Here we go again:
While the M1 Abrams tank still has life in it yet, the Army is starting to begin the thinking and planning process for a future tank, “which is really exciting because it might not be a tank,” Coffman said. “It is decisive lethality and what that decisive lethality is will be determined by academia, our science and technology community within the Army and industry.”
The Army will choose a path in 2023 on how it plans to replace the Abrams and some of the ideas cropping up in discussions have been “everything from a ray gun to a Star Wars-like four-legged creature that shoots lasers,” Coffman said, “but the reality is that everything is on the table.
Same old stuff again.
Not that we might not settle on a tank after looking at the laser-armed crawler option.
And not that we aren't modernizing our actual tanks in the arsenal right now.
But while past efforts to build a wonder tank failed, this time our academia, science, and technology communities just might do it! This time it will be different!
I railed against the effort prior to the Iraq War to build the Future Combat System--not a tank (the article starts on page 28). While I accepted some sort of light armor that could be airlifted to try to bridge the gap between foot infantry and heavy armor, I argued it would not replace a tank.
Desert Storm showed the value of heavy armor:
Technologically superior heavy forces and air power decisively prevailed in Desert Storm after a laborious deployment to the Gulf. With lighter and fewer but technologically superior troops, we expect to deploy globally from CONUS and smash any enemy rapidly and with few casualties. Desert Storm, updated to Information Storm, will become a Global Storm. Our Information Storm cannot become global without tradeoffs. If we lighten the Army too much and optimize it for stability operations, our troops will be shocked if we must fight even a single MTW, let alone something worse.
But that was forgotten.
And the Iraq War--both in the conventional phase and in the counter-insurgency phases--proved the value of armor again. Can we not remember that?
And we've had other examples of how heavy armor still has a vital role on the battlefield despite the claims that the little furry mammals were about to make them extinct.
The Army needs mobile protected firepower. If not a tank, what will provide that requirement in numbers we need?
I have no doubt that the heavy main battle tank will one day be replaced by something. No weapon systems dominates forever. But we keep trying to leap ahead to that day and falling on our faces. Why are we tempted to say "This time for sure!"
And if once again the faith in technology to solve the problem of being lethal, protected, and strategically mobile fails as it has thus far, falling back on the mature Abrams tank will falter too as that old platform is unable to handle updates to keep it abreast of potential threats.
Just design and build a heavy tank.
