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Tanks are obsolete (again) [1]
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Date: 2023-03-07
Abrams Tank
With the advent of UAVs, Javelins and other shoulder fired missiles the tank has been declared obsolete. However, tanks have been decried almost every year since they were first used during WW1, yet Ukraine is demanding ever more tanks. What’s going on here? Are tanks really obsolete and what can we predict about the future of the war in Ukraine?
The Yom Kippur War
You may be interested in the reminiscences of an Israeli General with whom I shared an evening in a bar many years ago. He was on the Sinai front during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. The Israelis were not faring well.
The Egyptians, under the cover of Soviet anti-aircraft missiles were wrecking the Israeli Air Force. The Israelis could not depend on their vaunted Air Force to provide cover for their ground forces.
On the ground, the Egyptians were destroying massive numbers of Israeli tanks with shoulder fired missiles, plus the Sagger wire guided rocket. One could have announced the demise of the tank at that point. However, the Israelis learned quickly how to counter these infantry deployed tank killers. It comes under the generic title of combined arms.
The Israelis learned that they needed to coordinate their artillery with their armor and infantry. By saturating the area in front of an armor advance with artillery, they drove the Egyptian infantry and their portable missiles either into their graves or under ground. A minute later armor and infantry arrived to secure the area.
As you can see, success depends on close coordination between armor, artillery, and infantry. I’ll come back to this close coordination soon to tell you why the Putin regime has never and will never acquire that close coordination. But first, let’s see what Israel was able to do with their mastery of combined arms.
The Egyptians had advanced across the Suez canal into the Sinai and, as stated above, were having their way with the Israelis. The Israelis observed, learned, and corrected their tactics to defeat the anti-tank missiles. They punched a mile-wide hole in the Egyptian lines and fanned out on either side behind, cutting off Egyptian supplies of fuel, food, and ammunition
The Egyptian army in Sinai died on the vine. The war ended soon after.
Now back to the Russians
After a year of war, they still have no clue how to coordinate air, infantry, artillery, and armor. They continue to impale themselves on Ukrainian defenses in hordes. Tanks are complex tools that need to be used properly if they are going to be effective. When you see Russian tanks being canalized into columns by mud and then get picked off by Ukrainian Javelins, you can’t blame the tank.
Throw a nail down randomly on a 2 by 4 and smash it with a hammer. How effective was that? Do we throw away the hammer?
This is not rocket surgery, folks. Combined arms has been around in concept since WW1. Germany, followed by the Western Allies, perfected it during WW2.
It is true that there’s a big gap between knowing the concept and actually doing it when bullets are flying. However, one would think that after a year of massive casualties, and loss of materiel and prestige that changes would have been made, if it were possible. I can tell you that it’s not for lack of intelligence on the part of Russians.
No, there’s a systemic roadblock that prevents the Russians from learning combined arms. Let’s dig a little deeper into combined arms to see if we can learn why. We all know what the first casualty of battle is, right? Things move at lightning speed when armies move. The fog of war obscures the big picture. Despite all our advances in communications, radio signals get jammed, wires get cut, and runners get lost. A new order that was supposed to get to you two hours ago comes in now after three countermanding orders – and you’ve been awake for 48 hours. Individual commanders may only be in contact with the units that flank them.
A battle plan that meticulously called for an artillery barrage at point X followed a minute later by a tank charge can become hopelessly uncoordinated simply because of the massive complexity of moving tens of thousands of people, vehicles, and their supplies from point A to point X. It’s guaranteed that something will go wrong. Now add in that somebody is shooting at you.
Corrections to those expected errors can only happen when all levels of the organization are free to acknowledge and decide HOW to correct them at the lowest levels without waiting for orders from the top for every nickel & dime problem.
[I would just add that anyone who’s ever worked in a large organization knows this instinctively.]
A successful combined arms strategy can only be executed by an organization that encourages communication, cooperation, and decision making at all levels. This kind of reactive organization acknowledges changes in plans, and expects commanders to adjust quickly. NATO trains to this system.
To repeat, combined arms can be successful only when decision making is delegated through-out the organization.
In the Russian system, all decisions are reserved for top commanders, if not Putin, himself. Further down the ladder the job is only to carry them out…SUCCESSFULLY! Messengers can get shot. One example is that Russian artillery commanders continue to fire their allotted number of shells into a target even when they KNOW that the target has moved. The reason: they will be chastised if they don’t complete their planned mission.
To give you a flavor for what this means operationally, General Wesley Clark, former head of NATO, was helping to train the Ukrainian military in 2016. He said that after a large training exercise he gathered the leaders together to do a post-exercise critique; a review of what went right and wrong. The Ukrainians asked why. They explained that their Soviet-style training required that they simply lie to their bosses that everything had gone perfectly. Clark replied that now things would be done differently.
What does all this allow us to predict going forward?
Russia’s dominance in artillery (the God of war) will be tough to overcome unless they are cut off from their supplies.
Russia will not learn to become an adaptive, quick reacting force. The Putin regime is not structured that way. In fact, it is structured NOT to be that way. Delegating power and initiative to all levels is contrary to an authoritarian regime because one of the ways the regime stays in power is by controlling communication from the center. Allowing cross-talk and decisions between lower levels is dangerous to the regime. In other words, if Russia becomes a quick-reacting force, it won’t be Russian any more.
Ukraine will continue to learn and react quickly to rapid changes on the battlefield. Expect the Ukrainians to continue to adapt the combined arms methods of NATO. I wouldn’t be surprised if an Israeli style punch through the middle of Russian lines that cuts them off from all supplies is in the near future. Note that the latest tranche of military supplies that the US sent to Ukraine includes portable folding bridges which can hold heavy armored vehicles.
Is the tank obsolete? The jury’s out. My guess is that there is still a place for it, if it’s used properly in a combined arms setting. However, whatever the future holds for the tank, the Ukrainians will figure it out long before the Russians do.
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