Let's talk about tanks

 

There have been lots of interesting developments surrounding tanks and their battlefield use since the start of the Ukraine war.  Several of them have been highlighted by developments in Israel over the past couple of weeks.  Also, there's been an unusual development straight out of World War II history that has me scratching my head.

First, here's a "lessons learned" video about tank warfare in Ukraine over the past couple of years.  There are some conclusions that may surprise veterans used to more "traditional" armored warfare.

Following what has doubtless been very intensive analysis of battlefield "lessons learned", the US Army has overhauled its plans for future tanks.

The U.S. Army is scrapping its current upgrade plans for the Abrams main battle tank and pursuing a more significant modernization effort to increase its mobility and survivability on the battlefield, the service announced in a statement Wednesday.

The Army will end its M1A2 System Enhancement Package version 4 program, and instead develop the M1E3 Abrams focused on challenges the tank is likely to face on the battlefield of 2040 and beyond, the service said. The service was supposed to receive the M1A2 SEPv4 version this past spring.

The SEPv4 will not go into production as planned, Army Under Secretary Gabe Camarillo told Defense News in a Sept. 6 interview at the Defense News Conference in Arlington, Virginia. “We’re essentially going to invest those resources into the [research and] development on this new upgraded Abrams,” he said. “[I]t’s really threat-based, it’s everything that we’re seeing right now, even recently in Ukraine in terms of a native active protection system, lighter weight, more survivability, and of course reduced logistical burdens as well for the Army.”

The Abrams tank “can no longer grow its capabilities without adding weight, and we need to reduce its logistical footprint,” Maj. Gen. Glenn Dean, the Army’s program executive officer for ground combat systems, said in the statement. “The war in Ukraine has highlighted a critical need for integrated protections for soldiers, built from within instead of adding on.”

. . .

The M1E3 is expected to reach initial operational capability in the early 2030s, the Army said. “As longer-range threats increase in both lethality and survivability, the M1E3 Abrams will be able to defeat those threats,” the statement said.

There's more at the link.

I'm willing to bet that the next-generation tank's armor will have to be radically redistributed and upgraded to counter the threat of unmanned aerial vehicles, a.k.a. drones, on the modern battlefield.  Russia and Ukraine have lost hundreds, if not thousands of vehicles of all types to relatively unsophisticated drones that dive on them from above.  To exchange a drone costing up to a couple of hundred thousand dollars (for the most sophisticated models - some are much cheaper) for a main battle tank costing anywhere from $2-$5 million dollars is a very good bargain for the defense, and a lousy one for the attacker.

Add to that danger top-attack anti-tank missiles, artillery-launched submunitions such as the German SMArt 155, the US DPICM, BAT and SADARM and the Franco-Swedish BONUS, plus extended-range and very accurate carrier munitions, and no current-generation tank can consider itself secure on the battlefield.  It's going to take something much better protected to survive in a modern combat environment, and probably smaller, faster and lighter as well, to move around more quickly and get from one point of concealment to another before an enemy can identify and target it.

Another aspect of tank deployment is that they'll have to become much lighter and easier to move.  Main battle tanks have been getting heavier and heavier over the years as armor and equipment has been added on to them.  For example, the US M1 Abrams started out in the 1970's weighing 61.4 short tons.  The latest version, the SEP v3, comes in at 73.6 short tons, an increase of almost 20% over the original model.  As noted in the article cited above, the next-generation US main battle tank will have to be significantly lighter if it's to use current bridges and roads.  Anything heavier risks breaking them, and on a muddy battlefield such as those encountered during Ukraine's rasputitsa season tanks may find rapid movement impossible (something both sides learned during World War II:  Ukraine and Russia have recently had to re-learn that lesson to their cost).

There are other factors.  For example, the M1 Abrams' outstanding mobility (despite its weight) is derived from its very powerful gas turbine engine.  Unfortunately, this consumes a lot more fuel than a traditional diesel engine, and produces so much heat that its exhaust (and sometimes the metal over the tank's engine compartment) may be detected by infra-red sensors aboard satellites in orbit.  That doesn't do much to conceal the movement of an armored unit, and helps enemies to target it.  A longer range with a lighter overall weight will require a much more economical power plant, and concealment against modern sensors will require a much smaller heat (and possibly sound) signature.

Finally, the Ukraine war has thrown up a military mystery that's puzzling tank experts.  It seems a Panzer IV, the most widely used tank of the German forces during World War II, has appeared on a battlefield there.

I suspect someone had a sense of humor, as well as an innovative mind, to use that old relic as a battlefield decoy.  If only it could talk!  Where and when was it first deployed?  How was it damaged?  Where has it been since then, and how did it find its way back to the front, so to speak?  I doubt we'll ever know the full story, but it's intriguing.

Peter