Tanks but no tanks..Why heavy armor will not save Afghanistan.

[Brasi]

The trouble is planes have to be overhead to be effective. A lot of things can happened during a battle in the time it takes aircraft to get on station. Things can get confusing during an attack, especially at night, and that's where the Abrams uber night optics come in handy. There are a lot of outposts in Afghanistan that could use a platoon of Abrams tanks dug in along the wall, and I'm sure you wouldn't hear any complaints from the infantry stationed at the outpost. Pinpoint 120mm cannon accuracy, not to mention the machines guns can add a lot of punch.

Sure the Abrams has vulnerable points, as does any tank, but that is no reason not to consider it. The Marine and Army leadership have learned many lessons from the Russian involvement in Afghanistan, so before people start armchair judging from their extensive military backgrounds , maybe they should have some faith.

[BloodyTalon]

Yeah theoretically you can use a tank to shoot at anything but do you really need a tank to shoot a stuff like fortifications? IMO a SMAW is enough for that job.

You technically don't "need" anything aside from infantry to get an objective done but there are sure as hell a lot more effective alternatives. What a tank brings is force multiplication. An Abrams is going to inevitably do more damage for a longer period than an AT team. Furthermore, while there are plenty of ways for infantry to kill a tank on paper, in practice a tank is an extremely difficult target to kill, especially when its paired alongside infantry and you only have small arms at your disposal.

Finally, what a tank offers that regular squads don't is psychological impact. Oh sure, Afghanis and the Taliban can talk crap about the cowardly Americans hiding in metal boxes to a magazine that might as well change its name to "Armchair General Monthly" now, but they're gonna be singing a different tune once those Abrams enter combat, especially if they're on the receiving end of the "cowards." Having to deal with a giant warmachine that flattens buildings on the fly and is nigh impervious to anything the Taliban can dish out at that point is going to be a morale breaker for the Taliban and a morale booster for the ISAF.

[para944]

You technically don't "need" anything aside from infantry to get an objective done but there are sure as hell a lot more effective alternatives. What a tank brings is force multiplication. An Abrams is going to inevitably do more damage for a longer period than an AT team. Furthermore, while there are plenty of ways for infantry to kill a tank on paper, in practice a tank is an extremely difficult target to kill, especially when working alongside infantry and the enemy only has small arms at their disposal.

Finally, what a tank offers that regular squads don't is psychological impact. Oh sure, Afghanis can talk crap about the cowardly Americans hiding in metal boxes to a magazine that might as well change its name to "Armchair General Monthly" but they're gonna be singing a different tune once those Abrams enter combat, especially if they're on the receiving end of the "cowards." Having to deal with a giant warmachine that flattens buildings on the fly and is nigh impervious to anything the Taliban can dish out at that point is going to be a morale breaker for the Taliban and a morale booster for the ISAF.

Good points but IMO you underestimate the Taliban. Most of them are stupid farmers but some of them are, although they're of course all cvntheads, skilled wariors. They know how to effectively employ anti armour weapons and they don't mind if they're going to die because they're so fanatic. And I guess it'll take only a short period of time untill the Taliban will get sophisticted ATGM's manufactured in China via the ISI.

[Alfacentori]

Tanks seem to me to be perfect for overwatch and precision fire support in A'stan, where as air support has to often come from far away with little loiter time on site, while arty at long ranges with no visual in areas with civilians can be unnecessarily damaging. The Canadians and Danes have used them to good effect, and in fact the Taliban have gone hard for the tanks, their efforts getting them in the open and in many cases eliminated without loss.

As for the Taliban calling the soldiers using tanks cowards, this coming from the same scum who deliberately target women and children..... and behead any who speak against them, that's cowardice

Alfa

[wicked_hind]

As long as they can help in the overall outcome of any future battle in which they'll participate, bring them to the frontline.

[Hast2]

I just hope Talis won't "accidently" find "a stash" with ATGMs. Quite good terrain for them.

[Hyde]

Yeah theoretically you can use a tank to shoot at anything but do you really need a tank to shoot a stuff like fortifications? IMO a SMAW is enough for that job.

Obvious troll is obvious.

[DaveDash]

Para, seriously, what rock have you been living under the last 10 years?

1. Tanks have already been used in A-Stan to great effect by the Canadians and Danes.
2. The USMC concept is infantry supported by assets. They have used tanks to great effect in Iraq, such as the Battle of Fallujah, where tanks were sitting around supported by infantry. If you want rolling HBCTs using shock and awe across open ground, call up the Army.
3. Read some friggen AAR's from the US Army on the performance of the engines of tanks in Iraq. The gas turbine engine was pretty reliable.
4. Tanks arn't that easy to take out as you think. Read the Thunder Run into Baghdad. There is a video of part of it on youtube also. At one point the tank with the camera quickly traverses its turret and engages a RPG team at close range, I personally can't even see the guys in the video, but it goes to show it's very difficult to sneak up on a modern MBT.
5. The main threat faced in Afghanistan is IEDs and small arms from RPGs. Tanks can use their main gun to support infantry by breaching to create paths for infantry to bypass IEDS, and the armour protection offered by them means they are much more survivable than infantry to RPG and small arms fire.
6. Tanks in an overwatch position can support infantry better than any other land based system. You'll notice the Green zones in Afghanistan have a lot of good overwatch positions overlooking bases etc.
7. Tanks have a psychological impact. In OIF PsyOps played the noise of tanks driving through loud speakers around because the scared the sh1t out of the Iraqis.

[bravosixniner]

Nah, thermobaric munition is quite effective, have a look at the russian 9M123 and 9K115-2 families munition types. What munition are you talking about? Excalibur?

Thermobarics isnt designed to take on armor, more so employed against people in buildings. Kill the folks inside without the need to level a building. It employs over pressure if I remember correctly, which does nothing against a tank. Over pressure and AP arent the same thing.

And the biggest threat in a strategic sense is how your going to employ it. Tanks can only be deployed in certain parts of Afghanistan, so it wont be a game changer. Only a tailored measure for a specific threat. Close air support and artillery will still be the mainstay.

[dc_b4.mc]

[QUOTE=Tank is better, it is highly mobile in rough terrain so it can avoid roads and IED's, have big gun and machine guns and takes more ammo than attack helicopter, have thick armor so old RPG's and light weapons will don't make much damage on it, it is big, nasty and scary. So it have same or even greater psychological effect on enemy.[/QUOTE]

Agree
however, it might also remind afghans the old times of soviets

[para944]

Para, seriously, what rock have you been living under the last 10 years?

1. Tanks have already been used in A-Stan to great effect by the Canadians and Danes.
2. The USMC concept is infantry supported by assets. They have used tanks to great effect in Iraq, such as the Battle of Fallujah, where tanks were sitting around supported by infantry. If you want rolling HBCTs using shock and awe across open ground, call up the Army.
3. Read some friggen AAR's from the US Army on the performance of the engines of tanks in Iraq. The gas turbine engine was pretty reliable.
4. Tanks arn't that easy to take out as you think. Read the Thunder Run into Baghdad. There is a video of part of it on youtube also. At one point the tank with the camera quickly traverses its turret and engages a RPG team at close range, I personally can't even see the guys in the video, but it goes to show it's very difficult to sneak up on a modern MBT.
5. The main threat faced in Afghanistan is IEDs and small arms from RPGs. Tanks can use their main gun to support infantry by breaching to create paths for infantry to bypass IEDS, and the armour protection offered by them means they are much more survivable than infantry to RPG and small arms fire.
6. Tanks in an overwatch position can support infantry better than any other land based system. You'll notice the Green zones in Afghanistan have a lot of good overwatch positions overlooking bases etc.
7. Tanks have a psychological impact. In OIF PsyOps played the noise of tanks driving through loud speakers around because the scared the sh1t out of the Iraqis.

It seems to me that you have no idea what tactical purpose tanks have. I suggest you to read some stuff by Guderian and Hoth. If you use tanks to support infantry, you fail. The Allies did that in WW2 and I'm pretty ure that we can agree on the fact that german armour tactics were far superior because they employed tanks in combination with mechanized units and not in a support role for infantry.

[profall]

I could see how one or two tanks could provide very beneficial support during a firefight.

It'd also scare the Taliban, knowing no matter what they do during that ambush, that the tank is still going to be there ready to screw them up. It's one thing to ambush a couple of MRAPS with the heaviest weapon being a .50cal. But a 120mm main gun that makes any sort of available cover useless, that makes the enemy scared.

[Winger]

It seems to me that you have no idea what tactical purpose tanks have. I suggest you to read some stuff by Guderian and Hoth. If you use tanks to support infantry, you fail. The Allies did that in WW2 and I'm pretty ure that we can agree on the fact that german armour tactics were far superior because they employed tanks in combination with mechanized units and not in a support role for infantry.

Your are totally out of context. Different types of wars here. You have to adjust and adapt accordingly. Guderian and Hoth came up with some pretty cardinal do's and dont's that made perfect sense for that type of war....where fast bypassing and pincer moves were required to form cauldron battles. We're talking about a totally different type of war here...not just in who we are fighting but how we are trying to fight it.

[Alfacentori]

It seems to me that you have no idea what tactical purpose tanks have. I suggest you to read some stuff by Guderian and Hoth. If you use tanks to support infantry, you fail. The Allies did that in WW2 and I'm pretty ure that we can agree on the fact that german armour tactics were far superior because they employed tanks in combination with mechanized units and not in a support role for infantry.

You're talking and comparing WW2, which was a conventional war, with COIN in A'stan today and the two cannot be compared, the Taliban have no armour of any type. Also the German armies in WW2 had the STUG series assault guns et al to provide direct infantry support, not because tanks could not do it but because assault guns were cheaper to make and a turreted tank was better able to conduct mobile warfare than an assault gun.

Alfa

[BloodyTalon]

Good points but IMO you underestimate the Taliban. Most of them are stupid farmers but some of them are, although they're of course all cvntheads, skilled wariors. They know how to effectively employ anti armour weapons and they don't mind if they're going to die because they're so fanatic. And I guess it'll take only a short period of time untill the Taliban will get sophisticted ATGM's manufactured in China via the ISI.

I think you're too focused on looking at the use of tanks only from a conventional standpoint. MBTs have currently been used in the West Bank, Iraq, and already parts of Afghanistan as direct fire support for infantry. In this job tanks have been shown to be quite effective in an asymmetrical warfare because of their survivability and psychological impact that a mere squad, MRAP, etc. is not going to have. The Marines are employing a sound strategy that has been proven to work in multiple theaters in the past.

Again, although there are plenty of ways on paper for a soldier/insurgent to take out a tank, on practice its a much more difficult factor. Even assuming the Pakistanis or Chinese collectively lose 50 points off of their IQs and blow their cover by providing Taliban with Kornets, it's still not going to be a game changer against MBTs with considerable infantry, indirect fire, and CAS support.