I’ll agree with Blackclaw, it’s not really fair to pick on the Patriot’s performance in Desert Storm against tactical SSMs (which was nowhere near 90% Pk). The fact that it worked at all on them is fairly good praise, and Patriot really is a pretty good medium-range air defense asset. My beef with it is that there’s just not enough of them, nor a longer-legged big brother of it, to make anything more than sparse point defense a realistic possibility. It makes the army extremely dependent on the air force, with no way of supporting them from the ground.
I can also understand the love for the A-10. It’s simple, well-armed, and plays in the mud instead of soaring around with fancy electronics like the fighter jocks do. You gotta love it. I love it, it’s sexy. But morale isn’t enough, and one of the reasons for the A-10’s repeated visits to Congressional chopping blocks is because of its survivability. You see, no matter how “well-armored” you make an aircraft, they’re still fairly fragile things, particularly compared to tanks. You’re way off base in thinking that “It’s designed to go head-to-head with multiple SAM/AAA”, it’s not, not in the least. Other, more capable aircraft perform full-scale SEAD. The A-10 just tries to survive them long enough to run away if encountered. Consider it a design that gives healthy respect to Murphy’s Law, and even more respect to the zero-casualty policy of all American armed forces.
And, given the dire threat they pose to forces on the ground, any CAS aircraft automatically becomes the primary target of anything with any capability at all of downing it. Yes, the A-10 can take relatively substantial damage, any CAS aircraft can (with the exception of Harrier, but its special). “Loitering” is the one thing they do NOT want to do on a modern battlefield, and the extreme swiftness that a CAS aircraft (and helicopter, for that matter) can meet its demise is why standoff weapons (like Maverick) and area effect weapons are strongly preferred in that kind of mission. As impressive as the “big gun” on the A-10 is, it just isn’t practical, not compared to alternate weapons. And, it can be convincingly argued argued that those alternate weapons are better off being delivered by multirole fighters that are better able to defend themselves, and can ingress and egress much faster (read: F-16s and F-18s) and, in a pinch, can serve as interceptors as well.
The A-10 is cool, and yes, it can do what it’s designed to do. But so can other CAS aircraft, and the A-10 is really no better than any of its counterparts (maybe less so, due to its usefulness in only the one role). The A-10 may have short-field capability, but so do others, and the Harrier, in particular, has no field capability. That’s an extremely valuable asset, one normally enjoyed only by helicopters. Just discussing the differences and strengths/weaknesses of traditional fixed-wing CAS and the Harrier could fill a thread of its own.
Speaking of helicopters, that’s another area where there’s more or less parity throughout all major forces. England also has the Apache, the German Tiger is supposed to be quite good, and Russia has a lot of very good attack helicopters (arguably the best in the world, in fact). The Comanche may or may not be all its supposed to be, but the subject is moot as it’s (still) deep in development (they still haven’t settled on a tail design, for one thing, and its FCR is still being worked on). Hellfire and TOW are also getting pretty long in the tooth these days, too. I’d love to see a western helicopter equipped with BILL.
I can’t help but directly address this quote, though:
Right off the propaganda sheets. Is this just a knee-jerk, or had you actually heard of the Leopard 2 before I mentioned it? I’ll assume you have and reply to the statement properly…
Better weaponry? Well, actually, the most recent incarnation of the Leo has a better gun (an extended version of the same Rh120 they both share) that gives a substantially higher muzzle velocity, thus range, accuracy and power. Rumors say anywhere from 15% to 45% improvement, but it’s still the stuff of secrecy. But other than that, they share the same gun. The ammo…well, Germany does have dU ammo, but they don’t like to use it (it’s not fun spraying heavy metals over your home turf, after all), and even their best tungsten ammo is about 10% less effective than comparable dU…nature of the beast, really. The M1 and Leo are both quite capable of knocking each other out even with the Germans keeping their dU in storage. Given a mythical European Alliance scenario that resulted in invasion of US soil, I doubt they’d have any compunctions about doing so.
Better targetting systems? Well, I suppose this is more a matter of dogma than anything else, but everything I’ve seen indicates the Leo’s fire control system is definitely the superior one. It’s designed with a better mind towards user-friendliness and natural instinctive use, and in combat where life and death is measured in fractions of seconds, every little bit counts. I also think the M1 FCS’ system of always involving computed lead into the equation by default can be potentially disastrous, but I’ll admit that it’s a relatively slim inferiority that can be minimized (but not fully eliminated) by extensive training. On the other hand, from what I’ve heard, US M1 crews don’t receive very…realistic…training, or the flaws in the FCS would have been noticed and corrected long ago. That could potentially be a much more disastrous problem than the FCS.
The quality of the crew comment I find especially amusing…it just drips with so much implied arrogance. What, you think only the US Army is able to train anyone? You think we’re the only ones in the world that know what a good soldier is? That nobody else is possibly fit to judge the capability of their fighting force? We have a well-trained military, yes, but not as good as it COULD be, and I would definitely never pretend that someone else couldn’t be better.
The turbine engine is another argument unto itself. I’ll simply say that I think diesel is currently a better solution for an MBT, for both immediate tactical and broader-term logistical reasons. The comparison of crew survivability for the two is also another argument, as is the case for/against a commander’s MG. (The lack of a TC MG in the Leo is just stupid, if you ask me) In practically everything else, the two tanks are quite level (Both have digital mapping systems, both have independent commanders’ sights w/ independent thermal viewers, etc, etc) If you deal with what’s actually the large bulk of both forces currently, I’d have to give the strong nod to the Leopard. The Leo2A5 and the M1A2 may be a close race, and the M1A2SEP and Leo2A6 may be a close race, but I think there’s a rather clear distance between the M1A1 and Leo2A4.
(Ye gods I hope an M1 tanker doesn’t read this message. We’d be in a holy war forever 
)
Anything else? 