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Pakistan Army has 570 VT 4 on order and with TOT

I know the reaction i'm going to get, but according to the former COAS we can't afford to fuel these tanks. Why purchase them? Surely money would be better spend on more fuel economic alternatives? Smaller vehicles with guns/rockets mounted on them? Mobile anti tank units, more drones to be used specifically to stop enemy armour?
 
Of course they get attacked first. The point is that you use other assets where specific ones fall short. If an AA system is about to get taken out, risking the safety of a tank squad, air support will be called in.
That's the entire idea of Combined arms warfare, to adequately use other assets where certain ones are weaker.
Loool and combined arms means the attackers will also be trying to take care of the airforce. It's not just one sided you know. Modern war is fluid nothing is guaranteed
 
Tank is not obselete, because if that is true, then I can use the same argument and argue Infantry is now also obselete. Why spend hundreds of thousands of dollars (that's how much US spend on training a soldier, 250k for a regular soldier, up to 6 millions for SF) when you can get a cheap Mavic Drone for $1000 and put anti-personnel mine on them? Why not just disbanding the infantry crop?

If you have to move infantry in a battlefield, you will need to have armour, and when I say Armour, you don't just need tanks, you need IFV, APC, CFV, the whole lot. Because the alternative is for you to bum rush WW1 style.

Tanks are important to protect the flank of the infantry, and important to spearhead a counterattack, and important for dynamic defence. You cannot soften an enemy position with drone, you have to do that with tanks, because that gives you the direct fire advantage.

On the other hand, ever wonder while there are a lot of Ukraine drone footage destroying tank and there are few and far between on the other side? That's because drones have to be paired up with many ISTAR asset to be effective, if you are just a dude in the middle of battlefield launching a drone in a random direction, you aren't going to find anything, you need someone to tell you which area you want to scan with your drone, and what you are expecting. That's a lot of SIGINT, ELINT and SIGNINT as well as SATINT element involved. The reason why Ukraine can use their TB2 that effective is because someone, namely the US, is feeding them that intel, telling them where to strike and what to strike, because the US have a complete system monitoring battlefield, satellite, EC-135, compass call and so on, those asset provide real time information for the Ukrainian drone team, so they know what and where and how to look for Russian tank. It won't work like that if you don't have a complete ISTAR platform. And at this moment, only 2 countries in this world have the capability to do that. US and China, and even China can barely do it within a certain limit.

This is the same thing people saw footage of drone killing tank and think "Wow, that was easy" it's the same during Operation Desert Storm when we saw all those JDAM or any type of precision missile and projectile hitting target with pinpoint accuracy and declare Air Power is the king, thing is, most people don't know what had to be done to have that "Perfect" strike you saw on TV and thinking, that's easy, people in the know, like me, know inserting a SF team to lit up those target aren't easy, to maintain contact with said SF team aren't easy, to coordinate between interservice (Army-Navy or Army-Air Force) to make that strike is not easy, but yes, seeing a plane dropping ordinance and then target go boom is extremely easy. If you catch what I mean.
Wow! that's some explanation. Thank you for that.
On another note why can't tanks have their own drones? I mean a drone that a tank crew can launch and one that can direct tank ammunition to a precision strike without a tank ever getting in the enemy line of fire?
PS i don't know if this is already happening but haven't seen a tank launching a drone.
 
Wow! that's some explanation. Thank you for that.
On another note why can't tanks have their own drones? I mean a drone that a tank crew can launch and one that can direct tank ammunition to a precision strike without a tank ever getting in the enemy line of fire?
PS i don't know if this is already happening but haven't seen a tank launching a drone.
It's already being done with our SP artillery. Tanks might be next, who knows.
 
It's already being done with our SP artillery. Tanks might be next, who knows.
Thank you, sir, I have a lot of respect for you but honestly, I have zero interest in what the Pakistan army does or does not have. PA isn't meant for fighting so its a moot point on what capabilities they possess. No offense!
My question was rather in general to military tactics employed worldwide, especially in conflict zones.
 
Thank you, sir, I have a lot of respect for you but honestly, I have zero interest in what the Pakistan army does or does not have. PA isn't meant for fighting so its a moot point on what capabilities they possess. No offense!
My question was rather in general to military tactics employed worldwide, especially in conflict zones.

israelis also have something similar
 
Wow! that's some explanation. Thank you for that.
On another note why can't tanks have their own drones? I mean a drone that a tank crew can launch and one that can direct tank ammunition to a precision strike without a tank ever getting in the enemy line of fire?
PS i don't know if this is already happening but haven't seen a tank launching a drone.
Depends on who is controlling the drone. They would have to be controlled remotely and not by the tank crew if you want to have them onboard, otherwise tank crew would have been too busy to handle them on the field, in the US with a 4 men crew, everyone have their job they would have to focus on, driver is minding the road, gunner is minding the gun and the rounds, loader and commander each have to scan the horizon or the computer, even less so on a Russian 3 men crew doctrine, mostly if you are deploying them, it would have been a one off thing. Or you would have to stop and deploy/retrieve those drone, which is just going to be counter productive.

On the other hand, IIRC, they were testing drone that made into a tank round and act like a loitering munition some years ago. Not really sure what's up with that project coming.
 
You can expect so much from them but certainly intelligence and thinking out of the box ain't one of em
I know the reaction i'm going to get, but according to the former COAS we can't afford to fuel these tanks. Why purchase them? Surely money would be better spend on more fuel economic alternatives? Smaller vehicles with guns/rockets mounted on them? Mobile anti tank units, more drones to be used specifically to stop enemy armour?
 
Bro I read your post its good.
Most western militaries are changing their doctrine. They are focused on highly mobile heavily armed big bang for buck armies. Tanks are still vital support for infantry and for certain types of thrusts but the large scale tank vs tank battles are a thing of the past. My post re divergence of more funds to drones was to highlight the fact drones are cheap highly mobile fast and a single drone can engage multiple targets and cause mayhem. Exit the battle field and return at a time of his choosing. This is the future.
Tanks cannot be protected in the battle field. People are saying that effective air cover with SAMs and other systems is the answer but during war these systems get attacked 1st and often get taken out. Then what?
Well, that post was my reply to the person who quote me, I answered his post and the reason why he quote me, I did not check yours and his post history.

But that said, the last section of my post already had explained why drone is not depended upon, because drone on itself is quite useless. I flew drone before (not military one, but those for filming footage) and I had used military drone before, it's literally blind and have small area for you to detect your enemy because what you as an operator is seeing is what the camera on the drone see, and that would not give you the best situational awareness. Which mean if you want to use drone to all of its advantage, you would need a lot of supporting measure to be able to use it effectively, otherwise, it's pretty much pointless to use one.

As I said, you would have thought when you see a missile coming out of a 5 millions dollars TB2 drone and hit/destroy a tank, that's the final step of a long kill chain, and the stuff you would not see will cost you a lot more than just that drone, like a lot, all those sensor, satellite, EW suite, people that monitor the battlefield, all those are going to cost you money and without them, your drone would not be effective.

Drone can be good at supporting role, but depends on them then you would have to have a lot of supporting element to support those drone, making them ineffective.
 
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Depends on who is controlling the drone. They would have to be controlled remotely and not by the tank crew if you want to have them onboard, otherwise tank crew would have been too busy to handle them on the field, in the US with a 4 men crew, everyone have their job they would have to focus on, driver is minding the road, gunner is minding the gun and the rounds, loader and commander each have to scan the horizon or the computer, even less so on a Russian 3 men crew doctrine, mostly if you are deploying them, it would have been a one off thing. Or you would have to stop and deploy/retrieve those drone, which is just going to be counter productive.

On the other hand, IIRC, they were testing drone that made into a tank round and act like a loitering munition some years ago. Not really sure what's up with that project coming.

Emissions should also be a worry. I was bored over summer last year and decided to design a tank launched scout drone for fun. But one problem i was running in to was how do we solve the issue of emissions. Tanks are designed to some extent to be low observable, we're talking thermal coatings, camo, netting ETC. However, having a tank that is actively emitting any sort of RF lights it up and opens it up to being found by enemy sensors.

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Emissions should also be a worry. I was bored over summer last year and decided to design a tank launched scout drone for fun. But one problem i was running in to was how do we solve the issue of emissions. Tanks are designed to some extent to be low observable, we're talking thermal coatings, camo, netting ETC. However, having a tank that is actively emitting any sort of RF lights it up and opens it up to being found by enemy sensors.

FQDpa79XIAc27kS
I don't think it's possible or productive to launch Fullsize armed drone from a tank.....When i was talking about drone, I was talking about Black Hornet type recce drone.


If you wanted to use a drone on a combat platform, you probably more wanted to increase your situational awareness, instead of increasing your firepower. That's what standalone UCAV is for, someone can control them and help you out when you need it, it will loosen your workload, but if I have to control a UCAV during a fight in my tank, well, let me just say this would be a big no-no.....
 
I don't think it's possible or productive to launch Fullsize armed drone from a tank.....When i was talking about drone, I was talking about Black Hornet type recce drone.


If you wanted to use a drone on a combat platform, you probably more wanted to increase your situational awareness, instead of increasing your firepower. That's what standalone UCAV is for, someone can control them and help you out when you need it, it will loosen your workload, but if I have to control a UCAV during a fight in my tank, well, let me just say this would be a big no-no.....
"scout drone"

It absolutely is! The Italians launch the Horus out of the C1's gun. Israel also has a similar system, the Abrams X and KF51 also all have some form of launched drone.

However, they are designed to autonomously relay critical information back to the tank, not requiring input from someone else, they will just fly a holding pattern- i assume a predefined one. They're pretty great solutions and it would be nice for more forces to adopt similar systems, especially the PA.
 
"scout drone"

It absolutely is! The Italians launch the Horus out of the C1's gun. Israel also has a similar system, the Abrams X and KF51 also all have some form of launched drone.

However, they are designed to autonomously relay critical information back to the tank, not requiring input from someone else, they will just fly a holding pattern- i assume a predefined one. They're pretty great solutions and it would be nice for more forces to adopt similar systems, especially the PA.
IIRC they didn't launch those from the main gun, more like the smoke grenade launcher or some dedicated tube off from the side. I can be wrong tho as I wasn't in the tank game for a very long time, it was my passing MOS.....
 
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