# Are tanks of any use anymore on the modern battlefield?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tanks-of-any-use-anymore-on-the-modern-battlefield/961813
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [March 28, 2022, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tanks-of-any-use-anymore-on-the-modern-battlefield/961813 "2022-03-28T01:22:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2022, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tanks-of-any-use-anymore-on-the-modern-battlefield/961813/41 "2022-03-29T11:42:47Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#):
>
> {…}Tanks… you must have seen the story about the commander of a Russian tank regiment who committed suicide. {…}
[The tank is incapacitated. Daskal hands out a grenade to Kaminski and Golikov.]
Daskal: You know our standing orders.
Kaminski: What?
Daskal: Out of commission, become a pillbox. Out of ammo, become a bunker. Out of time, become heroes.
Kaminski: You must be out of your fucking mind! [He tosses his grenade aside.]
Daskal: Now. Together. [Daskal pulls the grenade pin.]
_The Beast of War_ (1988)
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2022, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tanks-of-any-use-anymore-on-the-modern-battlefield/961813/42 "2022-03-29T11:50:13Z")
The modern battlefield is always evolving, and is varied throughout the world. Some terrain is ideal for tanks, some isn’t. Countermeasures are invented, and counter-countermeasures are invented.
Tanks work great when used on terrain they’re suited to, for their intended purpose, with the combined-arms support that they depend on. That hasn’t been happening in Ukraine.
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### Author:  [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2022, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tanks-of-any-use-anymore-on-the-modern-battlefield/961813/43 "2022-03-29T14:03:39Z")
That is part of a bigger question. Is the “modern battlefield” itself of much use anymore? I’m thinking the answer to both is pretty much, “No.”
Look what this war in the Ukraine has done economically, socially, and politically. It’s all BAD. Even if Putin eventually wins this conventional war, he will have badly damaged his nation economically, and he would have strengthened NATO accordingly. On top of all that, he will have to maintain an occupation force in the Ukraine, and the military occupation of a foreign nation has always been a very challenging affair.
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### Author:  [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2022, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tanks-of-any-use-anymore-on-the-modern-battlefield/961813/44 "2022-03-29T15:37:48Z")
> [@Odesio](#):
>
> He backstory is that he was an Abram’s driver who came to the conclusion that “an illiterate farmer armed with a $200 disposable rocket launcher could put out a million dollar tank with less than two weeks training.”
My college roommate was in ROTC. He told me that during summer training, they were shown tanks (and maybe got to be in one), and everyone was “Yeah! Sign me up for tanks!”.
Then they covered anti-tank weapons, and suddenly a lot fewer folks wanted tanks.
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### Author:  [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2022, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tanks-of-any-use-anymore-on-the-modern-battlefield/961813/45 "2022-03-29T18:14:22Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#):
>
> Tanks seem in the same boat (so to speak). They are robust and powerful but if a Javelin missile can take one out as easily as an APC or other light armor then what has a main battle tank really got you for the cost?
Sure, but what’s actually changed since say… the mid-1950s with the development of the ATGM? If anything, tanks are better protected today with composite armor, active protection systems, and five decades of experience and time to develop doctrine to counter them.
Tanks have NEVER been standalone fighting vehicles. They’ve always been vulnerable to infantry, even in 1918, if they could get close enough. Same thing for enemy tanks, anti-tank guns, aircraft, etc… They’ve never been invulnerable; they’re just generally harder to kill than anything else on the battlefield and better at fighting other tanks than anything else.
What we’re seeing in Ukraine isn’t really a good example of how effective or not tanks may be overall; it’s just an example that they’re not good _in the way the Russians are using them in Ukraine_.
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### Author:  [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2022, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tanks-of-any-use-anymore-on-the-modern-battlefield/961813/46 "2022-03-29T18:26:30Z")
It’s possible that the high prioritization of airpower is very much a Western thing and nations like Russia still think of ground power as paramount and airpower as more of an afterthought. The U.S. would never dream of invading a nation without first establishing air superiority, but Russia may think “Control of the skies? Meh.”
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### Author:  [@YamatoTwinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YamatoTwinkie)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2022, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tanks-of-any-use-anymore-on-the-modern-battlefield/961813/47 "2022-03-29T19:02:50Z")
> [@Askance](#):
>
> The classic triangle is your tanks take care of enemy infantry, your infantry take care of enemy anti-tank guns, and your AT guns take care of enemy tanks.
I guess the problem is what happens when the “AT gun” capabilities (long range, ~90% accurate, one shot tank kill) are small, light, and cheap enough to be mass-issued to infantry? Then the triangle devolves to infantry-v-infantry fights while the tanks wait around in the back.
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### Author:  [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2022, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tanks-of-any-use-anymore-on-the-modern-battlefield/961813/48 "2022-03-29T19:32:52Z")
It’s not like every squad has a Javelin or anything; they’re still typically reserved for company(~100 men) or battalion(~650 men) heavy weapons units. So a company might have 2 Javelins in its weapons squad, and a battalion might have a company with 8 or 10 Javelins (4-5 squads in the anti-armor platoon).
So they’re not nearly ubiquitous on the battlefield; there are going to be lots of places where armor could attack infantry without having to face Javelins.
I don’t know about the NLAW; I get the impression they’re not as common as say… AT-4s, but they’re more so than Javelins.
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2022, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tanks-of-any-use-anymore-on-the-modern-battlefield/961813/49 "2022-03-29T19:49:43Z")
> [@Jasmine](#):
>
> That is part of a bigger question. Is the “modern battlefield” itself of much use anymore? I’m thinking the answer to both is pretty much, “No.”
Not sure what exactly that’s supposed to mean, however I can confidently say that any battlespace that a military power ignores will very shortly be occupied and exploited by an adversary to devastating effect. You have to contest every area that you don’t want to lose.
> [@](#):
>
> Look what this war in the Ukraine has done economically, socially, and politically. It’s all BAD. Even if Putin eventually wins this conventional war, he will have badly damaged his nation economically, and he would have strengthened NATO accordingly. On top of all that, he will have to maintain an occupation force in the Ukraine, and the military occupation of a foreign nation has always been a very challenging affair.
The reason this went so badly for Putin isn’t because of tactics or strategy. It’s because:
1. Russia’s military readiness was (is) catastrophically subpar because its military is so corrupt and mismanaged
2. Russian military morale and leadership skills have been chronically neglected for decades
3. Russia’s decision-making was (is) fatally compromised by palace politics that make it impossible for reality-based intelligence to filter upward to Putin.
Had these elements been in place, Putin wouldn’t have decided to pursue a quick decapitation followed by a coup. He may have limited the operation to occupying Russian-friendly areas in the east (as he now claims was the goal), or to skip the invasion entirely.
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### Author:  [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2022, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tanks-of-any-use-anymore-on-the-modern-battlefield/961813/50 "2022-03-29T20:03:31Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> It’s possible that the high prioritization of airpower is very much a Western thing and nations like Russia still think of ground power as paramount and airpower as more of an afterthought.
There is nothing in Russian history to suggest this. Russia has since WW II dedicated enormous resources to building up their air force, which on paper is formidable.
It’s the on paper thing that is the issue. Like the rest of the Russian military it has been apparently been hollowed out and it has certain issues fighting Ukraine that are particular problems:
1.) It’s IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) seems to be shaky with Russian-built systems. Shooting down its own assets is apparently an issue that first came to light in Georgia in 2008. This makes coordination with their own ground air defense tricky when a Russian Su-25 might look the same as a Ukrainian Su-25 to a SAM operator.
2.) Related to that the more modern Russian SAM systems that Ukraine has are reasonably decent at shooting down Russian-designed aircraft. The Ukrainians found this out themselves over the Donbas in 2014-2015 when they were the ones having trouble using their air force to best advantage because of fear of losses to Russian/separatist defences.
3.) Training has apparently suffered like in just about every other branch of the service. Fewer flight hours and apparently not a lot of practice in coordinated mass air attacks. They seem to be most frequently operating sorties with sets of 2-4 aircraft.
4.) Money. They have apparently blown through a lot of their limited stockpile of precision munitions already and that stuff is expensive and time-consuming to manufacture. The economic embargo really bites deep on this one.
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with many Russian planes or missile systems. Western pilots have flown the aircraft mostly praise them as formidable. A lot of Russian missiles obviously work pretty well. The problems are training, logistics and lack of funds. Also probably corruption. The same issues that dog the rest of the Russian military.
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2022, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tanks-of-any-use-anymore-on-the-modern-battlefield/961813/51 "2022-03-29T20:23:04Z")
> [@bump](#):
>
> We’re actually seeing the pendulum swing back for tanks, believe it or not, with the advent of active protection systems on the most modern tanks. These are essentially small radar systems coupled with some sort of countermeasure- some use small rockets, others projectiles, and still others use IR jamming countermeasures. Basically if the radar detects some kind of projectile on a trajectory that will impact the vehicle, it fires the countermeasure at it to destroy or disrupt it. Right now, these aren’t super-common, but they’re starting to be more and more common, especially in Western armies.
And even force fields (!!) have moved from science-fiction to speculative technology:
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBuOZUqhO7A)
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### Author:  [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2022, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tanks-of-any-use-anymore-on-the-modern-battlefield/961813/52 "2022-03-29T20:33:58Z")
What accent is this? Sounds strenuous to me, couldn’t listen till the end.
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### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2022, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tanks-of-any-use-anymore-on-the-modern-battlefield/961813/53 "2022-03-30T02:01:07Z")
I do not think it is an accent. It is a style choice. The narrator breathlessly reads one…sentence…at…a…time. For a minute or two you get sucked in but then it continues endlessly like that and becomes very tiresome.
I find it annoying too and have given up on that channel. But, plenty seem to like it. To each their own.
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### Author:  [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2022, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tanks-of-any-use-anymore-on-the-modern-battlefield/961813/54 "2022-03-30T03:12:49Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#):
>
> The Ukrainians actually are beating them back now.
>
> They recaptured Irpin yesterday, and are slowly making advances against the main Russian body north-east of Kyiv. The Russian advance north-west of Kyiv, in the Chernihiv and Brovery directions has been substantially pushed back .
>
> The Russians have been pushed back from Mykolaiv, one of their key objectives, and also around Kharkiv.
>
> If I may say so, I think you have outdated ideas about the resources of the Russian military.
> …
> Tanks… you must have seen the story about the commander of a Russian tank regiment who committed suicide. That raises the question of how many tanks that are theoretically held in reserve in storage depots are actually usable. Probably not many.
I’m not quite as convinced that both the Russians are actually that low on weapons and ammunition, and that Ukraine is so much “beating them back now”, as that the Russians, having essentially failed to take Kyiv by direct force, are redeploying to attempt to find better advantage. As well as Ukraine is doing in this conflict—in no small part because of really smart insurgency attacks against critical supply lines—Russia just has vast reserves of equipment as (at least notionally) manpower that are far in excess of what the Ukrainian army possesses. The problems that the Russian Army has are twofold: first, they have such difficulty getting weapons, soldiers, and supplies up to their ‘front lines’ (such as they are) that their actual military capability is severely blunted; and second, that morale among the mostly conscript and poorly trained Russian troops is so absolutely poor that their effort is being sabotaged from within. Of course they are looking to recruit and conscript more troops because this invasion was not the _blitzkrieg_ they thought it was going to be and they are going to need more bodies to sustain over the long haul, but it isn’t as if they’re going to be able to ship new recruits direct to Ukraine to start fighting (or at least not with any improvement over the current situation).
Not to take away from the bravery and ingenuity displayed by Ukrainian fighters, but the Russian Army is doing its level best to point its weapon at its own foot and keep pulling the trigger until the magazine is empty. Which is not to say that Russia can’t keep throwing men and tanks into the grinder indefinitely, or at least for a period of time to significantly increase the horror of this pointless war on the Ukrainian people, but they will probably be progressively more ineffectual until either military capability or political will gives out…or someone invites Putin to consider his career alternatives.
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> It’s possible that the high prioritization of airpower is very much a Western thing and nations like Russia still think of ground power as paramount and airpower as more of an afterthought. The U.S. would never dream of invading a nation without first establishing air superiority, but Russia may think “Control of the skies? Meh.”
I don’t pretend to be an expert in modern Russian military doctrine but it is really difficult to see how anyone with even a cursory understanding of modern war strategy and tactics could think along these lines. It isn’t as if Russia doesn’t understand air power; they’ve invested massive amounts of money in developing and improving military aircraft, and despite all of the nationalist pride about how great the US is at developing advanced aircraft, Russia has always been neck and neck with the US (in terms of technical capability if not actual rosters of deployable aircraft). That Russia would not make air superiority an immediate priority either speaks to a capability failure in their air force unacknowledged at the highest levels or a subconscious desire to fail, because invading a large nation without controlling the airspace is like freeclimbing El Capitan with a hangover. It’s just hard to believe that the Russians suck this bad, and I’ve never been on the optimistic side of how capable the Russian military is so it isn’t just confirmation bias.
Stranger
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### Author:  [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2022, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tanks-of-any-use-anymore-on-the-modern-battlefield/961813/55 "2022-03-30T03:32:40Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#):
>
> > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#):
> >
> > while the Ukrainians are acquitting themselves better than anyone expected they’re still fighting an insurgency battle to just make this invasion too painful for the Russians to continue rather than actually beating them back.
>
> If I may say so, I think you have outdated ideas about the resources of the Russian military.
Yeah, as I said in another thread this isn’t the Red Army, and the size of the Russian Ground Forces is shockingly small if one expects it to be anything like that size. The losses it has already taken so far are a substantial portion of their total strength; they have lost _at least_ 10% of their tanks and personnel losses are likely at least 10% of their total strength as well. IISS [_The Military Balance 2021_](https://hostnezt.com/cssfiles/currentaffairs/The%20Military%20Balance%202021.pdf) credited the Russian Ground Forces a size of ε280,000 (incl conscripts) with an active tank strength of 2,840: 650 T-72B/BA; 850 T-72B3; 530 T-72B3M; 310 T-80BV/U; 140 T-80BVM; 350 T-90/T-90A; 10 T-90M. They have lost [at least 318 tanks](https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html) based on visual documentation. Two weeks ago the Pentagon was conservatively estimating [7,000 Russian KIA and 14,000-21,000 WIA](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/us/politics/russia-troop-deaths.html), which, assuming the 21,000 wounded figure which squares well with the general rule of thumb of 3 wounded per 1 dead, is 28,000 casualties from an army of 280,000, 10% of its total strength.
For comparison, the [Group of Soviet Forces Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_Soviet_Forces_in_Germany), the Soviet Forces permanently deployed in East Germany during the Cold War, was in 1989 close to twice the size of the entire Russian Ground Forces prior to the invasion of Ukraine. It had [380,000 personnel and 5,000 to 6,000 main battle tanks](https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/gsfg.htm). There were 19 Tank and Motor Rifle Divisions, each with 16 maneuver battalions, or 304 tank and motor rifle battalions between them. Russia claimed to have [170 Battalion Tactical Groups in August 2021](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battalion_tactical_group).
Over the long haul they have in theory 2 million reservists and 10,000 tanks in storage, but in the short term they have lost a very large part of their strength in a very short period of time.
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### Author:  [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2022, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tanks-of-any-use-anymore-on-the-modern-battlefield/961813/56 "2022-03-30T04:03:06Z")
> [@Dissonance](#):
>
> credited the Russian Ground Forces a size of ε280,000
You’re missing airborne troops that aren’t included in the ground forces. The Russians separate them out into their own service branch (VDV) like the U.S. does the marines. They’re actually kind of an analogous branch to the American marines - slightly superior to elite assault infantry (they have their own airborne Spetsnaz brigade as well as more standard units). They have a much smaller percentage of conscripts compared to the regular army, mostly they are contract personnel. During the Afghan war the Afghans considered Russian regulars (heavily conscripted) to be pretty piss-poor, but had considerably more respect for the airborne and Spetsnaz units.
Although listed strength is 45,000, there are indications that the Russians have been concentrating on beefing up that service the last few years, so 50-60,000 might be more accurate. Plus there is the direct analog to the marines which also aren’t part of the army or the VDV - the naval infantry which answer to the navy (VMF) and add a listed strength of 12,000.
Still, even then we’re still only talking ~350,000 service troops. If accurate those losses are really serious regardless.
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### Author:  [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2022, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tanks-of-any-use-anymore-on-the-modern-battlefield/961813/57 "2022-03-30T06:14:53Z")
Thank you for the correction.
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### Author:  [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2022, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tanks-of-any-use-anymore-on-the-modern-battlefield/961813/58 "2022-03-30T11:16:36Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#):
>
> Not sure what exactly that’s supposed to mean, however I can confidently say that any battlespace that a military power ignores will very shortly be occupied and exploited by an adversary to devastating effect. You have to contest every area that you don’t want to lose.
Agreed; however, that doesn’t mean that it’s not a bad thing. Sometimes, we have to do bad things because the alternative is even worse. I’m just saying that war is a bad way to solve problems because it causes great harm in a myriad of ways.
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2022, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tanks-of-any-use-anymore-on-the-modern-battlefield/961813/59 "2022-03-30T12:03:16Z")
> [@Jasmine](#):
>
> Agreed; however, that doesn’t mean that it’s not a bad thing. Sometimes, we have to do bad things because the alternative is even worse. I’m just saying that war is a bad way to solve problems because it causes great harm in a myriad of ways.
OK. Well, that is true as far as it goes, but “tanks are useless” is a different conversation than “war is bad”.
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### Author:  [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2022, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-tanks-of-any-use-anymore-on-the-modern-battlefield/961813/60 "2022-03-30T12:09:52Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#):
>
> OK. Well, that is true as far as it goes, but “tanks are useless” is a different conversation than “war is bad”.
I disagree because the grotesque expense and ultimate futility of the arms race is one of the big reasons war is bad. I spend a ton of money researching, designing, producing, and deploying “X” piece of equipment, in the OP’s example, a tank. You spend a ton of money doing exactly the same thing to defeat it. Then, I have to spend a ton of money to overcome that. This goes on ad infinitum.
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