Military Ground Vehicles of Your Nation Mk X

[Austrasien]

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.

French co-operation is really irrelevant to the Leopard 2 successor aside from the political significance, they long abandoned their own capability to produce heavy vehicles and it's doubtful they can really add anything. They are unlikely to make a huge order either. All the major subcomponents will be essentially German. Maybe France will produce the FLIR or something.

Israeli technology will probably be more important than anything contributed by Europe outside of Germany. I wouldn't be surprised if the APS is somehow derived from the Iron Fist for starters.

The Leopard 2 successor will be the *only* option for NATO countries so it's export success is basically assured. Just like the F-35 there simply isn't going to be any meaningful competition. Producing them for the German Army, Eastern European armies and the "friendly" Arab states would be more than sufficient to make it a worthwhile project. And there is a not-insignificant chance much bigger fish like India, the United States and even Israel might be roped into the project eventually for want of alternatives.

[Purpelia]

This is beginning to sound like MBT-70.

[Hurtful Thoughts]

This is beginning to sound like MBT-70.

In which case it fails horribly and most people choose to buy surplus American and ex-soviet leftovers (and chinese knockoffs and/or illigitimate offspring) for the next 40 years.

And Germany will finally field the E100, just to spite the world.

[Fordorsia]

And Germany will finally field the E100, just to spite conquer the world.

[Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502]

In a fight between company-sized elements of M1A1 tanks and contemporary Soviet model T-72s(I assume T-72B), what are the advantages and disadvantages of both sides? Alternatively, what changes if you replace the T-72B with T-80Us?

[Hurtful Thoughts]

In a fight between company-sized elements of M1A1 tanks and contemporary Soviet model T-72s(I assume T-72B), what are the advantages and disadvantages of both sides? Alternatively, what changes if you replace the T-72B with T-80Us?

Assuming a dated selection of munitions and add-ons:

Both would perform well on a prepared defensive, although a slight edge to the M1A1 at finding hasty or using shodily made defenses (gun depression is still a thing here). The M1A1 will also be able to take a few more hits to the turret than an ERA panel before any serious armor degredation occurs. The crew is going to be cussing the Russians out after the first hit, though.

When carrying an advance (close-in brawl), the russian tanks will have about par odds in their first shot since the ERA helps them by quite a bit, assuming the crews are formidable to match in terms of target-acquisition, gunnery and manuver. But after trading a few rounds it's going to hinge a lot more on terrain and how they'll be using it. The if caught unprepared in explopitation of advance, T-72 is going to take longer to start, and the T-80 may not start at all.

At longer ranges... it generally hinges on how well their scouts can relay targets to their tanks... the Americans invested heavily in this since things that do shooting tend to get shot at until they are no longer threat. Scout vehicles tend to try not being noticed. Not aware if the Russians had similar ability to slave a platoon's guns to a scout-vehicle.

[HMS Vanguard]

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.

It's an identity crisis with some reason. Even if you think Iraq etc. were mistakes, or even irrational, they are what is there. If the US had not fought those wars, likely it would have just not fought at all. The same is going to be true in the near future.

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.

I think you are seeing this too much in terms of absolutes. There may not be many (or any?) purely air mechanised wars, but air mechanisation has been of steadily growing importance. That being the case, it makes sense to increase optimisation toward air mechanisation. To a great extent that means minimising weight. And if the enemy has few heavy tanks, if heavy tanks are losing importance as the main counter to enemy heavy tanks, and if situational awareness is displacing armour as the primary means of avoiding damage - all of which are in fact happening - the case for building heavy tanks is weakened. It might not have disappeared, but then nor in reality have heavy tanks - we still have plenty left over from the 1980-2000 period and will do for many decades to come.

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.

What possible justification is there for that statement? Russian forces are materially inferior to Western in pretty much every possible way. If they have any significant advantage, it's political tolerance for casualties, which is an attribute of civil society not the military.

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.

It's all a bit long and confused. The US has started programmes aimed at creating some revolution, which have failed to create that revolution, at least at an acceptable cost. Running such programmes actually makes some sense for a very rich power that is so far ahead of everyone else that it doesn't need to compete in cost efficiency - it keeps them ahead of the curve, or at least lets them know what the curve is. But for all your criticism of such programmes, you're proposing to do exactly the same thing with a new tank. The reality is that all of the low risk upgrades for tanks in recent years are electronics, which can be quite well retrofitted to existing vehicles; no need for new tanks. The export success of vehicles like the Leopard, which is actually one of the poorest tanks still in service in its base configuration, is proof of that.

[HMS Vanguard]

-snip-

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

It's Herr Doktor kid to you, Fritz!

[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.

French co-operation is really irrelevant to the Leopard 2 successor aside from the political significance, they long abandoned their own capability to produce heavy vehicles and it's doubtful they can really add anything. They are unlikely to make a huge order either. All the major subcomponents will be essentially German. Maybe France will produce the FLIR or something.

Leclerc production is more recent than Leopard 2 production! Germany has not actually built any complete Leopard 2s for many years. Even their own army is buying refurbished third hand Leopard 2s that they built for the Netherlands in the 80s, which were then sold on to Canada. The French have actually more experience building a modern drive train and armour, and the electronics outfit is likely comparable to the best refurbished Leopard 2s. The reality is that neither of these countries have a 'push button and go' capability to build tanks. But either of them, like pretty much any industrial power, can re-establish that capability at relatively low cost.

Israeli technology will probably be more important than anything contributed by Europe outside of Germany. I wouldn't be surprised if the APS is somehow derived from the Iron Fist for starters.

That may well be true. Israel, unlike Germany, has a lot of combat experience.

The Leopard 2 successor will be the *only* option for NATO countries so it's export success is basically assured. Just like the F-35 there simply isn't going to be any meaningful competition. Producing them for the German Army, Eastern European armies and the "friendly" Arab states would be more than sufficient to make it a worthwhile project. And there is a not-insignificant chance much bigger fish like India, the United States and even Israel might be roped into the project eventually for want of alternatives.

All the big NATO countries have the option to build in-house but most will take a third option: not replace their tanks.

[Laritaia]

Leclerc production is more recent than Leopard 2 production! Germany has not actually built any complete Leopard 2s for many years. Even their own army is buying refurbished third hand Leopard 2s that they built for the Netherlands in the 80s, which were then sold on to Canada. The French have actually more experience building a modern drive train and armour

Challenger 2 production is also more recent then Leopard 2 production , by your logic Britain is in a better position to produce a next generation MBT then Germany is.

and we all know that isn't true.

[HMS Vanguard]

Leclerc production is more recent than Leopard 2 production! Germany has not actually built any complete Leopard 2s for many years. Even their own army is buying refurbished third hand Leopard 2s that they built for the Netherlands in the 80s, which were then sold on to Canada. The French have actually more experience building a modern drive train and armour

Challenger 2 production is also more recent then Leopard 2 production , by your logic Britain is in a better position to produce a next generation MBT then Germany is.

and we all know that isn't true.

Britain isn't in a better position, because its component industries have atrophied, but that isn't the case for the French. The French are in a worse position politically than Germany to produce a next generation MBT simply because they already have one.

[Dostanuot Loj]

Challenger 2 production is also more recent then Leopard 2 production , by your logic Britain is in a better position to produce a next generation MBT then Germany is.

and we all know that isn't true.

Britain isn't in a better position, because its component industries have atrophied, but that isn't the case for the French. The French are in a worse position politically than Germany to produce a next generation MBT simply because they already have one.

You don't understand how this stuff works do you?

German refurbishment of Leopard 2s is an intensive process, as intensive (Or more) than American refurbishment of Abrams.
The French have not built a tank in almost a decade, and their upgrade process has been lacking as well. They are not in much better of a position to build a new tank than the UK because their heavy armour production and upgrade capability has atrophied. Germany is continuously upgrading, in deep upgrade, Leopard 2s. This process involves many of the same skills as new build tanks, and many of the same spaces and tools. France and the UK have wholesale abandoned all of this.

Even their own army is buying refurbished third hand Leopard 2s that they built for the Netherlands in the 80s, which were then sold on to Canada.

What?
Canada bought those Dutch Leopard 2s on their own, when the Dutch offered a better price than the Germans. Then, Canada independently contracted a German company to upgrade them. In the mean time Canada leased 20 tanks from Germany as a stop gap, and because of heavy wear and damage are being replaced in German stocks with a number of the Dutch tanks Canada bought. These Dutch tanks that are going to Germany, which were paid for by Canada, are being modified to German standards at the expense of Canada. At no point did Germany buy Dutch tanks, or sell them to Canada. In fact Germany is making money and getting less abused vehicles back then they leased out.

Leclerc production is more recent than Leopard 2 production! Germany has not actually built any complete Leopard 2s for many years.

This is irrelevant. Germany is still using the very skills and tools needed to build new tanks in their refurbishment process, France, like the UK, has abandoned these.

Germany is presently the only country in Western Europe in a position to design and build a new MBT, and they know it. But even the UK and France, even Italy, could do it within a decade without substantial investment. The US blows money left right and centre on projects like this because their MIC is corrupt, and they have the money to blow. Without a serious threat though there will be no new US tanks as long as they can make Abrams adequate. A thousand Armata in Russia are not a threat to the US, but they are a threat to Germany. And Germany has incentive.

That may well be true. Israel, unlike Germany, has a lot of combat experience.

Relevant Israeli combat experience is all but out of the IDF by now. At this point they have no more relevant experience than the US, and the US has more of it recently.
At this point Israeli and Germany are in the same boat, historical analysis and theory.

All the big NATO countries have the option to build in-house but most will take a third option: not replace their tanks.

This has not been the case every other time this argument happens, and will not now.

[HMS Vanguard]

This is irrelevant. Germany is still using the very skills and tools needed to build new tanks in their refurbishment process,

Using some of the skills, like how maintaining an aircraft uses some of the skills required to design a new one, but far from all of them.

France, like the UK, has abandoned these.

I'm no great expert on the French army, but public sources reference ongoing upgrade programmes throughout the 00s and early 10s, the latest contract having been issued in 2015. For the UK, I can see more of an argument here.

Germany is presently the only country in Western Europe in a position to design and build a new MBT, and they know it. But even the UK and France, even Italy, could do it within a decade without substantial investment.

Second statement contradicts the first. Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain, and very likely many of the smaller countries, could all design and build a new tank within a few years without substantial investment, which is another way of saying that Germany is not the only country in Western Europe in a position to design and build a new tank today.

I agree with almost everything you have written, and not sure much of it contradicts what I have written, despite the combative tone.

[Dostanuot Loj]

Using some of the skills, like how maintaining an aircraft uses some of the skills required to design a new one, but far from all of them.

No, it quite literally uses most of them, if not all of them.

They are literally stripping the old A4 hulls down to the bare steel, and rebuilding them. Large chunks of the important systems are rebuilt from the ground up, or are being replaced with newer versions which are still being built. This includes the armour modules (Inserts, not wedges, but those too), FCS, BMS, sights, etc. The only thing Germany doesn't do right now is weld new hulls and turrets from scratch, which is literally the easiest part of building a tank.

All the engineering is still being done.
All the manufacture is still being done.
Most of the physical labour is still being done.

I'm no great expert on the French army, but public sources reference ongoing upgrade programmes throughout the 00s and early 10s, the latest contract having been issued in 2015. For the UK, I can see more of an argument here.

French Army upgrade programs are soft programs, and do not involve the same level of effort as the Germans or Americans are doing. They are not stripping down and rebuilding tanks, they are simply applying upgrades to in service vehicles.

Second statement contradicts the first.

No it doesn't.
Germany can start working on a new tank now.
Other parts of Europe can set themselves up to start working on a new tank in the future.

Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain, and very likely many of the smaller countries, could all design and build a new tank within a few years without substantial investment, which is another way of saying that Germany is not the only country in Western Europe in a position to design and build a new tank today.

Substantial investment in industry is not the same as having a continuously working engineering capacity. Setting up the production facilities is the easy part (If expensive), having engineers able to actually design the tank, and all of its parts is the hard part. Germany is the only country in Western Europe with this existing, the others (Like France, UK, Italy, so on) have bits and pieces of it but not enough for the whole thing.

I agree with almost everything you have written, and not sure much of it contradicts what I have written, despite the combative tone.

Your argument, as I took it, is that the Germans can't build a new tank. That argument is wrong.
Another side argument has been that Europe won't build a new tank, which is also wrong.

[Gallia-]

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.

It's an identity crisis with some reason. Even if you think Iraq etc. were mistakes, or even irrational, they are what is there. If the US had not fought those wars, likely it would have just not fought at all. The same is going to be true in the near future.

The identity crisis is meaningless.

The US Army was able to be relevant in Iraq and Afghanistan without air-mechanization. The entire hyperfocus of air-mechanization is literally a direct result of the US Army's inability to send a tank division to Kosovo in time to not be one-upped by the USAF. It's a one-off event that doesn't appear to have any actual relevance because the Serbs surrendered before ground combat could happen. It's totally unique, like Desert Storm, and reading too much into it (like the USA did for about a decade afterwards) is a mistake.

It's literally American military branch parochialism at its worst.

The real lessons were learned in Afghanistan and Iraq, where everyone learned that tanks are hugely relevant weapons and so are mechanized troops, and light infantry, and you need all this capability together to have a useful army. Everyone also learned that medium armor troops were the worst of both worlds: Too light to be properly protected against anti-armor weapons and too heavy to adequately mobile to replace early entry units, but that was learned in the WW2 too.

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.

I think you are seeing this too much in terms of absolutes. There may not be many (or any?) purely air mechanised wars, but air mechanisation has been of steadily growing importance. That being the case, it makes sense to increase optimisation toward air mechanisation. To a great extent that means minimising weight. And if the enemy has few heavy tanks, if heavy tanks are losing importance as the main counter to enemy heavy tanks, and if situational awareness is displacing armour as the primary means of avoiding damage - all of which are in fact happening - the case for building heavy tanks is weakened. It might not have disappeared, but then nor in reality have heavy tanks - we still have plenty left over from the 1980-2000 period and will do for many decades to come.

Air mechanization has never been important, though. I'm also not sure you know what I mean by "air-mechanization" either. It hasn't been growing in importance if you look at what has actually happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. The entirety of NATO used a combination of heavy mechanized troops in carriers weighing 30-40 tons supported by >55 ton tanks, or light infantry in jeeps and helicopters.

What you stated about situational awareness and tanks losing relevance is in fact not correct: It is literally wrong. It is why FCS grew from a 10-15 helicopter transportable light tank to a 30 ton medium armor vehicle that couldn't be transported by helicopter and was essentially no better than an M2 or CV90 in mobility. What you're saying would be "truth" maybe 15 years ago when people were still taking "RMA" seriously. Now it just sounds like something that's behind the curve by a couple of decades. The reality is that situational awareness doesn't decrease the need for conventional armour protection, that vehicles of the 30 and 55 ton weight classes are more than relevant, that these vehicles are adequately strategically mobile today, and vehicles of the future will become heavier as they incorporate greater levels of all-aspect armour protection.

What you're calling "heavy tanks" is better defined as "combat vehicle with a mass >30 tons", which literally describes every armored fighting vehicle worth its salt these days. The strategic mobility of something like FRES (=>40 tons tracked armored vehicle) and a main battle tank (=>55 tons tracked AFV) is the same: it requires cargo ships, railways, and heavy transport aircraft to move regardless.

The actual solution for expeditionary warfare seems to be continue using existing armored fighting vehicles in the current weight classes (>30 tons), but minimizing weight of units by improving efficiency of the combat support and CSS elements. Iraq and Afghanistan both proved that mechanized carriers of the 30-40 ton class and tanks >55 tons have adequate strategic mobility to be relevant in colonial wars of the future.

That isn't air-mechanization, though. "Air-mechanization" is using 10-15 ton light vehicles in heavy lift helicopters to fly around the battlefield and encircle tank battalions or brigades, and as far as everyone knows it's intellectually bankrupt.

Vehicles are not and will not get lighter, they will get heavier. FRES, Boxer, Puma, and GCV are all much heavier than their antecedents; CVR(T), Fuchs, Marder, and Bradley. A-400M is a concession to this. The hope that vehicles will be lighter is a desperate cry to not need to push helicopter technology past the capability of C-130, which is already substantially improved to existing heavy lift helicopters.

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.

What possible justification is there for that statement? Russian forces are materially inferior to Western in pretty much every possible way. If they have any significant advantage, it's political tolerance for casualties, which is an attribute of civil society not the military.

The Russians are noticeably superior in areas of field artillery and radio-electronic combat to every Western nation. Their guns are better than American guns and their radio procedures are better than all NATO countries. That's an attribute of their military focusing on those areas to the expense of everything else. They're also superior in air-land integration to the US Army, at least for the moment, which is something they've learned enough about in 2008 to be adequate to beat a bunch of unfocused and uncoordinated NATO brigades in the Baltics.

If the US Army had a Corps HQ in the Baltics and a couple forward deployed brigades, it would be fine, and that would be cheap. It wouldn't stop the Russians, but it would delay them long enough for the rest of the US Army to arrive, and it would give them enough pause they might not ever attack in the first place.

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.

It's all a bit long and confused. The US has started programmes aimed at creating some revolution, which have failed to create that revolution, at least at an acceptable cost. Running such programmes actually makes some sense for a very rich power that is so far ahead of everyone else that it doesn't need to compete in cost efficiency - it keeps them ahead of the curve, or at least lets them know what the curve is. But for all your criticism of such programmes, you're proposing to do exactly the same thing with a new tank. The reality is that all of the low risk upgrades for tanks in recent years are electronics, which can be quite well retrofitted to existing vehicles; no need for new tanks. The export success of vehicles like the Leopard, which is actually one of the poorest tanks still in service in its base configuration, is proof of that.

Running such programs only makes sense if you grossly underestimate the technological risk of developing all the information technology needed for it to work properly.

There is nothing revolutionary about a new tank, or any new vehicle anyway. That misses the point entirely of the past 18 years of American arms procurement, and the point of why it failed. It wasn't about procuring new vehicles, it was about reinventing the entire US Army from top to bottom. FCS didn't fail because it made a bunch of dumb medium weight vehicles, it failed because it tried to make a holistic computer network that never would have worked properly.

If the US Army just wanted a new light tank or something it would have had it years ago.

The reality is that making upgrades for tanks and making a new tank are about the same level of difficulty. Upgrades can just be stretched over a longer period of time because you're either adding a new gun or new armour or new engine at one time, which makes it cheaper even if you spend the same amount of money, because you're not eating a big sticker price where you do that all at once.

The other reality is that no one is willing to pay big money just yet (aside from Russia), but they're perfectly fine paying the same amount of money over multiple fiscal years to do the same thing, and that is rapidly being proven an incorrect approach if it already hasn't been. Incremental upgrades can't fix Leopard 2's relative lack of side turret protection.

Maybe France will produce the FLIR or something.

USA should contribute its retarded dual-band LWIR/MWIR array.

And then an SWIR/MWIR/MWIR triple band warning sensor?

[HMS Vanguard]

Using some of the skills, like how maintaining an aircraft uses some of the skills required to design a new one, but far from all of them.

No, it quite literally uses most of them, if not all of them.

They are literally stripping the old A4 hulls down to the bare steel, and rebuilding them. Large chunks of the important systems are rebuilt from the ground up, or are being replaced with newer versions which are still being built. This includes the armour modules (Inserts, not wedges, but those too), FCS, BMS, sights, etc. The only thing Germany doesn't do right now is weld new hulls and turrets from scratch, which is literally the easiest part of building a tank.

All the engineering is still being done.
All the manufacture is still being done.
Most of the physical labour is still being done.

No, some of those things are still being done, and others are not, just like a mechanic shop can mod or rebuild a car but cannot design a new car. Anyway, my position isn't that any of this is hard; all along my position has been that it is pretty easy and hence lots of countries can do it.

You have also elided by initial caveat, that Germany has no special advantage putting together a radically new design. If they did nothing but manufacture new Leopard 2 hulls, there would be some substantial overlap between what they're doing now and what they would need to do. I'm not sure it would save much time, because setting up the manufacturing plant will be a bottleneck even if it is conceptually simple, but there would be some synergy there. If they had a blank slate design but didn't aim at a big advance, less so, as they would arrange the subsystems differently, and probably redesign the armour entirely. If they made a radically new design, cannot assume any components can be reused.

I'm no great expert on the French army, but public sources reference ongoing upgrade programmes throughout the 00s and early 10s, the latest contract having been issued in 2015. For the UK, I can see more of an argument here.

French Army upgrade programs are soft programs, and do not involve the same level of effort as the Germans or Americans are doing. They are not stripping down and rebuilding tanks, they are simply applying upgrades to in service vehicles.

Because they don't need to - their tanks are twenty years newer. The Germans weren't rebuilding their tanks from the ground up in the mid 90s either.

Your argument, as I took it, is that the Germans can't build a new tank. That argument is wrong.
Another side argument has been that Europe won't build a new tank, which is also wrong.

Well, that explains it; what you consider my position to be and what it actually is are very different.



Galla-: I hoped that repeatedly responding to 5+ paragraphs with 3 sentences would give some hint, but I don't have the inclination to read all that.

[Austrasien]

Challenger 2 production is also more recent then Leopard 2 production , by your logic Britain is in a better position to produce a next generation MBT then Germany is.

and we all know that isn't true.

The reason is the same even.

Both countries allowed their production lines to wind down and close completely, because (as even HMS Vanguard noted) the British and French army have been until very recently of basically of one mind about heavy vehicles not being relevant to future conflicts. The Leclerc was indeed a brand new, technically excellent vehicle that probably has more upgrade potential than the Leopard 2. But it doesn't matter because those upgrades were never funded and French firms have all but exited the field for want of business.

If it was upgraded it would likely fall to the usual Rheinmetall-and-friends industry team to do it.

As Sumer and others have said MBT production could certainly be resurrected ex nihilo in most western countries if there was the will, but there is no such will. You only see this kind of concentrated effort on building new industrial capabilities in places like South Korea and Turkey. Most defense ministries in western countries still approach the question of industrial capabilities from a management theory perspective and see having to maintain national industry as little more than undesirable overhead. It will probably take the passing of the current generation of leadership before the responsible authorities really reflect on the situation and realize that this approach has caused (especially in the US and UK which dived in most enthusiastically) fairly disastrous cost overruns, program delays, loss of security in the production chain, loss of competitiveness in acquisition, loss of ability to build equipment according to actual needs and so on.

[Gallia-]

Thanks neoliberalism.

[Imperializt Russia]

This is beginning to sound like MBT-70.

In which case it fails horribly and most people choose to buy surplus American and ex-soviet leftovers (and chinese knockoffs and/or illigitimate offspring) for the next 40 years.

And Germany will finally field the E100, just to spite the world.

I dunno, they've already got the E-75 probably, with enough upgrade packages on the Leo 2.

[HMS Vanguard]

Both countries allowed their production lines to wind down and close completely, because (as even HMS Vanguard noted) the British and French army have been until very recently of basically of one mind about heavy vehicles not being relevant to future conflicts. The Leclerc was indeed a brand new, technically excellent vehicle that probably has more upgrade potential than the Leopard 2. But it doesn't matter because those upgrades were never funded and French firms have all but exited the field for want of business.

That is not what I said at all. The French and British (and German! there are not building any more Leopards and haven't been for decades!!!) production lines were shut down because all the ordered units were produced. Tanks in peacetime have always been batch produced which is one (of many) reasons it's so ridiculous to think that one needs continuity of production to design or produce this vehicle type. We are reaching the absurd stage of referring to the Leclerc - note, a much superior tank to most Leopard 2s in service, and possibly superior to any Leopard 2 in service - in the past tense! Nexter never did stop upgrading Leclerc; they have a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars for Leclerc maintenance and upgrades awarded just over a year ago. The Leclerc has received less work than Leopard 2s for the very simple reason that less work needs to be done on a Leclerc to bring it to the same standard (or indeed a higher standard).

As Sumer and others have said MBT production could certainly be resurrected ex nihilo in most western countries if there was the will, but there is no such will. You only see this kind of concentrated effort on building new industrial capabilities in places like South Korea and Turkey. Most defense ministries in western countries still approach the question of industrial capabilities from a management theory perspective and see having to maintain national industry as little more than undesirable overhead. It will probably take the passing of the current generation of leadership before the responsible authorities really reflect on the situation and realize that this approach has caused (especially in the US and UK which dived in most enthusiastically) fairly disastrous cost overruns, program delays, loss of security in the production chain, loss of competitiveness in acquisition, loss of ability to build equipment according to actual needs and so on.

What is happening is that tanks are becoming, if they haven't already become, commodities. That's why so many countries (admittedly for the most part countries that aren't very serious about operations or don't have first world pocket books) were content to buy refurbished second hand Leopards. There is not much important sovereign knowledge tied up in a tank design and there are plenty of reasonable provides competing even within each bloc. The place to look for this sort of thing today is air force and air defence technology. Most countries that can afford chips in the game are serious about having the best jet fighters they can get and, for the even more exclusive club that can, having some stake in the technology. Notably Germany is looking a bit out in the cold in this respect and I suggest that that, rather than a largely chance-based export boom in second hand Leopards, reflects how much Germany prioritises defence. Not much at all.

[Austrasien]

The Leclerc is past tense. France produces no Leclercs and nothing even remotely comparable to the Leclerc (if they produced some other large tracked vehicle it might be a different story). They could not be bought anymore by anyone even if there was interest. There is no factory. There are no workers. The engineers probably work for other companies now. Bringing back together everything which has been discarded would take many years and a whole lot of money. It would not really be the Leclerc as we know it either because many of the components and subcomponents are almost certainly not made anymore either and would need to be substituted.

While the Leopard 2s line is still humming along nicely remanufacturing and upgrading. Germany is also actively producing the Puma which is a tracked IFV in the same weight class and has significant overlap. When they decide to begin building tanks from scratch again everything will still be in place to do it. This is very intentional, the Germans actually pay attention to their industrial base as they (correctly) understand it to be a national asset. The real reason we are even talking about a "Leopard 3" is because German planners know that the Leopard 2 cannot be produced indefinitely into the future and either it must be replaced or Germany will exit tank production. Russia and the T-14 just gave them the cover they needed to make the plans (certainly in the works for many years) public and make it a program of record.

[Dostanuot Loj]

No, some of those things are still being done, and others are not, just like a mechanic shop can mod or rebuild a car but cannot design a new car. Anyway, my position isn't that any of this is hard; all along my position has been that it is pretty easy and hence lots of countries can do it.

You have also elided by initial caveat, that Germany has no special advantage putting together a radically new design. If they did nothing but manufacture new Leopard 2 hulls, there would be some substantial overlap between what they're doing now and what they would need to do. I'm not sure it would save much time, because setting up the manufacturing plant will be a bottleneck even if it is conceptually simple, but there would be some synergy there. If they had a blank slate design but didn't aim at a big advance, less so, as they would arrange the subsystems differently, and probably redesign the armour entirely. If they made a radically new design, cannot assume any components can be reused.

No, it's almost all being done.
Any good mechanic can design and build a car from scratch, and many do. Many become mechanics because they want to do just this. Some turn around and sell these as kit plans.
There is absolutely nothing involved in the design and manufacture of a new tank that German is not already doing except actual manufacture of the hulls and turrets. And again, that is the easiest part.

Because they don't need to - their tanks are twenty years newer. The Germans weren't rebuilding their tanks from the ground up in the mid 90s either.

1: France had to run upgrade programs because the batch 1 Leclercs had serious issues actually. Batch 2 tanks were cut short, and batch 3 production as well as upgrades to batch 1 and 2 to solve serious issues in the tank have been dropped entirely due to cost. France has decided their tanks are good enough for now, and put that money elsewhere.
2: You do realize that the A5 is a completely rebuild Leopard 2A4, right? Germany started major rebuilds of A0 to A3 tanks into A4 tanks in 1985, alongside new vehicle production. In 1993 new vehicle production ended, and in 1995 rebuilds transitioned from the A4 end standard to the A5. There has been no lull, no time period when they stopped doing this because they have had to do it with exports. The Germans have been continuously rebuilding their tanks for the past three decades.

Well, that explains it; what you consider my position to be and what it actually is are very different.

Then what is your position?

Galla-: I hoped that repeatedly responding to 5+ paragraphs with 3 sentences would give some hint, but I don't have the inclination to read all that.

No, to get Gallia to stop you need to tell him directly, otherwise he just keeps going forever.

[Gallia-]

Galla-: I hoped that repeatedly responding to 5+ paragraphs with 3 sentences would give some hint, but I don't have the inclination to read all that.

No, to get Gallia to stop you need to tell him directly, otherwise he just keeps going forever.

It's true.

[Austrasien]

And now for something completely different!

Azov patents T-64 "T-Rex".

Looks like they have been doing some sophisticated CAD work on it.

[HMS Vanguard]

The Leclerc is past tense. France produces no Leclercs and nothing even remotely comparable to the Leclerc (if they produced some other large tracked vehicle it might be a different story). They could not be bought anymore by anyone even if there was interest. There is no factory. There are no workers. The engineers probably work for other companies now. Bringing back together everything which has been discarded would take many years and a whole lot of money. It would not really be the Leclerc as we know it either because many of the components and subcomponents are almost certainly not made anymore either and would need to be substituted.

For the nth time: pretty much no one in the world is producing any new tanks. Certainly not the Germans. Leopard 2 has been out of production much longer than the Leclerc. The Leopard 2s that have been sold abroad are not new production, they are second hand vehicles produced for the Bundeswehr when it operated 10x as many tanks as it does today. Many of the engineers for key components of the Leopard 2 (which was designed in the early to mid 1970s) are no doubt dead! Tanks are batch produced, and have been for a long time.

While the Leopard 2s line is still humming along nicely remanufacturing and upgrading.

Nexter also has long term contracts for capability sustainment. Less work is done because less work needs to be done.

Germany is also actively producing the Puma which is a tracked IFV in the same weight class and has significant overlap. When they decide to begin building tanks from scratch again everything will still be in place to do it. This is very intentional, the Germans actually pay attention to their industrial base as they (correctly) understand it to be a national asset.

Tosh. Relative to their means the Germans have allowed their military to degrade further than any other big European country, from having in 1989 had the largest and probably most capable army in Europe except for the USSR. They have also vetoed massive orders for the Leopard on human rights grounds. The military industrial complex has essentially zero influence in Germany. They've stayed out of F35 and have no alternative plan, while even countries like Norway have signed up.

The real reason we are even talking about a "Leopard 3" is because German planners know that the Leopard 2 cannot be produced indefinitely into the future and either it must be replaced or Germany will exit tank production. Russia and the T-14 just gave them the cover they needed to make the plans (certainly in the works for many years) public and make it a program of record.

Rather, they're talking about "Leopard 3" because Leopard 2 not only isn't being produced and hasn't been for decades, and not only did Germany rather over-optimistically sell off almost all of its Leopards, but even if they haven't done that the design and hulls are reaching the end of their lives even with maximum refurbishment (which Challenger II and Leclerc arent't). Buying a new tank, or any weapon system for that matter, is the last thing they want to do, and which Russian rearmament has reluctantly forced them to do - or at least talk about doing so in 2030, which for what that means in political terms is more of a vague wish than an actual plan. Even with all that, Germany is by a long way the most pro-Russian country in the EU.