We've had attempts to defy reality fall apart in the past:
The Future Combat Systems program was supposed to fulfill similar expectations, but was shelved roughly a decade ago because they could not be realized, experts said.
Program officials and others “assumed capabilities they wanted but they really didn’t have the ability to generate,” said Michael E. O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution. “That led to 18 different permutations off of one construct.”
O’Hanlon said he has yet to see convincing proof that a future vehicle can move forward on the basis of lessons learned from FCS and incorporation of new technology in armored active or reactive defensive systems. Change is necessary and doable, he believes, but an incremental approach might work better. And while active defense systems sound beneficial in regards to incoming rounds, he questioned their effectiveness against improvised explosive devices or drone-swarm attacks.
“You need to be pretty wary that you’re going to be able to protect future combat systems through a higher technological version of battlefield awareness and defensive technology,” O’Hanlon said. “Armor is still going to have a place. Heavy armor is still going to have a place.”
Yes, heavy passive armor still has a place and counting on active or reactive systems to avoid the need for the bulky heavy plate is doomed to enemy countermeasures finding a way past them. In my opinion, of course. Although it is nice to see O'Hanlon recognize the place for heavy armor.
I've had a problem with the attempt to build a lethal, strategically mobile, and well-protected combat vehicle. I believe that is the iron triangle of armored vehicles where you can pick any two of those attributes but not three. We can't get around the need for heavy passive armor if we want our armored fighting vehicles to be survivable, as I wrote when the FCS was still a thing (see the article starting on page 28):
Building the FCS, however, is a high-risk venture. The Army should not spend whatever it takes attempting to meld multiple revolutionary technologies into one vehicle for all missions. The FCS should be different from the Abrams and Bradley but must be designed with near-term technology that incorporates modular improvements if the Army is to turn "gee whiz" ideas into actual hardware. Separated missiles and a sensor grid; active defenses; EGTs; and exotic engines, fuels, and weapons can be retrofitted to defeat more capable enemies. Barring successfully fielding exotic technologies to make the FCS work, the Army must consider how it will defeat future heavy systems if fighting actual enemies and not merely suppressing disorder becomes its mission once again. The tentative assumptions of 2001 will change by 2025. When they do, the Army will rue its failure today to accept that the wonder tank will not be built.
Now, if they are to be expendable, that's another question. Then you don't need much protection. But as long as they have crews that won't be the case. And given the distance from our factories to the front, I don't know if we can afford to do that.
But even now when fighting actual enemies with the new national defense strategy is the order of the day, I worry that the urge to build the wonder tank that is lethal, survivable, and capable of being flown around the world slung under a Piper Cub is too tempting not to pursue.
UPDATE: The Army would sure like the wonder
The Army is accelerating plans to build early prototypes for its futuristic Next-Generation Combat Vehicle (NGCV) for the 2030s and beyond – a lighter-weight, deployable high-tech armored vehicle platform to control nearby robots, launch attack drones, fire new weapons and outmatch future Russian and Chinese armored vehicles.
And a Keurig machine. Don't forget that. Tip to Instapundit.
The Abrams tank is getting old. We don't seem to want a new tank.
UPDATE: This is a good article. The hovering ray gun stuff is just hyperbole to make a valid point. In theory the desire to have the capabilities of the tank--mobile protected firepower--does not mean a "tank" must provide it.
But lack of lightweight armor and active protection systems that can stop kinetic penetrators hold back such a radical change; as does lack of robotics to make protection less of a concern--as I noted above.
On the armor issue, I just don't see how we get around the need for heavy passive armor. Even if we have light armor that means we can give Abrams protection on a light hull, won't enemies simply pile on more of that lightweight armor to provide even more protection than our vehicles?
And if we get the ultimate in active protection that stops all rounds, can we really abandon passive armor as the safety net if an enemy fires multiple rounds to exhaust the ammo supply of the APS or overwhelm its ability to destroy multiple incoming rounds?
Honestly, only robotics that allow for cheap nearly disposable "tanks" gets us out of this dilemma.
And escaping that dilemma may mean it is a robotic war of attrition that will require mass production of such Robotic Fighting Vehicles and the ability to move them overseas to replace losses.
So we get another dilemma to solve. But robotics isn't a problem we are near to solving either.
