RE: Armour, part II

elp,

With all due respect I disagree. The faith you have in airpower is based pretty much on the experience of the US in the last three/four wars it fought against enemies incapable of defending themselves properly. A nation unable to acheive the total control of the air like the US can might decide that actually tanks can be quite useful. Besides, I note that even though the US can bring to bear thousands of tons of precision guided ordinance on Afghanistan nothing has replaced the grunt on the ground with his trusty M-16. I’m willing to bet that there’s nothing those grunts want more than a few Bradleys and a few Abrams watching their backs.

RE: Armour, part II

Does that mean that you guys agree with me? In a low-scale, guerrilla conflict like we’re seeing from the ME to the Balkans, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka etc a T-55 type tank, with a reasonable main amarment, good medium range accuracy and decent protection against RPG type weapons is all you really need.

Question about Israel’s use of armour. The deployment of large numbers of tanks in built up areas is a known military blunder and can result in significant losses of both personel and material. How do the Israelis do it? I haven’t heard of a single tank loss since a Merkava hit a mine a few months ago… Perhaps I should be asking is why the Palestinians are so short on any type of anti-tank weapon. I understand that guided missles etc might be a bit of a bitch to smuggle in but surely a handful of RPG-7s would make for a significant morale boost if used correctly.

RE: Armour, part II

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 17-04-02 AT 09:37 AM (GMT)]elp,

“The T-54/55 I think is cool because there are so many things for it. Just as long as I don’t have to face targets past 2500 meters its OK. In an extreme range enviornment it would be dead meat.”

Not neccessarily true. I can’t give you the exact figures (I’m at work – no reference material at hand) but there are Russian-developed guided projectiles available for the T-55’s main gun. I think ranges out to 4,000m (with reliable hit probabilities) are now acheivable.

RE: Armour, part II

Garry,

Maybe they’re thinking about lighter, smaller tanks because of the cost of transporting a single Abrams… Also, like I said, a T-55 is perfectly sufficient for fighting terrorists. Incidentally, T-55s with a Russian upgrade swung the war in the Northern Alliance’s favour – according to Jane’s :-).