Heavy armor hasn't been made obsolete just because precision weapons exist.
It's nice to see a defense of heavy armor.
Remember, even in World War II in the golden age of armored warfare, victorious armies would find that their armored forces were wiped out. But crews survived and new tanks were brought in to allow the mechanized forces to keep going.
Tanks could and did die facing just lots of simple projectile weapons. So the definition of becoming obsolete shouldn't be that tanks can be lit up.
I don't say that the heavy tank won't become obsolete.
I do say that the tracked heavy tank won't become obsolete until something replaces it. Until then, it is the only weapons system that combines firepower, protection, and cross-country tactical mobility.
Perhaps unmanned ground vehicles in the long run will replace tanks. But the software to guide the numbers of vehicles an army fields in widely different terrain dwarfs the relatively simple task of doing the same for aircraft in the sky.
In 2001, I tried to get an article published pushing back against the post-Desert Storm notion that our Army was too heavy and had to lighten up to be strategically mobile. The Abrams-Bradley team was seen as a pair of dinosaurs about to be brought down by the furry little mammals of light, strategically mobile systems.
I think this point of mine still stands out as the main point that frames the debate about heavy armor:
It seems safe to emphasize rapid deployment, abandon heavy forces, and discount mere numbers of troops because of the most unfortunate lesson. We learned we are unbeatable. Braced for thousands of casualties to break an Iraqi army hardened by its long war with Iran in the 1980s, we were stunned by the apparent ease of victory. Although few would admit this if pressed on the point, the very fact that we are seeking a smaller, lighter Army and are willing to thrust it into combat piecemeal upon arrival in the theater is unassailable proof that we do assume victory.
And we assume other countries know this too and so will never challenge the Army on the battlefield. All threats are asymmetric now. This is wishful thinking. Victory in Desert Storm will not give us credit toward the next war. We have to fight each one individually because every future enemy will have chosen to fight despite our last victory. They aren't scared of us. They may respect our power, but they think they can win. We must respect that determination. The proper lesson is that a military equipped and trained for the fiercest foe is ready to win decisively against lesser foes; and that decisive victory can lower casualties if it ends the war quickly.
And in 2002, I actually did get an article published in Military Review ("Equipping the Objective Force") that addressed what I thought was our futile effort to replace the Abrams-Bradley team with a 19-ton vehicle that wouldn't lose any attribute of firepower, protection, and mobility in its design:
Major General R. Steven Whitcomb, U.S. Army Chief of Armor, plans to equip the Objective Force with a future combat system (FCS) possessing “substantially improved strategic mobility and tactical agility, while maintaining overwhelming firepower and crew protection.”2 It is not called a tank because the FCS is envisioned as a vehicle that will be part of a networkcentric force that blurs distinctions between combat branches and blends combat support with the combat branches.3 The Army must field an FCS to be lighter, faster, and more agile than the Cold War Army yet still meet threats in 2025. We are clearly asking too much of this envisioned FCS.
We've abandoned that approach. Weight is no longer driving the replacement for our legacy heavy systems. The Iraq War demonstrated the value of our heavy armor, once more.
Of course, perhaps there could be reach-back technologies that could reduce crews exposed depending on the mission. But this will all be evolution rather than extinction for the heavy tank.
So, yeah, tanks can be killed. But properly employed and led by trained soldiers as part of a combined arms team they are still the primary killer and means of taking territory. No drones and A Teams--as awesome as they are in their lanes--can do that.
