'Challenger III' it is, then. The future UK Main Battle Tank fleet Challeopard? Leoparger? Beute PzKpW Leopard Ausf Challenger (e) I can feel a certain amount of WW2 serviceman wincing ever so slightly at the British MBT being substantially a German 'big cat'. Now wonder how this will all shake out. I believe we don't have large armoured castings capacity any more. See if they push it as the old political/jobs compromise or an actual military programme.
Now we build tanks together instead of shooting each other to pieces - I think that's a very desirable development. IMHO certain national "disputes" are much better settled in football arenas anyway (we haven't forgotten Wembley 1966, Sons of Albion!).
Estonia. Brilliant, but also slightly sinister. https://twitter.com/FeWoessner/status/1390628483391492097?s=20
Wonder if that means three regiments with 44 tanks and 14 tanks for training and spare. If I am not wrong, some of British tank regiments did have 44 Challenger 2 tanks earlier. Other options would we 48 tanks per regiment but that would leave only 4 spares or just two regiment with more tanks.
Can't help feeling it would be less embarrassing to just throw in the towel and decide we aren't going to be needing the things anyway. If there was another big war, we'd have to build bulldozers to clear the old airfields before we could even think about remembering how to build tanks. It might make more sense to bite the bullet and permanently amalgamate the tanks with mechanised infantry battalions on a battalion/squadron basis or whatever. It might even increase the MBT requirement, but I'm too scared to see what's left.
Why not just buy a load of these - how many enemy tanks can they destroy in one sitting?? AgustaWestland Apache - Wikipedia TD Apache helicopter ‘capable to take out’ 16 enemy’s tanks during sortie. Apaches are capable of firing 16 hellfire missiles and 300 rounds of 30mm, giving them the ability to take out 16 tanks were they to engage each one with a missile. So some basic maths - 148 tanks needs only 10 Apaches to take them out - wonder what the cost difference is per unit
TD, After the First Gulf War there was a much reduced role for Apache attack helicopters in a "tank busting" role. From memory this was due to their deployment in the desert against an Iraqi armoured formation, which had ample ant-aircraft weapons (23mm quad) and defeated them. This may be the incident: 2003 attack on Karbala - Wikipedia In a counter-insurgency role they were lethal, so that is the role they were used for.
Politicians like tanks in the same way that they like aircraft carriers. Whether either will be of much use in the next war remains to be seen. Glad to be no longer part of the experiment.
Try this short article by Nicholas Drummond on the latest design for the British Army, within ware several points on armored vehicles: The Good, Bad and Ugly - The British Army and the Integrated Review % and his paper for the House of Commons Defence Committee: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/12283/html/ If you want despair at how the Army and MoD have mismanaged our £ read their 2021 report Obsolescent and outgunned: the British Army’s armoured vehicle capability: Obsolescent and outgunned: the British Army’s armoured vehicle capability - Defence Committee - House of Commons A Canadian paper on the UK's choices: https://cdn.website-editor.net/9cbc...uploaded/2021TheGreatBritishTankDebate%20.pdf .
I still tend to think any excuse has been taken to run down the forces until we were forced to beg our continental mates to protect us. Now our glorious leaders have got to grow up and decide what to do, all on their own. It won't be pretty but maybe they will start to realise whose interests should come first. I'm not smart enough to know if MBTs should be part of that but who is likely to be driving them up our beaches? Not that they'll get very far if they get all those dinghies caught in their tracks...
Managing a unit with such wide differences in equipment would be a nightmare. Tankies and infanteers have different skills you could not easily swap a tank gunner for a light machine gunner in an infantry section or vice versa.
Having spent some time in and around Kerbala its pretty flat and open and movement of any sort can be seen for miles. So it would therefore I guess depend on the type of terrain you were in, and so if it was Northern Europe I would still suggest that at potentially a smaller unit cost. and using less manpower (2 in an Apache - 5 or 6 in a Battle Tank) there is still a very good basis for purchasing more Apache Helicopters than investing in Battle Tanks Assuming that support in terms of manpower and facilities would almost be the same for either Unit cost of a Battle Tank is ? - + how many crew (5?) Unit cost of an Apache Helicopter is ? - + 2 crew TD
Armies are already complicated, we could just not bother with them... There is an assumption that the vehicles would be broadly comparable, if not variations on a theme. The infantry appeared to cope with the FV432 to Warrior transition, and even the Guards managed tanks once upon a time. The point, such as it was, is that maybe we first need to think what we want to do and how best to do it, then go from there. Even the die-hardiest Tankie isn't likely to claim that our two or three armoured regiments are likely to be employed en masse. Additional tasks or trades within a composite unit might enhance career progression - start as an infantry man, stint as a crewman, section commander and so on. Of course, that may contradict the perceived war on recruitment but allowing everything to wither away to unsustainable numbers doesn't sound like a great plan. How long before the guns go the same way as land mines because indirect fire is portrayed as indiscriminate and unsporting?
Modernisation of 38 British Apaches to AH-64E and procurement of 12 new AH-64E, for total of 50, was covered by $2.3-billion contract. So getting more Apaches would not be cheep. Also training Apache crew is very hard and expensive. I don't think that attack helicopter could replace tanks or any other heavy support vehicle. If you go that way why not replace all helicopters with drones? If I'm not wrong US Army did replace classic Armoured and Mechanised battalions with Composite Armoured and Mechanised battalion with 1-2 tank companies and 2-1 mechanised companies depending of unit. But British Army successfully operated similar combat groups during the Gulf War and Iraq Invasion in 2003, so it is questionable how much creating a new mixed unit could improve that.
Cross-attachment of arms into battalion-size 'battle groups' of company-size 'combat teams' is nothing new. But if that's the way most of the fighting is done most of the time, why not formalise the arrangement? This is in the context of infantry mechanised and armoured to a level commensurate with the big guns. We might decide we need heavy- and light-armoured units as well as light-role, foot-borne infantry units. There just seems little point in having formations on paper that are undeployable without robbing men and kit from others.
We could go a different route then - 1 soldier to destroy 1 tank - FGM-148 Javelin - Wikipedia - cost, not much TD Yes I know its Wiki but gives some comparative data 9M133 Kornet - Wikipedia Unit cost $6,230 per missile (2012) The world’s deadliest anti-tank missiles: Which ones come out on top? HJ-12 or Red Arrow 12 The warhead can penetrate up to 1,100mm of armour protected by explosive reactive armour.
Lots of cooperative training is clearly important, but on the other hand does it make sense to have a mixed unit when it comes to the specific training for the individual arms? And then there's maintenance etc - if you have mixed units and thus tanks in every one, then maybe every one needs the equipment and personnel to do all the repairs on tanks. I'm kind of assuming that when you have a regiment of armour, there's better opportunity for someone to specialize in the training of tankers (tankies) and to deliver that training to the soldiers. You obviously need both, really.