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While ground forces will still be required to capture and secure buildings and territory, that task can now be performed by a much cheaper infantry platoon without any tanks at all — just a few inexpensive and well-equipped drones circling overhead.
Already in the U.S., two major defense contractors have been scaling back the production and refurbishing of tanks and armored personnel carriers. The York, Pennsylvania plant of British contractor BAE Systems (LSE: BA), which had been building and refurbishing the Bradley Fighting Vehicle for the U.S. Army, has already dismissed half of its workforce, with more layoffs last December.
"The reality of it is we've already started shutting down," manufacturing executive Alice Conner informed the Washington Post. "If BAE does not get any new Bradley funding — or win new work from commercial firms or foreign governments, it will close the line in 2015."
In another defense spending casualty, General Dynamics (NYSE: GD), which builds M1 Abrams tanks — the most powerful tank in the world — is scaling down its Lima, Ohio factory. Over the past decade, the contractor's workforce has been slashed from over 1,200 to some 500 today.
The Army simply doesn't see the need for more tanks. Speaking before Congress in 2012, General Raymond Odierno, the Army's chief of staff, put it as simply as possible: "We don't need the tanks. Our tank fleet is two and a half years old on average now. We're in good shape, and these are additional tanks that we don't need."
In response, defense contractors and their over 500 suppliers have lobbied hard, convincing Congress to write them huge checks worth $140 million for Bradley vehicles and $74 million for Abrams tanks for fiscal year 2014."
The rise of HEAT weapons like the LAW, Panzerfaust, and RPG in the 1950s and 60s exaggerated the death of tank. Infantry platoons were capable of taking out tanks with ease with just some Rockets. That is why tanks like the Chieftain was soon armored with more advanced armor rather than rolled homgenous steel(RHA) of WWII. Infantry have to fire from the sides or in top attack usually in urban warfare.
But with the rise of better systems like the Javelin, TOW, MILAN and the Korent, wired and heat seeking missiles can be portable and carried by platoons and the "Death of the Tank idea comes back again". Also they can be mounted on Armored troop carriers and Armor fighting vehicles. Systems like the Hellfire can be mounted on cheap helicopters and drones as well to completely obiterate and armored advance and even fire beyond a tank's gun range.
M1 Abrams: $8 Million
Javelin missile $200,000
TOW 2 missile $58,000
Hellfire Missile: $70,000
Predator Drone: $4 Million(can carry 2-4 Hellfires plus bombs)
Little Bird helicopter: $2 Million(can carry 2-4 Hellfires or multiple rocket pods)
With the rise of these portable missiles, mechanized infantry, and aircraft is a tank even worth the price? The US is cutting back, while Russia just made their new T-14 Armata and investing more and more on tanks.
Is a entire tank column charging into enemy formations, getting wrecked by a bunch of cheap drones and helicopters even worth it? What is the role of Tanks in Modern warfare or what it should be?
By Joseph Cafariello
Already in the U.S., two major defense contractors have been scaling back the production and refurbishing of tanks and armored personnel carriers. The York, Pennsylvania plant of British contractor BAE Systems (LSE: BA), which had been building and refurbishing the Bradley Fighting Vehicle for the U.S. Army, has already dismissed half of its workforce, with more layoffs last December.
"The reality of it is we've already started shutting down," manufacturing executive Alice Conner informed the Washington Post. "If BAE does not get any new Bradley funding — or win new work from commercial firms or foreign governments, it will close the line in 2015."
In another defense spending casualty, General Dynamics (NYSE: GD), which builds M1 Abrams tanks — the most powerful tank in the world — is scaling down its Lima, Ohio factory. Over the past decade, the contractor's workforce has been slashed from over 1,200 to some 500 today.
The Army simply doesn't see the need for more tanks. Speaking before Congress in 2012, General Raymond Odierno, the Army's chief of staff, put it as simply as possible: "We don't need the tanks. Our tank fleet is two and a half years old on average now. We're in good shape, and these are additional tanks that we don't need."
In response, defense contractors and their over 500 suppliers have lobbied hard, convincing Congress to write them huge checks worth $140 million for Bradley vehicles and $74 million for Abrams tanks for fiscal year 2014."
The rise of HEAT weapons like the LAW, Panzerfaust, and RPG in the 1950s and 60s exaggerated the death of tank. Infantry platoons were capable of taking out tanks with ease with just some Rockets. That is why tanks like the Chieftain was soon armored with more advanced armor rather than rolled homgenous steel(RHA) of WWII. Infantry have to fire from the sides or in top attack usually in urban warfare.
But with the rise of better systems like the Javelin, TOW, MILAN and the Korent, wired and heat seeking missiles can be portable and carried by platoons and the "Death of the Tank idea comes back again". Also they can be mounted on Armored troop carriers and Armor fighting vehicles. Systems like the Hellfire can be mounted on cheap helicopters and drones as well to completely obiterate and armored advance and even fire beyond a tank's gun range.
M1 Abrams: $8 Million
Javelin missile $200,000
TOW 2 missile $58,000
Hellfire Missile: $70,000
Predator Drone: $4 Million(can carry 2-4 Hellfires plus bombs)
Little Bird helicopter: $2 Million(can carry 2-4 Hellfires or multiple rocket pods)
With the rise of these portable missiles, mechanized infantry, and aircraft is a tank even worth the price? The US is cutting back, while Russia just made their new T-14 Armata and investing more and more on tanks.
Is a entire tank column charging into enemy formations, getting wrecked by a bunch of cheap drones and helicopters even worth it? What is the role of Tanks in Modern warfare or what it should be?
By Joseph Cafariello
