Which Tank do you think is the best?

[fool]

What do you guys think about unmanned ground combat vehicles?

[Ruges]

What do you guys think about unmanned ground combat vehicles?

While the technology is not here for the war that is being fought now. I believe the theory to such weapons is solid, and they will one day be a large portion of a military. Although I dont see entire militaries dedicated to them. With weapons such as EMP's They could be rendered a pile of junk.

[Darkreaper]

That is why I think you are oversimplifying the situation Feltan, because hand held missiles that will dependably kill lighter vehicles have existed since WWII, and the military still uses metal boxes on wheels or tracks to move men faster than they can walk. Yes, the world military philosophy may drift away from massive MBTs, but just do a quick search through different region's inventories in 2020, every area has multiple light tanks and beefed up IFVs that approach light tank killing power. We may see poisonous gasses make a come back, maybe not even lethal ones, but those designed to incapacitate enemy infantry. We may see old school battlefield saturation bombings become more common, or massive firestorm weapons which armor has been designed to operate in and through. The military will always want something that can slaughter mobile infantry, and outmaneuver foot soldiers. What this comes to consist of is not decided, but I would not put any money on it not including some form of tank.

-Light

P.S. You had the answers right in front of you BTW. Battleships became obsolete, so they figured out how to make frigates and destroyers just as deadly instead alongside the reign of the carriers.

Precisely, form may become obsolete but function never does. Sure we stopped using horses, but we still have cavalry units, we just use IFVs and Armoured trucks instead of steeds

[Feltan]

.....Simply stating "Armor is obsolete!", and not investigating other possible tactics is not the type of military thinking I have come to expect from you Feltan.

Light,

Now who is oversimplifying things? I never said that, and my argument was that the MBT will eventually go away in favor of more inexpensive lighter more nimble armored troops-transporters with AT capability.

Your statement about IFV's today is instructive to the point. Except in rare circumstances, IFV's do not fight in close with enemy forces. Their role is to transport infantry, and provide distant covering fire and AT support. They are simply too thin skinned, too vulnerable, to get in close -- within range of shoulder fired AT rockets/missles. There are exceptions to this, but those are usually issues of contingency rather than planned events. The IFV of today is simply an armored truck/tractor with some non-trivial fire support capability. Infantry dismounts to fight, and the IFV's lay back.

Today, they don't even try to make IFV's invulnerable to AT weapons. Too expensive, and too impracticle.

Same thing is going to happen to tanks. Then they are going to figure out that fire support from expensive tanks can be provided from the future lighter armored transports I am talking about -- and the reason for the tank will go away.

Regards,
Feltan

[Lightbringer]

@Feltan

Perhaps I oversimplified your position a bit, but all I could find as an alternate military strategy was this:

My guess is that it will be decades before armored monsters slowly give way to light nimble vehicles that can carry troops as well as pack an anti-tank punch.

While I agree with you that this is the obvious solution, in fact my post says that in more detail, it still seems to be a bit of a circular argument. After all, if nobody is fielding tanks anymore, then why include AT weapons on your IFVs? And if nobody is including AT weaponry on their armored minivans, why not roll out a few tanks and slaughter them? The chicken? or the egg?

One thing you have to admit, it will be quite some time before cheap AT weapons match the range of main tank weapons. If the AT is expensive, then that at least partially negates the reason for MBTs to be replaced, because expensive and hard to kill is still better than expensive and easy (or easier) to kill. The whole progression of battlefield equipment is more complicated than just building an assload of LAVs with good AT missiles. A lot depends on what tech comes down the pipeline.

-Light

[The Khan]

Yeah. If we manage to develop some REALLY hard armor material, we just might see MBT's for another century.

But:

if nobody is fielding tanks anymore, then why include AT weapons on your IFVs? And if nobody is including AT weaponry on their armored minivans, why not roll out a few tanks and slaughter them? The chicken? or the egg?

Considering AT guns are explodey and penetrative, even without tanks they could be used to wreak havoc at infantry in cover and buildings... Perhaps with some in-field modification even turned into HE shells...