet we still see Russian tanks driving around Ukraine in open sight & are surprised when they get hit.
Engineers would dig a hole just leaving turret exposed not whole tank like Turkey !
Engineers would dig a hole and tank could just drive forward to pop up and fire when op sees target unlike Turkey parking them in full view !
British Army must be the only army that troops don’t complain about officers stupidity…
What if there are no engineers? what if there are no infantry or it is in 24h to arrive and you have 3 tanks to control a hill with almost no physical obstacles?
Alex wrote:
Oh , how little you know, when a one pip wonder graces your unit, he may feel he is top dog, but he lower than low, he will have been taught (reinforced when he taps the boards in front of the CO, OC, RSM,SSM, to allow those who know what they are doing, to do as they are already doing and just sit back and watch the show and learn. It is not unknown for young officers to be taught a very sharp lesson in who, what, why and when for displaying acts of stupidity .
After they gain their second pip, people start listening to them, on receipt of their 3rd, people take note. By which time they have matured and spent enough time in charge of men to know what is correct and what isn’t. Yes we face our share of reckless officers, but the day to day running of things is carried out by SNCOs, who delegate down to JNCOs, which means a full screw or a lance jack is afforded the responsibility to run things, its why the British, Americans and Aussies can adapt so well in the field, and the lack of SNCOs and JNCOs in the Russian miltary is one of the reasons why they are doing so poorly across the Ukraine.
Alex wrote:
You adapt,
You hide behind the hill.
*edit* This is a lot like saying “You have a section of Infantry and have to hold a hill with no resupply and the enemy has Artillery registered on the Hill what do you do?”
Ah, Wellington
Front end equipment allows digger blade to fit any CR2 so it would be silly not to use this option !
Its not about the Tank surviving, its about the crew Surviving. can replace a MBT, crews take years.
👍
Not particu8larily tank related but the following is a string of posts I put up in the “Russia lost 1/3” thread earlier. I have yet to see it in our press or TV but it is very important so I thought it would get a wider audience here. Surrender would have a potentially huge effect.
JohninMK
6 hours ago
This is not confirmed but I thought it worth putting here, even though it will probably generate the normal string of abuse from the usual suspects. If correct and depending on what, if anything, is agreed, today could be perhaps the most significant yet. I will update this.
One of the ‘significant’ areas mentioned was a tunnel that was used to get fresh water.
MOSCOW, May 16 – RIA Novosti. The Russian military are negotiating with the Ukrainian side on the territory of Azovstal, said Alexander Khodakovsky, commander of the Vostok Brigade of the DPR.
“Now a lively stage of negotiations is underway … As it turned out, the group went out to represent the interests of a larger group that continues to be at Azovstal. Several of our servicemen, officers, along with the group that came out of the tunnel with white flags, went back with this as a group into the tunnel to conduct the negotiation process. We do not yet know the results of the negotiation process at the moment,” Khodakovsky said on the air of the Rossiya 1 channel.
He specified that a group of nine Ukrainian soldiers came out of one of the tunnels leading to the territory of Azovstal. “After we blocked areas that were significant for the enemy, the enemy found himself in a hopeless situation,” Khodakovsky added.
https://ria.ru/20220516/azovstal-1788773820.html
First update from the DNR
Commander of DNR’s Vostok unit claims an agreement has been reached with a group of Azovstal defenders about their surrender. He assumes they are going to release their wounded. Another source says this is expected to happen at 1730 local time.
Apparently, the evacuation of the wounded is being prepared. A group of parliamentarians from the enemy’s side, who left in the morning with white flags, and a counter group from our side determined the route for the removal of the wounded the enemy began clearing the rubble, we are observing and do not interfere.
Evacuation from the Mariupol stronghold agreed, Russian military said.
Russian and allied troops blocking the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol will allow injured Ukrainian soldiers to leave the stronghold and go to hospital in Novoazovsk, the Russian defense ministry said on Monday. The evacuation is planned for later on Monday after an agreement was reached, the military said.
According to the Russian ministry, it has suspended hostilities at Azovstal to allow the humanitarian evacuation later in the day.
Novoazovsk is a small city about 40km east of Mariupol, which is controlled by the militia force of the Donetsk People’s Republic. The evacuated troops will apparently remain in the custody of the breakaway republic, which Russia recognized as an independent state before launching its attack against Ukraine in late February.
https://www.rt.com/russia/555560-injured-troops-evacuation-azovstal/
The latest, its not clear if these are wounded or not.
“If everything goes according to plan, 255 soldiers will surrender till its dark at Azovstal today”
The wounded coming out of Azovstal today and over the next few days is a symptom of potential Russian success. The following is a quote, translated by Yandex, from official Azov Twitter that could well be an indication that they, having done their bit, are surrendering.
Azov
@Polk_asov
· 2h
‼ The defenders of Mariupol carried out the order, despite all the difficulties, for 82 days they delayed the superior enemy forces on themselves and allowed the Ukrainian army to regroup, train more personnel and receive a large number of weapons from partner countries.
Wrong thread pal, a wider audience? what for, your weak Putins propoganda. Behave yourself and get a grip, the Russkies are an embaressing mess and no amount of bullshit by you will change that to the world wide audience.
If and it’s a very big if this is true these soldiers are hero’s of Ukraine. Held up and defended against the invaders for months. These men have held that steel plant under extreme pressure and for a long time without resupply. I don’t think it’s much of a victory for Russia getting wounded out. Well done for eventually going by the international standards/law of warfare.
What happened to putins instructions to seal the plant and stop attacking it. That lasted all of 10 minutes. Some chain of command that showed.
There are a lot of wounded in the plant that are unable to fight so they are just consuming what supplies are left. It will appear in the main stream media when it happens. They will not report on what the Russian media says is happening without independent verification as Russian media is controlled by government.
The immediate lesson from the Ukraine war is not limited to tanks. For the first time we have seen the widescale use of ground launched PGMs. Whilst Russian tanks are less well protected than Western or Israeli MBTs, they are better protected than other NATO afvs..IFVs and APCs with protection against shell fragments and 12.5mm ammunition will stand no chance against current and future missiles. Whilst APS like Trophy might provide some protection, it is hard to see how conventional armoured formations can survive against an enemy liberally equipped with PGMs.
The counter to modern AAMs has been stealth. Similar reductions in radar and infra red signatures feature in many modern warship designs, whilst passive armour has all but disappeared.
Only in land equipment has more and more armour been seen as the answer. The Ch3 may reach 80 tons, the Ajax (if it ever enters service is 40 tons. But if neither can resist top attack missiles, is another approach necessary? This would emphasise stealth, passive and active, lighter weight and high mobility.
“This will make the Royal Armoured Corps (RAC) a “use once only” force, because in anything approaching a peer-on-peer conflict it will be expended quickly.”
So in such a crisis when likely the US & Germany will be utilising all the tank production they can acheive, where would we get replacement tanks???? -Let alone quickly.
‘where would we get replacement tanks’ ? id say Oman and Jordan ,plus one or two in the hands of Museums and Private Collectors.
I do not think we are looking like for like. The Russians are not deploying active protection on their tanks, they have not got effective air cover and they are not well supported by infantry. Nor are the Russian tanks very situational aware. The Challenger 3 is not Ukrainian war tank….
we must learn lessons but not the wrong ones. It would be better to keep all our Challenger 2s and upgrade all of them to Challenger 3 with active protection.
The Challenger 2 fleet should clearly be upgraded to 3 standard and three Regiments retained.
Obviously that means keeping 83,000 troops and refreshing artillery and all the related equipment and vehicles needed to deploy, fight and sustain Armoured battle groups.
The UK mood music is very quiet, I think we will keep to our current SDSR plan, but expect to see a big increase in smart weapons and further investment in and increased UAV, loyal Wingmen etc.
yep I tend to agree with that – the silence as they say is deafening.
Whether that decision is correct of course will remain to be seen.
So its either spend BILLIONS more on even more tanks that MAY extend their battlefield life by another week or so in a conflicted like Ukraines ( definitive european war) . Or accept that Armour has no so many limitations they are not worth having?? MBTs cannot manouvre in Forests or Mountains or Cities. That leaves them the Steppes / Plains and open rural areas. That is where the drones, smart munitions and tank hunting parties are waiting, if the armour does not have TOTAL airsuperiority then MBTs are so vulnerable that they are not worth bothing with. One grunt in a ditch with an N-Law or Gustav costing under £20K each can take out even the best modern armour. These small anti armour drones and top attacking munitions are rewriting accepted military doctrinal thinking.
Yes & no. You still have not won your war until you put your tanks on the lawn of the enemies presidential palace. Armed helicopters like Apache are great for hitting enemy armour/positions, but cannot be airborne 24/7. The reality, is you need a mix of everything (tanks, drones, artillery, PGMs, helos, air defence, mobile infantry, logistics, intel) or your operation can unravel.
Still disagree to a point, APCs and AFVs from Mech Inf using mainly wheeled are more than enough to hold the turf. MBTs only go into cities to die.
That’s not actually true, MBT’s can work in cities, but it requires exceptional co-ordination between their supporting infantry and the Tanks.
Chally 2s in London. ????? 75% of the Bridges are to weak 85% of the streets are to narrow, and they will fail the ULEZ zone 100%. but would get blow to bugger queuing on the M25
Then explain this one in Chelsea. 😂
Totally disagree. You need to read up on how the Israeli Army fight and use MBTs in urban conflicts.
If you had say a US Stryker Brigade, equipped with the fire support versions armed with the autoloaded 105mm, The 25/30mm turreted IFV, the new multirole SPAAG version that also can be fitted with a pair of Javelins or Spike ATGMs, along with a platoon of mortar carriers facing a company of Merkava 4s. The Merkavas should wipe the floor, even if the Stryker Brigade has a 3 to 1 advantage. If both sides have comparable optics so saw each other at the same time. The 120mm guns of the Merkavas will outrange the fire support’s 105. Besides the 105’s APFSDS does not have the punch to defeat a Merkava frontally. The Trophy APS can deal with any ATGMs. The IFVs 25/30mm guns may get a lucky shot on the optics, once they get into range. but must get to the rear of the vehicle to do any real damage. If the Stryker mortar carriers are using 120mm laser guided shells. These may knock out a Merkava, as Trophy is unlikely to knock out the shell, unless it gets a lucky hit on the laser seeker and fuse. Besides the Merkavas would not be static, which will make them harder to hit by artillery. One hit from a 120mm multipurpose HEAT fired from a Merkava will destroy any Stryker, whilst the Merkava can take a good number of hits and still stay in the fight.
Change this to a UK “Strike Brigade” equipped with Boxer. There won’t be a fire support vehicle, even if the Boxer with the Cockerill 120 is available. There isn’t even a rumour that the Army are looking at it. There will likely be an autocannon armed IFV, hopefully with a CTAS 40. Perhaps even an air defence vehicle based on the Stormer. Will there be a mortar carrier, possibly but it won’t use a mortar gun like the AMOS, but be the cheaper manually fired version. There may be a Brimstone equipped Boxer based on evidence of how well Brimstone does in Ukraine.
If they are faced with a Russian style battalion tactical group (BTG). Who are generally made up with 1 MBT company, three mechanized infantry companies, two anti-tank companies, 2 to 3 artillery companies and two air defence batteries. Again if each force sees each other at the same time, the odds are stacked against the Boxers. Even if they manage to deploy Javelin teams quickly enough. The MBTs should be able to hit the Boxers as the troops are being deployed. Even when deployed their location will be fairly well known, so they will be facing a lot of artillery incoming, whilst being out in the open. Meanwhile it will take over 5 minutes to call up a friendly artillery, by which time it may be too late. If they have Apaches on call, these may make a difference, but they may get swatted by the BTGs mobile air defences. If they make a run for it, they will still be under fire from the MBTs, but also from the mechanized infantry’s IFVs (BTR/BMP).
For the Boxers and the troops that they are carrying, to stand any chance in this kind of a fight, they need to be paired with Challenger. If it is Challenger 3 even better, as it has not only the passive armour, but hopefully Trophy fitted as well. Where the passive armour “should” be able to take a few hits from 125mm APFSDS, whilst Trophy deals with ATGMs. But more significantly the armour allows the tank to stay in the fight and lash out with its 120mm gun.
Some observations.
Israel is not fighting a peer. Assuming their tactics would apply in a peer conflict is unwise.
You are assuming that the only way to fight is with one armoured group directly fighting another. Why would US/UK forces fight this way in your hypothetical against Merkavas? Especially if they know they are likely to be over-matched?
You come closest to how a confrontation might play out with the use of laser guided mortar munitions, but then just seem to ignore it? You make no mention of laser guided artillery. You assume moving vehicles will avoid artillery, when we already have video of laser guided munitions taking out moving armoured vehicles.
You also seem to assume that APS has a sustainable defensive capability. That is unlikely to be the case beyond the defeat of the first ATGM, because the shotgun blast of shrapnel from that first round is very likely to destroy the sensors. A second ATGM on the same axis of engagement may well succeed. That all assumes the sensors haven’t already been taken out with an anti-material rifle.
And then there is air power, not just platforms with Brimstone, Spear or similar weapons and their future derivatives, but also loitering munitions. All launched well away from the immediate fight.
This will all be in the context of future ISTAR, fusing air and space based surveillance and target acquisition. This will change how the battlespace is perceived from the lowliest soldier on up, almost certainly in the 2030’s, if not earlier. This will then drive low observable and high mobility vehicles in order to avoid being acquired under pervasive surveillance, or to minimize the impact when that happens by challenging the kill chain.
Truly, I don’t understand the desire to tackle threats head on that so often comes up on this site. What the Ukrainians seem to have demonstrated, perhaps more than anything else so far, is how to fight smarter rather than harder. Why would we do any different?
I decided to us a US based Stryker Brigade, as that is what the Army has alluded that our brigade should look and operate like. Except the US has put the funding into making the concept work, rather than bastardizing what we will have. I decided to use Merkava 4s, as they have the operational and combat experience of using their tanks fitted with the Trophy APS. Will a match between these two forces ever happen, no, it was just to get a point across.
The assumption was for a worse case scenario, where two opposing forces stumble across each other. It could be even worse, if the Boxer brigade stumbled into a pre-planned ambush. Will it happen on a future battlefield, possibly!
The premise is that even if Boxer is backed up by Ajax. They will not be able to stand up to a Russian based BTG, they simply do not have the firepower. One of the reasons is that Russian BTGs have their own organic artillery, which would be about 12 2S19 Msta 152mm self-propelled guns, these have both a direct and in-direct fire capability. Therefore, if your dismounted infantry are setting up Javelin, opening the hatches in the mortar carriers etc. It makes them very vulnerable to artillery fire, especially if their location is known. This is one of the reasons why I discounted laser guided mortar shells. To home in on to the target, the target needs to be laser designated throughout the engagement. When arty is splashing around you, it will take a very brave person to stay out in the open and not find cover, whilst designating a target.
When Trophy first came into service, it had one ready “round” and one reload per turret. Giving the Merkava, four rounds for protection. These had to be reloaded manually outside the tank. A few years ago, Leonardo DRS (UK based) when into partnership with Trophy’s manufacturer Rafael. They modified the system to be 40% lighter, but also changed the single reload to a multiple magazine. Neither company will state how many reloads the magazine has, funny old thing! But they do say the system will cope with multiple simultaneous attacks.
RPG30 is an unguided anti-tank grenade launcher. That uses a precursor round that is fired just before the main round. It is designed as sacrificial bait, so that a system such as Trophy, does not have time to reload and fire at the closely following main round. Israel were developing a backup APS to Trophy, but that has not been developed any further, as Rafael have said the new turrets can cope with these types of attack. So far there have been no published accounts of RPG30 being used against Merkavas. Until then we will have to wait and see who wins!
Trophy uses two types of sensor for detecting threats. It has an infrared missile approach warning system (MAWS), similar to the ones used on aircraft, plus an active X-band radar. The MAWS uses optical sensors, so would be vulnerable to sniper fire. The radar is an active electronically scanned array (AESA), made up of four fixed panels arranged to give the system an all round and hemispherical view. Sniper fire may knock out a few transmitter-receiver modules (TRMs) on a panel, but it wont stop the panel from working. Worse for the sniper, the radar can detect bullets in flight, so can back track to the shooter’s location. Trophy can align the turret and main gun to the shooter’s location.
The reason why you need to tackle problems from head on, is because you cannot win a battle or a war defensively, at some point you have to attack! So far, Ukraine has in the main been defensive. They are now going on the offensive in some areas. But to do that successfully you need mass of personnel and materiel. Otherwise you will not sustain the offensive momentum as you cannot replace casualties or lost equipment.
I do harken on about Israel quite a bit. The reason for this is that they regularly do offensive incursions in the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon. Regardless of your political or religious points of view and the reasons why Israel do what they do. Israel have still yet to loose a Merkava 4 fitted with APS, when fighting an overtly defensive militia/army armed with the latest Russian, Chinese and Iranian ATGMs. When fighting in the open or within urban areas.
Totally agree that future ISTAR capabilities will in some part determine the outcome of future conflicts. But that all depends if you have a solid combined arms force that can use the information correctly. But also be capable of operating when your ISTAR has been compromised.
I would not compare NATO airpower with any other Country’s. It is one area that NATO definitely has a significant advantage in. However, that is based on the premise that we can win not only air superiority but also air dominance over an area. NATO’s ISTAR capabilities are a major force multiplier, which if any opponent had any sense would be a priority target on day 0 of a conflict. This includes both air and space based assets. The main weakness we have in the UK in particular is ground based air defences, especially where it comes to countering cruise and short ranged ballistic missiles. Sky Sabre will address some of the issues. But the number we are purchasing a too few. Meaning our infrastructure, logistics and manufacturing capabilities will be vulnerable to these types of attacks for the foreseeable future.
“The assumption was for a worse case scenario, where two opposing forces stumble across each other.” I can see small groups or individual vehicles doing so, I don’t see large formations stumbling into each other, that’s just a huge failure of ISTAR that stretches credibility IMV; so I don’t buy the resultant fight scenario. Surveillance capability will be increasing significantly, which I commented on further down here.
Note that I specified anti-material sniper fire. Using that with explosive/incendiary rounds is likely to do more than just take out a few TRMs on the radar. Not least because it won’t penetrate the tank armour, so all the energy and shrapnel is going to distribute through the radar panel.
The RPG-30 is an anti-APS option but the first smaller round may be too small to generate a fragmentation field that would take out the sensors. In any event a good APS will detect and counter both missiles. It would probably be more effective if the first round used air burst specifically to destroy the sensors, rather than just two discreet missiles. You might find this Twitter thread of interest where APS limitations are discussed, the number of defensive rounds isn’t the issue – https://twitter.com/JonHawkes275/status/1454014003638898688
We will have to see how Ukraine tackles the future Eastern battles. So far they seem to have mostly re-taken ground by making it untenable for the Russian’s to continue holding it, interdicting supply routes to deny food, fuel, ammunition and reinforcements. Using their own and western artillery for accurate laser targeted rounds, to out-match Russian dumb artillery, may achieve most of what they need, without having to commit large numbers of armour and infantry to direct assault. If the US can ramp weapons like Switchblade 600 then that will really challenge Russian rear echelons. The TL;DR is the decreasing availability of Russian smart weapons may prove a major determining factor on progress of the war.
While there is debate on which platforms and which heavy weapons, I agree the Army do need modernised VSHORAD. Interesting developments such as JLTV Hybrid with 115kW of exportable power serve as an example of how directed energy might form part of the solution (along with other tactical hybrid benefits), plus Martlet, along with perhaps CT40 airburst on a larger vehicle.
Nice one Stuart, summed it up pretty well.
There is now a decent list of lessons learned from the Ukraine War:
Well that’s 13 I’ve rattled off, I’m sure there are more?
I’m glad he writes the article. If every time something dies on the battlefield we said that’s it over nothing would be left to fight with.
I wondered if the upgrade to challenger should be scaled back. Is it worth it? Does it need a new gun or can the rifled one do enough. What has to be changed to keep it working etc etc.
I don’t know much about the systems and what needs replaced. Would the money be better being put into a new tank design or is that an even bigger waste? Apart integrating APS into the vehicle, are there any other big leaps in capabilities that challenger 2 is missing out on.
Again I’m not an expert so these are genuine questions.
There are a number of items on Challenger 2 that need replacing, some are:
The Gunners and Commander sights.
The suspension
The gearbox final drives.
The engine
The main armament.
Starting with the main gun. The main reason we are going with the Rheinmetall 120mm smoothbore is predominantly down to cost, but to a similar extent capability. We in the UK no longer manufacture the 120mm HESH ammunition, which has to be bought from Belgium. BAe still manufacture the APFSDS depleted Uranium CHARM 3 rounds. But the problem is the scale of the manufacturing cost. I think Jorden are one of the few countries left that use 120mm rifled ammunition.
Therefore, the cost per round/shell is quite high. Especially when you compare it to the 120mm smoothbore ammunition that conforms to the NATO standard. Plus you have at least 6 Western manufacturers developing smoothbore ammunition, such as the US manufacturer’s Northrop Grumman M1147 Advanced Multi-Purpose (AMP) shell. This is being issued to the Abrams fleet and has been designed to replace 4 separate rounds/shells, i.e. the M830 high explosive anti-tank (HEAT), M803A1 multi-purpose HEAT, M1028 canister and the M908 high explosive obstacle reduction shell. So it’s a multi-programmable shell that can be used against light armour, personnel, bunkers and for clearing obstacles. One of its key features is making a large hole for breaches. Its proximity fuse allows it to be used against helicopters and other slow moving aircraft.
It also means that when you have run out of ammunition, you can go to any NATO store for replenishment.
The other main issue is due to the two part ammunition and how it affects the dart length of armour piercing fin stabilised discarding sabot (APFSDS) (Fin) rounds. The two part ammunition’s propellent charge comes in a solid-ish bag, where the Fin round sits in front of. Therefore you have to use a proportion of the barrel to support longer Fin rounds, rather than the chamber. This places a limit on the length of the dart. According to what has been published about the CHARM 3 Fin round that Challenger uses, some quote its rolled homogenous steel (RHS) penetration as low as 500mm. When compared to the Abram’s M829-A3 which is supposed to be able to penetrate 800mm of RHS. The M829 dart is near 800mm long. About 2/3 the length is held within the cartridge. The older CHARM 1 dart was just over 500mm long. CHARM 3’s specification are still classified.
By using a one piece cartridge, it also means there is more propellent to generate a higher muzzle velocity. For example, the CHARM 1 had a muzzle velocity of 1534 m/s when fired from a 55 length calibre gun, whereas the M829-A3 has 1,555 m/s when fired from a 44 length calibre gun.
The dart length also has a determining factor on how well it can defeat explosive reactive armour (ERA) and spaced armour. When ERA explodes, it is designed to shatter the dart. However, if there is sufficient force behind the dart and its of a certain length, the remnants of the dart will still penetrate the passive armour behind the ERA. Similarly with spaced armour, the length of the dart will determine how it performs after passing through the primary outer armour. If the gap between the primary and secondary armour is greater than the dart length, then the dart will yaw and hit the secondary armour obliquely and thereby not penetrate as far.
The Rheinmetall Rh120/L55 can use any NATO standardized ammunition. Which includes the US M829 series. Germany using the DM53 and now the DM73. This uses a Tungsten based dart rather than a Uranium one. Even though the M829 is fired from a shorter barrel. It achieves the same or greater penetration as the DM53/73 when fired from a longer barrel. German choose the Tungsten based dart over Uranium due to political reasons. However, the UK has no such qualms. We can combine the longer barrel with the better performing Uranium dart, to achieve even better penetration values.
When the additional applique theatre entry armour is added the tank weighs just over 70t. This places a huge strain on the running gear and engine, in particular the gearbox final drives. The hydropneumatic suspension is still a step change in capability in delivering a smooth ride compared to the Leopard and Abrams. But the added weight does cause fatigue on the suspension arms. Then engine is underpowered for the tanks weight. The overall horsepower is not the issue, it is the lower torque value. For a tank, high rpm horsepower is worthless. As you need a high torque figure to accelerate the tank’s mass. There are plans afoot to change the diesel injection to a common rail injection system, which can boost horsepower from 1200 to over 1400. But it doesn’t significantly boost torque. There is a saying: “you can’t beat cubes in a drag race!” Which for tanks is also true. The Leopard MTU is 47.7L, whereas the Challenger’s Perkins is only 26.1L.
Mind you, the Challenger is pretty quick when it does not have the additional armour fitted. See the link below.
Drag race against Challenger 2 and Leclerc in Estonia [Read Description] – Bing video
A Challenger without the additional armour weighs about 65t, the Leclerc is the newer one which weighs about 58t and its powered by a 1500hp engine.
One of the other items that needs upgrading are the gunners and commander’s sights. Both of these at the moment can do hunter killer roles. But the gunners thermal sight (TOGS) is fitted on the gun. This means its stabilised by the gun and not independently. So when the gun elevates for long rang targets so does the thermal sight. Which can mean the target can be lost until the gunner resets the gun after firing. The gunner’s day sight is stabilised independently of the gun. Both the commander’s and gunner’s sights are over 20 years old. Thermal imaging has come on a long way since they were introduced.
Interesting post, perhaps then, should we be looking at changing the way the army organises itself and move away from separate battalions in Inf/Tank/Recce/AD etc and go down the Combined Arms Battalion route, especially for our Armoured formations?
Not really my area as you know, but seems to me like a step in the right direction. Expect the traditionalists in the army would probably disagree with it, but would surely make the force more survivable and relevant given what we are seeing in the UKR!
At least we have some practical rather than purely theoretical peer on peer conflict to utilise in an assessment of future requirements., Full respect to the national identity of Ukraine and the political insanity of Russia.
Even so, the data is clearly not complete. Part 2, i.e. regaining the occupied Donbas region and Kherson oblast, will it is hoped firmly establish what equipment, or refinements of such, are required to effectively invade, rather than substantially defend, territory.
It is obvious that Active Protection Systems for tanks are a must. We should upgrade all our Challenger 3s with them and consider fitting them to our APCs/IFVs. We have seen how vulnerable armour is to modern ATGWs.
One good thing has emerged from the war it has shown how vulnerable Russian kit is to Western weapons. A lesson that will not be lost on the Russians… good luck with Finland, I think they would make short work of a Russian attack.
Let’s try something novel. We have decide to have two armoured Brigades and that has only taken us, to use a technical term, “twenty years of faffing about”. Now we need to look at how our two Brigades can be best utilized and what equipment they should have within them.
Its refreshing to see in the comments section following this article, more nuanced and deliberative observations around armoured operations and particularly with respect to MBTs. Certainly a change from the usual “we need mooaaarrrr tanks” clarion call that seems to be the go to staple for many.
I would add one further point. Rather than look at the past, or even the present situation in Ukraine, with its strong showing by UAS, we should be looking at MBT’s and heavy armour in the context of what the battlespace will look like in the future, i.e. sometime in the 2030’s, if not earlier.
We should expect that both we (US, UK, NATO and allies) and tier one potential adversaries such as China … and yes Russia, will deploy far more pervasive space based ISTAR assets in the future. By pervasive I mean 24/7/365, using networks of satellites in LEO for visual band, IR, RF, and radar surveillance; similar LEO networks to those used for Starlink and OneWeb services. Output from these space assets will be combined with air surveillance from manned platforms down to tactical handheld UAVs and potentially provided down to section level. The goal will be what the US describe as an All Sensors, All Shooters, All the Time capability.
The relevant programs from the US side are Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), including the USAF subset Airborne Battle Management System (ABMS) and using the output from the Space Development Agency (SDA) programs. UK space programs include ISTARI, with MINERVA and PROMETHEUS 2 concepts.
Whatever we decide for our land vehicle platforms and associated armaments will need to survive and thrive in this environment.
https://www.sda.mil/
Pointless article, light on referenced facts and heavy on “I think” opinions without any justification. Add in the general ‘we need to buy more of everything now’ and general wishing for a defence budget the size of America’s it reads more like a comment than an actual researched article. Considering the author’s background, a very disappointing and unfulfilling read.
Well said Col Crawford, Sir.
If only the problem was one of a shortage of MBT’s. GB could pull the stops out and build another armoured vehicle production facility to churn them out. Unfortunately the problems are far worse and run much deeper in Whitehall.
The primary duty of any government is defence of the state. Sadly, HM Gov have been permitted to shirk that duty for more than 50 years.
Why does the UK need lots of tanks? For the past few decades, large numbers of tanks were deemed necessary to counter a possible Russian conventional attack into Europe.
Once the current Ukraine war is over, will Russia be able to rebuild it’s forces and launch a similar large scale conventional strike against Europe any time in the foreseeable future?
It’s much more likely that this is the beginning of the end of the Russian Federation. Once Putin is gone, the now strained Russian Federation will very likely split up into several smaller parts, with much squabbling and in-fighting over land and resources.
Some newly independent republics will ally to the east, possibly falling within China’s influence. Finland will be reunited (Karelia), Kalingrad may return to Germany. Many of the remaining members of the Russian Federation may try to stick together as a smaller, poorer, and weaker successor Russian Federation, however it’s likely that several of the larger, richer, and more sensible members will declare independence over the coming years.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/breakup-will-russia-splinter-over-war-ukraine-201728
https://www.eurointegration.com.ua/eng/news/2022/04/7/7137384/
Our next big conflict will be with China. How many tanks do we need for that?
Cameron,
I don’t think we need a lot of tanks, such as the 900 (Chieftains) we once had, but neither should we have so few as to be unable to field a proper armoured division.
Our tanks have not just faced off against the Soviets in central Europein a deterrence posture, they have been involved in warfighting against Iraq (twice), and executed a show of force/deterrent role in Bosnia, Kosovo (both in counterpoint to militant regimes in the Balkans) and now in Estonia (in counterpoint to Russia). They have had great utility.
Where next for our tanks? I would not rule out oppposing Russian agression again, but doubt we will throw armour against the Chinese army.
It seems like you think we need very few tanks in future – well, you hav egot your wish – we will only have 2 armoured regiments fielding 112 tanks between them.
Bit of an odd knee jerk article. Why would the author propose a “quick fix” buy of German or US MBTs and then a few paragraphs later admit that western tanks may all be vulnerable to the new AT weapons proliferating on the battlefield? Surely the first thing to do is to work out if armour has reached its “battleship moment”. Then the British Army can attempt to sort itself out. Sadly, I do not have great confidence in this given that a lot of the current armour obsolescence and quantity issues are due to the procurement and development mistakes made by the the army.
That last sentence says it all really, spot on Adrian..
Adrian, I like your phrase “battleship moment” and I thought I would jot down the reasons why battleships became obsolete:
-sheer cost of building, manning and maintaining a significant number, for countries not willing to make that investment
-resources required to protect the singular asset with escorts
-dominance taken by another type albeit held in lesser quantity (aircraft carrier)
-capability could be provided by cheaper means
-could be defeated by low-cost counter-systems.
I don’t see that the tank is yet at its battleship moment, as not all the above are in play.
How about tank/afv designs which incorporate thicker top armour as well as counter measures. May lose speed, but I’m not sure speed over land has been at all decisive in Ukraine. Survivability, particularly in urban environments, seems more important.
Also instead of M1A1s or Leopard 2’s wouldn’t be better off buying Israeli Merkava Vs? They seem much more optimised for the modern battlefield, come with Trophy APS as standard, as well as on board 60mm mortars for smoke rounds and for suppressing infantry, and they can carry an infantry team of their own. And they can fire ATGMs from on board launchers.
There are good arguments for and against MBTs. However, on-balance, if we decide that there is a need in the 21st Century for heavy armour, then why can’t the UK think strategically and re-kindle its heavy armour industry and not rely on the Germans or Americans. We were capable after all in the recent past of producing world-beating heavy armour (e.g. CH2).
For MBTs – yes, as others have pointed out, use them as part of a fully integrated mixed force. For example I would suggest a revolutionary new MBT design that incorporates its own “tethered” multi-rotor Brimstone-armed drone for long-endurance, all-weather situational awareness and aerial kills . Sort of a Super-Challenger 4.
The world’s threats and battlefields have changed. Do we bite the bullet and step forward, or keep our heads down (e.g. Ireland), or just spend $billions on foreign designed and made products whilst we all queue for jobs in McDonald’s.
The JV company RBSL (Rheinmetall/BAE) is producing CR3 in the UK, admittedly an upgraded CR2, but it amounts to re-manufacturing, rather than just bolting a lot of new stuff on an existing vehicle.
Your last para – It wasn’t long ago that our country could produce just about any item of military inventory – we are not that far off that baseline now – what military kit can we no longer actually make? Why would we therefore need to buy in anything and everything that’s foreign?
…errr Rheinmetall = German. Lockheed Martin = American. Thales = French. MBDA = basically French. Leonardo = Italian. etc. etc.
Its both design and manufacture in key strategic areas that the UK lacks. Also so many of our smaller defence companies have also been taken over by overseas owners such that UK capability has been hollowed out.
We can no longer come up with our own indigenous heavy armour including MBTs. As per another article, we are having to buy French aircraft even for RAF VIP transport. Just in terms of profits/money flowing out of the country, and lack then of high value defence jobs, I would argue we need to think strategically and reverse this trend. …let alone if push comes to shove and we have to rely on the above countries in a crises.
Albert, you missed out BAE = British.
I used to work for Thales in Crawley – I considered myself to be a British PM working in the UK; my designer colleagues were generating designs, ideas and IP that was British, even though they worked for a French-headquarted company.
Is a Lotus a British car? I like to think it is even though the parent company was Malaysian but is now Chinese.
GDUK is a British company – it is making Ajax.
If BAE design the tank after CR3, it will be a British tank, without question.
Hi Graham. yes BAe = British but a bit of a monopoly and lone survivor. Yes I have also worked for various defence companies but back in the day when they were “British.” My point that I am trying to make is that we/the Public may think that a company is British, especially if parts are assembled here, but in reality often those companies are foreign owned and I question the sense of that for critical strategic items. An obvious example also of this mis-understanding in civilian industry is Jaguar Land Rover who are actually Indian.
True. Very few ‘British’ companies are British-owned. But does that matter? We seem to be sanguine that the last fighter jet designed and built by a British company was the Harrier – and delighted that we are assembling bits of the F-35 for Boeing, because at least we have some British jobs in fast jet manufacture.
Lessons learned from Ukraine regarding tank warfare, will indeed be learnt by the MOD/Defence procurement bean counters.
No need to ‘shell’ out money for expensive tank upgrades for a while. Sit on (not in) Ajax and Boxer for a while, and save money for a few years. Great Success!
Isn’t the message that the Russian tanks came to grief because they were not upgraded so as to shrug off and deal with modern ant-tank weapons (and there were other factors too, of course).
I was commenting from the real world perspective, where the UK Gov saves money, by stalling defence ‘projects’.