This is just all kinds of stupid:
The manufacturing of tanks — powerful but cumbersome — is no longer essential, the military says. In modern warfare, forces must deploy quickly and “project power over great distances.” Submarines and long-range bombers are needed. Weapons such as drones — nimble and tactical — are the future.
Tanks are something of a relic.
But the Army isn't saying that they don't need heavy armor (Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles or a replacement for the latter). The Army is saying they don't need any more of them, and that it could save money by closing plants, putting them in reserve, and reopening them when needed:
Military officials say they’ve given careful thought to their strategy and they simply can’t afford to pay for more upgraded tanks.
Gen. Raymond Odierno, the Army’s chief of staff, made its case before Congress in 2012.
“We don’t need the tanks,” he said. “Our tank fleet is 2-1/2 years old average now. We’re in good shape, and these are additional tanks that we don’t need.”
I'm not well enough informed to say whether we can shut down and reopen a tank plant if it is needed.
But I am well enough informed to know that when an editor headlines an article about heavy armor production facilities as one about "the end of the tank," that this could quickly become a new assault on the value of heavy armor.
Yeah, after our heavy armor led our victory in 1991 in the deserts of Kuwait and southern Iraq, all of a sudden the popular guys in the strategy debate called our heavy armor too heavy for new wars where we'd deploy from the continental United States on Monday, wrap up the fight by Wednesday, and be back home by the weekend.
Operation Allied Force in 1999 reinforced this notion when the Army failed to quickly deploy attack helicopters to Albania and instead built a combined arms force (Task Force Hawk) capable of supporting and defending that helicopter force. If only we had light stuff, everything would be grand.
And the rapid defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan starting in October 2001, with few forces supported by smart bombs, was heralded as the wave of the future.
Then our heavy armor set the land speed record in the Middle East in 2003. So heavy armor was valuable again.
But then the call was to get out of our heavy armor, don soft caps, and walk amongst the Iraqis to pacify them.
Sadly for futurists, the tank again became a key weapon in defeating the insurgents and terrorists.
Now, once again, we discount the need for survivable ground power and believe speed of deployment is the most important thing ever.
So let me link to an essay I completed in June 2001 for a contest that fell apart between editors by the time I submitted it, in which I argued against the new, trendy dismissal of the value of heavy armor. Let me quote one portion on heavy armor:
The single-minded focus on speed in deployment logically led to criticism of our heavy divisions and the determination to replace heavy armor as the core of our war winning forces. Decisive battlefield victory in Desert Storm appeared to give us the luxury of discounting heavy armor. The heavy forces that smashed their way into southern Iraq are now judged dinosaurs unable to reach a theater in time to do any good. Task Force Hawk's lengthy deployment confirmed this lesson and reinforced the trend to lighten the Army. Surely, the theory goes, our vehicles can be lighter and still deliver victory if we compensate with other advances. This lesson assumes overwhelming victory as a constant in the equation and holds that the only thing left to do is speed up the process to get a better result. Victory is not a given. The lighter forces that result will need to replicate VII Corps' clenched fist driving into the Republican Guards with smaller fingers poking the enemy individually as they arrive. We believe technology will allow this to work. We shall see.
One way we believe technology will help compensate for light vehicles is a God-like view of the battlefield for our commanders. We assume that a transparent battlefield and superior communications will allow us to run circles around our foes and always shoot first. Today's push for a light deployable Army is bolstered by the dubious lesson that a footloose maneuver-oriented Army ran around a numerically superior and immobilized Iraqi army. But Iraqi forces successfully maneuvered into blocking positions against the American-led left hook even though they operated without battlefield awareness. Although they failed to stop VII Corps, they did turn to meet the attack head on. Clearly, our information dominance did not paralyze the enemy. Only our heavy armor and massive firepower allowed us to bulldoze our way through the Iraqi defenders.
In less ideal terrain and against a smarter enemy, this feat could not have been achieved with light armor. French light armored forces in the Gulf War were deemed too weak for the main punch and were given a screening role on the far western flank where they were unlikely to encounter serious opposition. Extolling the flexibility of French forces to bolster the rationale for the IBCT should not obscure the actual combat experience of the Gulf War. Light forces, whether light infantry, paratroopers, light armor, air mobile infantry, or Marines, were either not deployed, sent to the flanks, or reinforced with armor for a secondary thrust. Heavy forces delivered the decisive blow.
The Army certainly needs IBCT-like forces. The creation of these medium units, however, should come at the expense of the Army's light forces and not the heavy forces. If we want foot infantry, we already have four divisions of Marines, paratroopers, and Rangers. Fortunately, the digitized Legacy Force will remain the core of the counter-attack force for some time. We have time to reconsider whether we can have lethality, survivability, and lightness.
Note that IBCT stands for Interim Brigade Combat Team--now called Stryker brigades.
I don't deny that heavy armor could become obsolete. But I want to know what replaces it, first. Until then, in some form, it isn't a relic. It is the decisive weapon to close with and destroy a conventional enemy.
