A generation later after that utter failure to build a wonder tank, through a conventional and COIN campaign in Iraq that showed the value of the tank in both types of a fight, the updated Abrams tank still works and the urge to replace it with something other than a tank persists:
While tanks have been declared obsolete many times since their first use in the Battle of the Somme in 1916, the latest high-tech upgrades to the legendary M1 Abrams make it more reliable, effective and lethal, allowing the Abrams to be a key asset in the land portion of the evolving multidomain battle. It can’t fly. It can’t swim. It doesn’t fight cyberbattles or knock out satellites, but it is an essential piece of the multidomain fighting force.
The improved Abrams, the M1A2C, moves toward the Army’s expectations for the next-generation combat vehicle by having improved crew protection and mobility, but it lacks the option of autonomous operation, alternative fuel and directed energy weaponry capabilities being studied by the cross-functional team trying to set a road map to the future.
The next tank may not even be a tank-looking and tank-acting vehicle.
We're running out time to play these stupid wishing games. The Abrams is still good but it will soon reach the limits of improvement to the basic design.
Until we can mass produce crew-less vehicles that are considered expendable in combat and so are light and cheap, the heavy and well protected tank is still the way to bet for survivable, mobile, killing machines. We simply can't have all that and be air mobile in large numbers, too.*
I don't even want to raise the issue of friggin' laser (or whatever) main weapons and alternative fuels. Just ... stop.
Look, if we need an armored vehicle that bridges the gap between leg infantry and Abrams/Bradley teams, that's fine. But don't try to bridge the gap with a vehicle that is also going to replace the Abrams and Bradley. If the design compromises between the two, we will get a vehicle too heavy to be airlifted yet too light to survive on the battlefield.
Design a new heavy tank that looks like a tank and acts like a tank before the tanks we have no longer work. One day the tank will be obsolete. I don't see the evidence for thinking that day has arrived.
Stop trying to build a road map to the future and build a new tank.
*And even if the Army could build a tank light enough to be airlifted in large numbers to a distant battlefield, raise your hand if you think the Air Force will ever have enough airlift to do that? You ... over on the right ... put your damn hand down.
UPDATE: This author is singing to the choir here at TDR. Although I wonder how much longer the basic design can be updated.
