Military Ground Vehicles of Your Nation Mk X

[HMS Vanguard]

Should the german-french cooperative fail (which I doubt seeing as Nexter and Krauss-Maffei-Wegmann are involved) Germany would drop the idea of a completely new vehicle altogether and instead try to churn out the next big upgrade-package for the Leopard 2; even if it would mean massively reduced performance compared to something entirely new. Theyre not going to buy US MBTs, thats how those guys actually work.

Europrojects don't fail because the individual companies are incompetent, they fail for political reasons. The cooperation tends to make each company worth less than the sum of its parts, and this is worst when both feel they have nothing to learn from the other and plenty to teach, and when both sides are in it for prestige reasons.

I agree that simply continuing to refurbish tanks designed in the 1970s is the most likely outcome.

edit: France is also facing the same reality of Britain, lack of obvious need for a tank combined with an existing park that is about 15-20 years newer than that of Germany.

[Connori Pilgrims]

Should the german-french cooperative fail (which I doubt seeing as Nexter and Krauss-Maffei-Wegmann are involved) Germany would drop the idea of a completely new vehicle altogether and instead try to churn out the next big upgrade-package for the Leopard 2; even if it would mean massively reduced performance compared to something entirely new. Theyre not going to buy US MBTs, thats how those guys actually work.

Europrojects don't fail because the individual companies are incompetent, they fail for political reasons. The cooperation tends to make each company worth less than the sum of its parts, and this is worst when both feel they have nothing to learn from the other and plenty to teach, and when both sides are in it for prestige reasons.

I agree that simply continuing to refurbish tanks designed in the 1970s is the most likely outcome.

Well like the gimmick in the title says, no hope.

Wasn't Nexter bought out by KMW last year? French-German Cooperation is literally just German, with additional French money.

There's no hope for European land defense.

They should just go and be extinct already. Or convert to Islam. Or accept Putin as their lord and savior.

[Allanea]

[Fordorsia]

(Image)

The Middle East has reached WWII tech level

[Gallia-]

That's all a bit tangential to the points you were making, though. There isn't a lot of difference between any of these tanks if you include arbitrary upgrade potential, and that's going to be the case for any successor tank too. The real question being asked today is whether there's any purpose for tanks for countries that don't have pre-positioned land forces, rather than how to radically improve them with design changes (not at all obvious).

TBF, a tank is still highly useful even if you aren't expecting to fight loads of other tanks or whatever, and may even more useful in low intensity conflict on a per vehicle basis where the anti-tank threat is low and the small arms threat is high, so I suspect that the reason for not wanting tanks is to avoid paying for them more than any actual lack of military need. There is probably a substantial difference in maintenance costs between a 30-40 ton vehicle and a >70 ton vehicle from track wear alone.

I'd imagine things like the mythical adage that "tanks are bad in close terrain/cities/insurgencies" is probably a strong motivator in that direction, too.

VHR JTF would be wishing it had tanks whether it's fighting a pillbox or the 4th Guards Tank Division, regardless if it's in Lincolnshire or Lithuania.

It's not so much lack of obvious need (there is plainly a need that is evident from both OIF and OEF) but lack of obvious funding sources. Western democracies are having trouble paying the most basic bills in the current demographic transition, Anglos are not huge war spenders to begin with, and neither of that's going to get better.

If a new tank design were radically different to the old ones for some reason, it isn't likely going to come from Germany, which operates about the same number of tanks as the UK (232 vs 227), both being too small to justify the costs. Either it would be bought in from the US, or we spin the big wheel with another pan-Euro megaproject. My guess is that the British MoD will ultimately decide to retire tanks without replacement. The Germans will probably buy American, assuming they haven't remilitarised by that time. But I rather suspect both countries are more likely to fight insurgencies on their own territory than conventional land wars with Russia in the next 50 years.

America is unlikely to make a new tank for many decades. It will continue riding the inertia of its ~7,000 Abrams tanks for years, and either buy what Germany makes, or modify the Abrams in perpetuity. In a few decades (i.e. the gestation period for a new German tank) it's also unlikely that there will be many surplus M1s left for sale, since they're being constantly cannibalized by the US Army, and any left over would be in need of expensive refurbishments that America probably won't subsidize for foreign sales.

The USA is too smitten by moronic air-mechanization and light-medium armor worship to build heavy tanks, and the Army's state owned R&D is too small to make it competent at anything else. The next US tank might be a Leopard 3 or a Super!Abrams.

The real option here seems to be German or nothing. TBF I suspect that Germany is very serious about re-arming too, especially if Russia keeps making random land grabs, which can only be a good thing for everyone west of the Narva.

[The Akasha Colony]

Europrojects don't fail because the individual companies are incompetent, they fail for political reasons. The cooperation tends to make each company worth less than the sum of its parts, and this is worst when both feel they have nothing to learn from the other and plenty to teach, and when both sides are in it for prestige reasons.

I agree that simply continuing to refurbish tanks designed in the 1970s is the most likely outcome.

edit: France is also facing the same reality of Britain, lack of obvious need for a tank combined with an existing park that is about 15-20 years newer than that of Germany.

Germany has sufficient political motivation to look at developing new tanks purely from an industrial perspective, regardless of the number actually expected to be operated by the Bundeswehr. They're basically kings of the export market for Western tanks with the US as a distant second and it's a major employer and source of international leverage. Any new German or Franco-German tank would basically secure the export market for decades and that is undoubtedly an enticing prospect both for the German government (which gets domestic manufacturing jobs) and private industry (which gets to boost profits). Unlike France or Britain at the moment, they have sufficient industrial experience and capability to build the entire thing in-house, too.

A smart Germany would try to get France onboard for the money but be prepared to go it alone if necessary. And this is probably what the Germans are imagining they might have to end up doing.

[Fordorsia]

Generally, engine-dimensions are not a limiting factor.

What do you mean?

reploop because I want to be better

[HMS Vanguard]

Europrojects don't fail because the individual companies are incompetent, they fail for political reasons. The cooperation tends to make each company worth less than the sum of its parts, and this is worst when both feel they have nothing to learn from the other and plenty to teach, and when both sides are in it for prestige reasons.

I agree that simply continuing to refurbish tanks designed in the 1970s is the most likely outcome.

edit: France is also facing the same reality of Britain, lack of obvious need for a tank combined with an existing park that is about 15-20 years newer than that of Germany.

Germany has sufficient political motivation to look at developing new tanks purely from an industrial perspective, regardless of the number actually expected to be operated by the Bundeswehr. They're basically kings of the export market for Western tanks with the US as a distant second and it's a major employer and source of international leverage. Any new German or Franco-German tank would basically secure the export market for decades and that is undoubtedly an enticing prospect both for the German government (which gets domestic manufacturing jobs) and private industry (which gets to boost profits). Unlike France or Britain at the moment, they have sufficient industrial experience and capability to build the entire thing in-house, too.

A smart Germany would try to get France onboard for the money but be prepared to go it alone if necessary. And this is probably what the Germans are imagining they might have to end up doing.

It's none of those things. The vast majority of Leopard 2s in service with other countries were built for the Bundeswehr and sold at a loss as a means of waste disposal. Leopard 2 did not sell so widely because it is a particularly good tank (which it isn't) but because it is "good enough" and was generally the cheapest bid submitted by a politically reliable country. Germany does not so much have a tank industry as an industry producing after-market upgrade kits for tanks. This has no particular carry-over to designing a new tank and if units have to be sold at a profit the price will rise considerably - into line with international competition. There's absolutely no reason to expect a new tank to be as much of an export success as a fire sale of first line tanks a major power (something which I think has no other precedent in history). So then you're left with the German government which could be expected to order a new German tank, but there is the same problem as the British: no real scale. If Germany rebuilds the army it had in 1989 that might change but talk today is more along the lines of raising defence spending from 1% of GDP to 1.1% of GDP.

[HMS Vanguard]

That's all a bit tangential to the points you were making, though. There isn't a lot of difference between any of these tanks if you include arbitrary upgrade potential, and that's going to be the case for any successor tank too. The real question being asked today is whether there's any purpose for tanks for countries that don't have pre-positioned land forces, rather than how to radically improve them with design changes (not at all obvious).

TBF, a tank is still highly useful even if you aren't expecting to fight loads of other tanks or whatever, and may even more useful in low intensity conflict on a per vehicle basis where the anti-tank threat is low and the small arms threat is high, so I suspect that the reason for not wanting tanks is to avoid paying for them more than any actual lack of military need. There is probably a substantial difference in maintenance costs between a 30-40 ton vehicle and a >70 ton vehicle from track wear alone.

I'd imagine things like the mythical adage that "tanks are bad in close terrain/cities/insurgencies" is probably a strong motivator in that direction, too.

VHR JTF would be wishing it had tanks whether it's fighting a pillbox or the 4th Guards Tank Division, regardless if it's in Lincolnshire or Lithuania.

It's not so much lack of obvious need (there is plainly a need that is evident from both OIF and OEF) but lack of obvious funding sources. Western democracies are having trouble paying the most basic bills in the current demographic transition, Anglos are not huge war spenders to begin with, and neither of that's going to get better.

Tanks are difficult to move, yet any future war seems like it will be fought in an unknown place and time. Focus on light and medium forces is not a result of weakness or stupidity but a rational response to a (POSSIBLY false, but you give no reason why) belief that strategic mobility is much more important than it used to be.

If a new tank design were radically different to the old ones for some reason, it isn't likely going to come from Germany, which operates about the same number of tanks as the UK (232 vs 227), both being too small to justify the costs. Either it would be bought in from the US, or we spin the big wheel with another pan-Euro megaproject. My guess is that the British MoD will ultimately decide to retire tanks without replacement. The Germans will probably buy American, assuming they haven't remilitarised by that time. But I rather suspect both countries are more likely to fight insurgencies on their own territory than conventional land wars with Russia in the next 50 years.

America is unlikely to make a new tank for many decades. It will continue riding the inertia of its ~7,000 Abrams tanks for years, and either buy what Germany makes, or modify the Abrams in perpetuity. In a few decades (i.e. the gestation period for a new German tank) it's also unlikely that there will be many surplus M1s left for sale, since they're being constantly cannibalized by the US Army, and any left over would be in need of expensive refurbishments that America probably won't subsidize for foreign sales.

The USA is too smitten by moronic air-mechanization and light-medium armor worship to build heavy tanks, and the Army's state owned R&D is too small to make it competent at anything else. The next US tank might be a Leopard 3 or a Super!Abrams.

The real option here seems to be German or nothing. TBF I suspect that Germany is very serious about re-arming too, especially if Russia keeps making random land grabs, which can only be a good thing for everyone west of the Narva.

I don't know why you are talking about a hypothetical new German tanks as a given, while ruling out the possibility of a hypothetical new American tank. If Germany did dump a lot of money into developing a new and radically superior (again, what would that look like exactly?) tank then, yes, there would be a case for the US buying it, but it seems more likely that neither country will develop a new tank in the near future and, if it eventually comes to be seen as a good idea, seems likely that the country with 10x greater scale will be leading the way.

[Gallia-]

TBF, a tank is still highly useful even if you aren't expecting to fight loads of other tanks or whatever, and may even more useful in low intensity conflict on a per vehicle basis where the anti-tank threat is low and the small arms threat is high, so I suspect that the reason for not wanting tanks is to avoid paying for them more than any actual lack of military need. There is probably a substantial difference in maintenance costs between a 30-40 ton vehicle and a >70 ton vehicle from track wear alone.

I'd imagine things like the mythical adage that "tanks are bad in close terrain/cities/insurgencies" is probably a strong motivator in that direction, too.

VHR JTF would be wishing it had tanks whether it's fighting a pillbox or the 4th Guards Tank Division, regardless if it's in Lincolnshire or Lithuania.

It's not so much lack of obvious need (there is plainly a need that is evident from both OIF and OEF) but lack of obvious funding sources. Western democracies are having trouble paying the most basic bills in the current demographic transition, Anglos are not huge war spenders to begin with, and neither of that's going to get better.

Tanks are difficult to move, yet any future war seems like it will be fought in an unknown place and time. Focus on light and medium forces is not a result of weakness or stupidity but a rational response to a (POSSIBLY false, but you give no reason why) belief that strategic mobility is much more important than it used to be.

There's no reason to believe that strategic mobility is very important, though. Or rather, there's no reason to believe that strategically mobile medium forces are inherently superior to tank/mechanized infantry troops or light infantry.

No one has lost a war, or deterred one, because they couldn't move a brigade or a division to a country in less than an arbitrary unit of time (Shinseki pegged a week for a division IIRC?). Any brigade light enough to be moved by airplane as fast as paratroopers will be too poorly armed and poorly protected to fight anything like a tank division anyway, unless it has a load of vaporware weapons and networking that don't appear to be possible to develop in a reasonable amount of time or cost, if it is even possible at all.

Cargo ships supplemented by heavy lift aircraft seems perfectly adequate for the task of expeditionary warfare. Mostly because all other attempts to make weapons that can meet the task of air-mechanization have either failed completely due to insurmountable technological problems (FCS) or are simply wholly inadequate for anything more than counter-insurgency/colonial policing (FRES and the German AFVs).

Focus on light and medium forces seems to be tied entirely to a belief that "big wars" have ended and the Western world will never need to fight another similarly competent army with tanks. Instead, it will be an endless series of Bosnias/Kosovos, OIFs, and Afghanistans. It might be true, it might not be true, but it's going to be pretty dangerous if it turns out to be wrong because it means the West will have lost the next big war.

The US Army, at least, hasn't entirely shifted focus to light-medium forces, mostly because it still has to fight in Korea. Neither has France, since it has set its boundaries in expeditionary warfare to a defined area (Northern Africa and Europe). The rest of NATO appears to follow the USA around the world, though, and because the USA has no idea what it's doing there's no real certainty in where the next war will be fought. The whole focus on expeditionary warfare and uncertainty seems fairly manufactured and mostly a result of schizophrenic foreign policy decisions. A rational response to irrational decision making is probably the most accurate description.

It seems more likely that there is a need for a two forms of armies: one strategically mobile, we can call this infantry, and one that is heavily armored, which we can call cavalry. They serve to compliment each others strengths and are equally necessary to win a war of any kind. The problem is that Western armies are starting to have to choose between one or the other due to lack of money, have possibly deluded themselves into believing they can invent tank-like light infantry that can be equally good as both, and lack the political capital to sell a full military to their legislatures. The closest historical analogy is the Interbellum, where light-medium armor troops were also discussed by various Allied and Axis armies, for the same reasons of cost, mobility, and lack of political capital.

America is unlikely to make a new tank for many decades. It will continue riding the inertia of its ~7,000 Abrams tanks for years, and either buy what Germany makes, or modify the Abrams in perpetuity. In a few decades (i.e. the gestation period for a new German tank) it's also unlikely that there will be many surplus M1s left for sale, since they're being constantly cannibalized by the US Army, and any left over would be in need of expensive refurbishments that America probably won't subsidize for foreign sales.

The USA is too smitten by moronic air-mechanization and light-medium armor worship to build heavy tanks, and the Army's state owned R&D is too small to make it competent at anything else. The next US tank might be a Leopard 3 or a Super!Abrams.

The real option here seems to be German or nothing. TBF I suspect that Germany is very serious about re-arming too, especially if Russia keeps making random land grabs, which can only be a good thing for everyone west of the Narva.

I don't know why you are talking about a hypothetical new German tanks as a given, while ruling out the possibility of a hypothetical new American tank. If Germany did dump a lot of money into developing a new and radically superior (again, what would that look like exactly?) tank then, yes, there would be a case for the US buying it, but it seems more likely that neither country will develop a new tank in the near future and, if it eventually comes to be seen as a good idea, seems likely that the country with 10x greater scale will be leading the way.

Both the British and German modernization projects (A-400M, FRES, and Boxer/Puma) resulted in far more success than the American one. There's no reason to believe that more resources will make an acquisition program more successful. It didn't help FCS, obviously, why would it help a hypothetical American tank? Acquisition programs seem to be helped more by a strong understanding and respect for technological risk and mitigating that risk rather than simply having loads of money. The US Army has had loads of money since the end of the Cold War, and it hasn't helped a lick because it has no understanding of what it's trying to do with that money, which is why Congress doesn't trust them to buy anything more than a refurbished Bradley now.

The USN and USAF escaped more or less unscathed by the privatization epidemic of the 1990s so their acquisition programs have been far more successful than the US Army's (Virginia and F-22 come to mind), and Germany appears to have been mostly preserved as well.

The Germans also seem quite intent on making a new tank sometime in the medium term, or at least their industry seems to believe it's up to the task. It is true it will not happen within a decade (if ever) and it is a fairly long term goal, but it's more than the United States has discussed which seems to be purchasing more Bradleys and refurbishing the Abrams to serve for another 50+ years.

I'm not sure what a "radically superior" tank entails, there's a lot you could do to make a radically superior tank that is already done to tanks today. The biggest help would probably simply be a new chassis incorporating an all-aspect armour layout and new suspension for growth potential. I'm also not sure why you seem to think the USA will be leading the tank development of the Western world when the last time it successfully acquired a new vehicle family was in 1999 with the Stryker, which was off-the-shelf sans its applique, which took several years to develop even then. It seems the only hope for NATO to get a new tank is Germany, since the USA isn't planning on any new tanks or IFVs for the next half century, while Germany already has two indigenous vehicle families (Puma and Boxer) in production.

I'd be more willing to trust the guys who have built at least four different vehicles (Puma, Boxer, Pzh 2000, Fennek) and two separate families of vehicles (Puma and Boxer) in the same amount of time it took the US Army to cancel three armored vehicle programs (Block III tank, XM2001/2002, and M8 Armored Gun System), build 5 prototype howitzers and cancel a whole family and wide modernization program (FCS), restart that program and subsequently cancel it (GCV), and barely manage to procure a cell phone operating system and a couple radios (Nett Warrior and JTRS). It seems that the USA has an endemic problem with complete failures of ground vehicle acquisition that isn't going to disappear any time soon, while the Germans seem to have some troubled programs that go overbudget and overtime, but partially deliver what was promised in the end. The Americans are even worse than the British at acquiring new weapons, which must be some kind of record.

I'd sooner believe a Challenger 3 is coming than the USA will be able to acquire a new armored vehicle that isn't a Bradley or Abrams with a new paintjob and cameras. I might be wrong but that belief has substantial precedent.

[Opplandia]

I hear you Gallia, lots of stuff has gone wrong on both sides of the big pond, thats for sure. However, to me it seems like the USA are mostly unable procure new ground vehicles, as they are setting focus on their navy, hence the new Carrier program theyve put up. Thats what they are good at, producing massive ships to dominate the seas.

[Laritaia]

I hear you Gallia, lots of stuff has gone wrong on both sides of the big pond, thats for sure. However, to me it seems like the USA are mostly unable procure new ground vehicles, as they are setting focus on their navy, hence the new Carrier program theyve put up. Thats what they are good at, producing massive ships to dominate the seas.

You obviously haven't been keeping up with what's been happening with the Ford program.

[Fordorsia]

I hear you Gallia, lots of stuff has gone wrong on both sides of the big pond, thats for sure. However, to me it seems like the USA are mostly unable procure new ground vehicles, as they are setting focus on their navy, hence the new Carrier program theyve put up. Thats what they are good at, producing massive ships to dominate the seas.

You obviously haven't been keeping up with what's been happening with the Ford program.

shh that's a secret

Now in Nurgle green

[Hurtful Thoughts]

You could make it shorter if you neglect to give any of the passengers standing-room, at all.

Right now is tall like school-bus, need only the yellow paint. Most protected short-bus of entire kindergarten class.

Generally, engine-dimensions are not a limiting factor.

Actually that's not really standing room. It's just got 70cm of ground clearance so it's still your average roof height inside it. From the ground to the roof is about 3m. Looking at it it looks like the passengers getting out the back is like getting out the back of a medium sized army truck, except they have a ramp too, so at least that wouldn't be an issue.

Generally, engine-dimensions are not a limiting factor.

What do you mean?

Oh. Also, sexeh green is sexeh.

And just that the pasengers tend to disctate larger mimimum dimensions (hieght, mostly) than pretty much any engine you can give it.

... No fitting a marine-diesel onto your APC just to prove me wrong.

[Fordorsia]

Horsepower > crew comfort

[Hurtful Thoughts]

Horsepower > crew comfort

Why do the personel need armor, again?

If speed is armor, then can't we make.. like, a bullet-land-train designed to penetrate enemy lines through sheer force of speed?

There was this idea... of an intercontenental digging-rocket... can we make one that moves faster than a speeding bullet?

[Fordorsia]

Horsepower > crew comfort

Why do the personel need armor, again?

If speed is armor, then can't we make.. like, a bullet-land-train designed to penetrate enemy lines through sheer force of speed?

There was this idea... of an intercontenental digging-rocket... can we make one that moves faster than a speeding bullet?

Not speed. POWER

If your APCs and IFVs and APCIVFs don't use MBT engines, well you've already lost the war.

[Spirit of Hope]

Tanks are difficult to move, yet any future war seems like it will be fought in an unknown place and time. Focus on light and medium forces is not a result of weakness or stupidity but a rational response to a (POSSIBLY false, but you give no reason why) belief that strategic mobility is much more important than it used to be.

There's no reason to believe that strategic mobility is very important, though. Or rather, there's no reason to believe that strategically mobile medium forces are inherently superior to tank/mechanized infantry troops or light infantry.

No one has lost a war, or deterred one, because they couldn't move a brigade or a division to a country in less than an arbitrary unit of time (Shinseki pegged a week for a division IIRC?). Any brigade light enough to be moved by airplane as fast as paratroopers will be too poorly armed and poorly protected to fight anything like a tank division anyway, unless it has a load of vaporware weapons and networking that don't appear to be possible to develop in a reasonable amount of time or cost, if it is even possible at all.

Cargo ships supplemented by heavy lift aircraft seems perfectly adequate for the task of expeditionary warfare. Mostly because all other attempts to make weapons that can meet the task of air-mechanization have either failed completely due to insurmountable technological problems (FCS) or are simply wholly inadequate for anything more than counter-insurgency/colonial policing (FRES and the German AFVs).

Focus on light and medium forces seems to be tied entirely to a belief that "big wars" have ended and the Western world will never need to fight another similarly competent army with tanks. Instead, it will be an endless series of Bosnias/Kosovos, OIFs, and Afghanistans. It might be true, it might not be true, but it's going to be pretty dangerous if it turns out to be wrong because it means the West will have lost the next big war.

The US Army, at least, hasn't entirely shifted focus to light-medium forces, mostly because it still has to fight in Korea. Neither has France, since it has set its boundaries in expeditionary warfare to a defined area (Northern Africa and Europe). The rest of NATO appears to follow the USA around the world, though, and because the USA has no idea what it's doing there's no real certainty in where the next war will be fought. The whole focus on expeditionary warfare and uncertainty seems fairly manufactured and mostly a result of schizophrenic foreign policy decisions. A rational response to irrational decision making is probably the most accurate description.

It seems more likely that there is a need for a two forms of armies: one strategically mobile, we can call this infantry, and one that is heavily armored, which we can call cavalry. They serve to compliment each others strengths and are equally necessary to win a war of any kind. The problem is that Western armies are starting to have to choose between one or the other due to lack of money, have possibly deluded themselves into believing they can invent tank-like light infantry that can be equally good as both, and lack the political capital to sell a full military to their legislatures. The closest historical analogy is the Interbellum, where light-medium armor troops were also discussed by various Allied and Axis armies, for the same reasons of cost, mobility, and lack of political capital.

The current thinking is probably that any foe the US, and westerns allies, is likely to face can be punished through the use of their superior air forces, and that only light forces would really be needed to deal with whatever would remain. Or something along those lines.

In other words: A light vehicle doesn't have to be able to deal with an equally advanced heavy vehicle, but rather a technologically inferior heavy vehicle while at the same time being able to rely on support elements that far outclass the adversaries.

The belief that big wars have ended probably ties back to the thinking that the only nations who can credibly pose a threat to the current order benefit more from it's existence than from it's destruction.

[Gallia-]

I hear you Gallia, lots of stuff has gone wrong on both sides of the big pond, thats for sure. However, to me it seems like the USA are mostly unable procure new ground vehicles, as they are setting focus on their navy, hence the new Carrier program theyve put up. Thats what they are good at, producing massive ships to dominate the seas.

Actually it's a fairly even split between the USAF and USN, with the majority of R&D going to the USAF obviously, and the US Army spending about a third what the other branches spent.

The US Navy is barely able to acquire new surface ships.

Its only completely successful acquisition program was the Virginia, which is a good thing, because Virginia is arguably the most important acquisition program for the Navy. Ford is a distant second, along with stuff like San Antonio, Zumwalt (which collapsed like Seawolf), Burke Flight III (which will possibly never appear, something it shares with Block III and Half Life 3), and the A-12 debacle.

The USAF is current kings of acquisition success in the US military, which isn't saying much because they've only bought F-22, F-35, B-2, and a refueling tanker. Currently F-35 is the most successful American acquisition program, on par with Virginia, while the US Army can't even be trusted to acquire a single handgat because of mind blowing incompetence.

Germany is a paradise of success while FRES has had some minor stumbling blocks in comparison to the majestic, terminal failure that is FCS.

The current thinking is probably that any foe the US, and westerns allies, is likely to face can be punished through the use of their superior air forces, and that only light forces would really be needed to deal with whatever would remain. Or something along those lines.

No.

It's because they expected to have loads of PGMs that don't exist which would blow up all the Iranian/Iraqi tanks of the grim future. The thinking went something like:

Troops will get to wars in days-weeks instead of weeks-months.
They will be mechanized in 10-15 ultralight vehicles.
They won't need heavy armour because they'll be able to see all big threats (vehicles).
They will see all big threats because of UAVs and GMTI radars being able to look at the battlefield.
The UAVs and GMTI will work because they'll be networked to all the vehicles.
The troops will be able to ask The Network to shoot missiles, bombs, or guided shells at all the vehicles they can see.
What they can't see (RPGs and heavy machine guns) will be stopped by active protection systems and ultralight composite armours.
The troops will have enough firepower with their IFVs, assault guns, and OICWs to obliterate all RPG and machine gunners.
They will win because all this will be true.

It actually makes a boatload of sense because it's all logically true, but just because it's logical doesn't mean it's possible or practical. The reality is none of that ever happened.

They seem to have fucked up in either step one or step two, because troops are currently mounted in 30-40 ton vehicles (Puma/Boxer/Stryker/FRES), so they're approximately as strategically mobile as tanks. They still need tanks because the entire basis of the super air-mech troops (mega networking and PGMs) doesn't exist and probably won't exist for another couple of decades. The Western MIC also needs time as it grapples with the reality of technology not advancing as quickly as cheaply as it needed. In fact, technology has (as usual) gotten both more expensive and less capable, relatively speaking, as each year passes, and it will only get worse since Moore's Law is going to end quite sharpish come 4-5 years.

They're just guys in overly expensive CV90s/ASCODs/<insert multipurpose IFV chassis here> as it stands, or HMMWVs in the US Army's case.

It will change in the future as we see a return of the light-heavy dichotomy in NATO armies (with the possible exceptions of the British [UK survives or it doesn't], Canadians, Benelux, and Norway) with a consequent return of the primacy of the tank. The whole FRES/FCS/whatever stuff is just a sideshow that will be buried, because the vehicles themselves are essentially tank-like in that they weigh loads of tons and have tracks. It's not going to be hard to make a couple tanks that can keep up with the FRES or SPz Puma, but it'll require rewriting a few booklets.

[HMS Vanguard]

There's no reason to believe that strategic mobility is very important, though. Or rather, there's no reason to believe that strategically mobile medium forces are inherently superior to tank/mechanized infantry troops or light infantry.

Mobile medium forces are superior to light infantry for the same reason heavy forces are superior to medium forces - harder to hurt, inflict more damage, tactically faster.

There is a lot of reason to believe that strategic mobility has become more important in the past 25 years- 25 years ago it was obvious where the front line would be in the only war that would truly matter. Today, wars of most Western powers are discretionary, dispersed, and have rationales that rarely last more than 5 years or so. Even 5 years ago Obama mocked Romney for saying that Russia was a rival and 10 years ago Tony Blair was shaking hands with Colonel Gaddafi. Where are we going to be fighting in 5 or 10 years? Probably somewhere, but no one really knows.

No one has lost a war, or deterred one, because they couldn't move a brigade or a division to a country in less than an arbitrary unit of time (Shinseki pegged a week for a division IIRC?). Any brigade light enough to be moved by airplane as fast as paratroopers will be too poorly armed and poorly protected to fight anything like a tank division anyway, unless it has a load of vaporware weapons and networking that don't appear to be possible to develop in a reasonable amount of time or cost, if it is even possible at all.

I'm not going to get into a long argument with you about historical examples, but it's obvious that there is an advantage to being able to concentrate one's forces quickly to the decisive point. It's a basic principle of warfare.

Focus on light and medium forces seems to be tied entirely to a belief that "big wars" have ended and the Western world will never need to fight another similarly competent army with tanks. Instead, it will be an endless series of Bosnias/Kosovos, OIFs, and Afghanistans. It might be true, it might not be true, but it's going to be pretty dangerous if it turns out to be wrong because it means the West will have lost the next big war.

Sure but how could it not be true? Russia is no USSR, and you are not going to be invading the PRC (if you think you will or should, the correct strategy is actually to nuke them out the blue as soon as possible, while their counter-strike capability is still weak).

Both the British and German modernization projects (A-400M, FRES, and Boxer/Puma) resulted in far more success than the American one. There's no reason to believe that more resources will make an acquisition program more successful. It didn't help FCS, obviously, why would it help a hypothetical American tank? Acquisition programs seem to be helped more by a strong understanding and respect for technological risk and mitigating that risk rather than simply having loads of money. The US Army has had loads of money since the end of the Cold War, and it hasn't helped a lick because it has no understanding of what it's trying to do with that money, which is why Congress doesn't trust them to buy anything more than a refurbished Bradley now.

The USN and USAF escaped more or less unscathed by the privatization epidemic of the 1990s so their acquisition programs have been far more successful than the US Army's (Virginia and F-22 come to mind), and Germany appears to have been mostly preserved as well.

The Germans also seem quite intent on making a new tank sometime in the medium term, or at least their industry seems to believe it's up to the task. It is true it will not happen within a decade (if ever) and it is a fairly long term goal, but it's more than the United States has discussed which seems to be purchasing more Bradleys and refurbishing the Abrams to serve for another 50+ years.

I'm not sure what a "radically superior" tank entails, there's a lot you could do to make a radically superior tank that is already done to tanks today. The biggest help would probably simply be a new chassis incorporating an all-aspect armour layout and new suspension for growth potential. I'm also not sure why you seem to think the USA will be leading the tank development of the Western world when the last time it successfully acquired a new vehicle family was in 1999 with the Stryker, which was off-the-shelf sans its applique, which took several years to develop even then. It seems the only hope for NATO to get a new tank is Germany, since the USA isn't planning on any new tanks or IFVs for the next half century, while Germany already has two indigenous vehicle families (Puma and Boxer) in production.

I'd be more willing to trust the guys who have built at least four different vehicles (Puma, Boxer, Pzh 2000, Fennek) and two separate families of vehicles (Puma and Boxer) in the same amount of time it took the US Army to cancel three armored vehicle programs (Block III tank, XM2001/2002, and M8 Armored Gun System), build 5 prototype howitzers and cancel a whole family and wide modernization program (FCS), restart that program and subsequently cancel it (GCV), and barely manage to procure a cell phone operating system and a couple radios (Nett Warrior and JTRS). It seems that the USA has an endemic problem with complete failures of ground vehicle acquisition that isn't going to disappear any time soon, while the Germans seem to have some troubled programs that go overbudget and overtime, but partially deliver what was promised in the end. The Americans are even worse than the British at acquiring new weapons, which must be some kind of record.

I'd sooner believe a Challenger 3 is coming than the USA will be able to acquire a new armored vehicle that isn't a Bradley or Abrams with a new paintjob and cameras. I might be wrong but that belief has substantial precedent.

The US has started various programmes without clear goals - "go off and make a better (Whatever we have now)" - which have failed. And this is what you are proposing to do with tanks. When there is an obvious way to make them better, everyone will see it, but the richest and most experienced country will get there first, or at least not be asking for help and handing over its prestige.

[Gallia-]

There's no reason to believe that strategic mobility is very important, though. Or rather, there's no reason to believe that strategically mobile medium forces are inherently superior to tank/mechanized infantry troops or light infantry.

Mobile medium forces are superior to light infantry for the same reason heavy forces are superior to medium forces - harder to hurt, inflict more damage, tactically faster.

There is a lot of reason to believe that strategic mobility has become more important in the past 25 years- 25 years ago it was obvious where the front line would be in the only war that would truly matter. Today, wars of most Western powers are discretionary, dispersed, and have rationales that rarely last more than 5 years or so. Even 5 years ago Obama mocked Romney for saying that Russia was a rival and 10 years ago Tony Blair was shaking hands with Colonel Gaddafi. Where are we going to be fighting in 5 or 10 years? Probably somewhere, but no one really knows.

I'd say that's more a result of irrational foreign policy that is incapable of long-term planning, but of course the obvious counter-argument is that long-term planning is either extremely difficult or impossible.

It's all true, of course, but I don't see why that requires air-mechanization. Conventional fast sealift and airlift was adequate for all major wars the USA/NATO have fought in the past 25 years, which was dealt with by European NATO ground troops and the USAF. To me that implies that heavier transport aircraft, re-organization of existing tables of equipment, and faster cargo ships are necessary. It doesn't require re-inventing the wheel by putting 10-15 ton light tanks in giant tiltrotor aircraft to fly them across continents in a few hours.

It's just an identity crisis of the 1990s US Army being transmitted across all NATO, with expected applicability.

No one has lost a war, or deterred one, because they couldn't move a brigade or a division to a country in less than an arbitrary unit of time (Shinseki pegged a week for a division IIRC?). Any brigade light enough to be moved by airplane as fast as paratroopers will be too poorly armed and poorly protected to fight anything like a tank division anyway, unless it has a load of vaporware weapons and networking that don't appear to be possible to develop in a reasonable amount of time or cost, if it is even possible at all.

I'm not going to get into a long argument with you about historical examples, but it's obvious that there is an advantage to being able to concentrate one's forces quickly to the decisive point. It's a basic principle of warfare.

I don't disagree, but you're ignoring the specifics of the air-mechanization debate in NATO. In a very general sense (i.e. "concentration" and "mobility"), it is true, and there's nothing wrong with that. In the specific sense of things like FCS, it was deeply flawed, and it's been disproven in Afghanistan and Iraq for many years. Besides that, the technology simply doesn't exist and it doesn't look like it ever will.

Strategic mobility today means building transport aircraft with longer ranges and heavier cargoes, and fast sealift ships with higher cruise speeds and RO/RO capability. It also means asking neighbouring countries to a conflict zone for port of entry access and using railroads and road marches to position forces. This is much more sensible than trying to invent a contrived medium armor force that weighs 10-15 tons and buzzes around in super helicopters across continents.

50-60 ton tanks perfectly in that postulate, because cargo ships and railroads are necessary for fighting wars regardless of however many air-mechanization operations you do (which is, in the past 25 years, approximately zero). The need for tanks is obvious and the ability to move tanks is also obvious. Tanks have played a decisive role in every ground war the US has fought in for the past 25 years and every NATO conflict with the exception of Bosnia because the Serbs surrendered.

What isn't obvious is how to pay for these tanks without destroying the welfare state that most Westerners rely on, in the face of demographic transition and political structures that increasingly favour retirees over the future of the country.

Focus on light and medium forces seems to be tied entirely to a belief that "big wars" have ended and the Western world will never need to fight another similarly competent army with tanks. Instead, it will be an endless series of Bosnias/Kosovos, OIFs, and Afghanistans. It might be true, it might not be true, but it's going to be pretty dangerous if it turns out to be wrong because it means the West will have lost the next big war.

Sure but how could it not be true? Russia is no USSR, and you are not going to be invading the PRC (if you think you will or should, the correct strategy is actually to nuke them out the blue as soon as possible, while their counter-strike capability is still weak).

Because we don't know what wars will be fought in ten years, as you said. I'd consider Russia invading the Baltics to be a big war anyway. It's no WW3, but it's a Desert Storm, and light troops didn't win Desert Storm. The same goes for Korea, a potential Middle East conflict, etc.

In this case, big war means less "WW3" and more "mechanized armies fighting each other".

The Western World isn't ready for a mechanized war where the opponent can actually fight back, which is exactly what Russia can do.

Both the British and German modernization projects (A-400M, FRES, and Boxer/Puma) resulted in far more success than the American one. There's no reason to believe that more resources will make an acquisition program more successful. It didn't help FCS, obviously, why would it help a hypothetical American tank? Acquisition programs seem to be helped more by a strong understanding and respect for technological risk and mitigating that risk rather than simply having loads of money. The US Army has had loads of money since the end of the Cold War, and it hasn't helped a lick because it has no understanding of what it's trying to do with that money, which is why Congress doesn't trust them to buy anything more than a refurbished Bradley now.

The USN and USAF escaped more or less unscathed by the privatization epidemic of the 1990s so their acquisition programs have been far more successful than the US Army's (Virginia and F-22 come to mind), and Germany appears to have been mostly preserved as well.

The Germans also seem quite intent on making a new tank sometime in the medium term, or at least their industry seems to believe it's up to the task. It is true it will not happen within a decade (if ever) and it is a fairly long term goal, but it's more than the United States has discussed which seems to be purchasing more Bradleys and refurbishing the Abrams to serve for another 50+ years.

I'm not sure what a "radically superior" tank entails, there's a lot you could do to make a radically superior tank that is already done to tanks today. The biggest help would probably simply be a new chassis incorporating an all-aspect armour layout and new suspension for growth potential. I'm also not sure why you seem to think the USA will be leading the tank development of the Western world when the last time it successfully acquired a new vehicle family was in 1999 with the Stryker, which was off-the-shelf sans its applique, which took several years to develop even then. It seems the only hope for NATO to get a new tank is Germany, since the USA isn't planning on any new tanks or IFVs for the next half century, while Germany already has two indigenous vehicle families (Puma and Boxer) in production.

I'd be more willing to trust the guys who have built at least four different vehicles (Puma, Boxer, Pzh 2000, Fennek) and two separate families of vehicles (Puma and Boxer) in the same amount of time it took the US Army to cancel three armored vehicle programs (Block III tank, XM2001/2002, and M8 Armored Gun System), build 5 prototype howitzers and cancel a whole family and wide modernization program (FCS), restart that program and subsequently cancel it (GCV), and barely manage to procure a cell phone operating system and a couple radios (Nett Warrior and JTRS). It seems that the USA has an endemic problem with complete failures of ground vehicle acquisition that isn't going to disappear any time soon, while the Germans seem to have some troubled programs that go overbudget and overtime, but partially deliver what was promised in the end. The Americans are even worse than the British at acquiring new weapons, which must be some kind of record.

I'd sooner believe a Challenger 3 is coming than the USA will be able to acquire a new armored vehicle that isn't a Bradley or Abrams with a new paintjob and cameras. I might be wrong but that belief has substantial precedent.

The US has started various programmes without clear goals - "go off and make a better (Whatever we have now)" - which have failed. And this is what you are proposing to do with tanks. When there is an obvious way to make them better, everyone will see it, but the richest and most experienced country will get there first, or at least not be asking for help and handing over its prestige.

The US has started various programs with clearly stated goals: "go off and make an entirely new and revolutionary weapon/system that has no historical precedent", which have failed. Partially because the goals were too specific, partially because the requirements were too much for technology then (and now), and partially because of management incompetence. They can at least fix the latter, but until the US Army starts making reasonable requests of industry it will never have a new tank, or a new anything, and it doesn't seem like it will be asking reasonable things any time soon aside from incremental upgrades of existing platforms.

The obvious way is to build a new tank. I'm not sure why you're hung up on this, there's plenty of nuance in "big armoured gun with tracks", enough that something like Leopard 1 is worthless and Leopard 2 is approaching worthlessness. Enough that Challenger 2 grew 15 tons while Leopard 2 grew 5 tons for the same levels of protection gained for both. Everyone sees it. No one expects the US Army to do it, because the US Army can't even be trusted to buy a handgun. No one in the USA is going to spend money on a new tank, because the Budget Control Act caps military spending until 2021. It's impossible for the USA to start working on a fancy new tank and have it ready before 2040, but the Germans are already working on a new tank gun and will probably look into integrating it with Leopard 2 (something like KWS III) before they decide to double down on the "Leopard 3".

This has nothing to do with wealth or experience. Both the USA and Germany are equally experienced at the matter of making tanks, which is to say that by the time they both start deciding to work on a new tank they will have zero experience in the matter because all the tank engineers who worked on stuff like FCS and SPz Puma will have retired. Germany is actually better, because their modernization programs have born fruit in the form of Boxer and SPz Puma, unlike the incompetently managed US Army programs. You'd have had a point 15-20 years ago when the most recent German vehicle was the Pzh 2000 and America was cranking out new Bradley variants, M8 AGS, Crusader, and talking about buying a new wheeled vehicle (Stryker). The most successful recent US Army acquisition of a vehicle was buying LAV IIIs from Canada, though. Do you really expect an army that can't do anything besides buy an off-the-shelf vehicle for the past 25 years be able to acquire a totally new weapon, versus the army that has bought multiple indigenous vehicles over the same time period of all kinds and is planning on buying more?

The US industry is entirely capable of building a new tank, this is literally true, but the US Army is entirely incapable of managing a tank acquisition program without falling on its face. It's proved that multiple times within the past 10 years.

Germany is the most obvious candidate for a new NATO tank because its been able to build multiple AFVs for its army despite a shrinking budget. America is second, but a distant one, because it's unlikely it will trust its army to develop a new tank. Anyway, the USA has no qualms about acquiring foreign built systems as long as they're stamped with an American company's name. A joint US-German tank program is easily possible, which might help cure the US Army of some of its incompetence.

So yeah, it might lose "prestige" (what prestige? the prestige of failing to buy a new tank 5 times in a row for 25 years?) by asking the Germans to participate in a joint program but that's meaningless if it gets a modern piece of armour. It would be better to give its money to people who can do the job properly rather than attempt to solo it and fail again.

A joint US-German tank program would solve two problems: lack of orders and lack of experience, because the USA would fill up loads of orders (a couple thousand) and the Germans would have the experience in management needed to make it successful. They would both leverage each others industrial skills specifically American optronics and armour and German ordnance and automotive technology. Considering the current most successful defense program in the US military is a joint international project between a ridiculous number of countries, it makes perfect sense to do that.

Unlike mythical prestige, the USA is quite willing to participate in international development programs: It's buying a half British fighter jet, its tanks and IFVs are refurbished by a British defense contractor, it uses Belgian-built guns, its bought South African jeeps, it's buying tens of thousands of Austrian trucks, the US Army is replacing an American helicopter with a pan-European helicopter, it uses British howitzers, and it's even participated in a development program with the Germans to build a new tank in the past. It's hardly unprecedented, both in the past and today. I'm not sure why the USA would turn its back on useful allies willing to help it unless it intends to fully surrender to the Chinese and Russians or something.

[Purpelia]

Why would anyone in OTAN ever be fighting in a direct war against the Russians? What about all the atomic weapons?

[Fordorsia]

What about all the atomic weapons?

No one is dumb enough to use them

[Opplandia]

-snip-

Kid, you´re so wrong it causes me physical pain.

[Fordorsia]

-snip-

Kid, you´re so wrong it causes me physical pain.

> Been on NS for 12 years
> "Kid"