Combined arms gave way to joint warfare, which then evolved to multi-domain warfare. Now I can only assume we have moved on to assume other services care about your missions more than their own warfare. Because that's what I hear when somebody starts talking about airlifting 40-ton tanks to a battlefield.
Booker light tanks will be airlifted in for airborne troops when Abrams tanks can't get there?
It is sometime in the future and the U.S. is at war. The 82nd Airborne Division has been ordered to conduct a Joint Forcible Entry into enemy territory. After the paratroopers seize an airfield and secure its perimeter, the call goes out for the next stage of the operation, and combat-ready armor support commanded by the division is flown in.
The first armor rolling off the C-17 in this scenario will be the M10 Booker Combat Vehicle, an armor expert with deep knowledge of how it was developed tells The War Zone.
Armed with a 105mm main gun, the Bookers won’t have as much firepower as the M1 Abrams main battle tank with its 120mm gun. Nor will the Bookers have as much armor to protect them. But they will require much less fuel and a far smaller logistical tail, and they will still be able to deliver a badly needed punch that can destroy armor, bunkers, and fortifications.
How many M10s can the Air Force sustain with aerial deliveries of fuel? Let alone fly to the landing zone? I mean, I understand that you love the one you're with when you can't be with the M1 you love. But the enemy isn't going to cooperate and send only forces unlikely to smash the pathetically few Bookers that will be on the ground in the real world.
Oh, wait. Apparently that mobility with "dedicated airlift" has been posited:
“The M10 Booker will enormously reduce risk, because it is part of the organization, meaning the Booker tank crews will also be on global response force status.”That means the M10s “will be ready to fly out immediately and there will be dedicated airlift for it,” the expert posited.
Well why didn't you lead with that? I'm starting to feel silly. Okay, no. I'm still unconvinced.
Really, Army faith in the Air Force is adorable!
For bunkers, armor, and fortifications, won't there be Javelins? Or AT-4s or Carl Gustavs? Or even LAW? And no precision fires from distant artillery or even nearby mortars? And no precision air power strikes from an Air Force with enough air supremacy to send in C-17s?? No drone wonder weapons? I mean, the Marines decided they could win on a modern battlefield without their Abrams main battle tanks!
If not for 40-ton light tanks flown in on an airfield secure enough to land expensive C-17s--and if you talk about parachuting M10s I swear I'll strike you twice with a glove across the face--those targets remain immune to all the Army's local lighter and remote heavier assets?
Unless the enemy is unusually cooperative or niche scenarios actually develop, I think those few expensive Bookers that make it to the battlefield will burn.
Unless mass-produced as a cheap new Sherman--that we assume will be lost and replaced often--I'm horrified at the thought of the M10 reaching a battlefield overland. Counting on it to arrive by air makes me need to change my underwear.
NOTE: The image was made from DALL-E.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
