Like my Hell on a Wire Shirt? Get one here: www.bunkerbranding.com/pages/ryan-mcbeth Are tanks Obsolete? ua-cam.com/video/r2s0Szx-kVs/v-deo.html Want your own survivability onion? www.ryanmcbeth.com/single-post/the-survivability-onion Perun End of the Helicopter: ua-cam.com/video/qnoKpXvj41A/v-deo.html Elon's original tweet: twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1611669863097069569 Tanks ARE deathtraps, now more than ever, mainly because modern anti-tank weapons have reduced the survivability onion down to two layers. However, war is dangrous and wasteful and tanks stil have a role to play on the modern battlefield. The layers of the survivability onion are: Don't be there. Don't be detected. Don't be aquired or identified. Don't be hit. Don't be penatrated. Don't be killed. Watch all of my long form videos: ua-cam.com/play/PLt670_P7pOGmLWZG78JlM-rG2ZrpPziOy.html Connect with me on Twitter: @ryanmcbeth I don’t have a Patreon account. If you want to give me money, give it to: HelpIsOnTheWayUA.com Join the conversation: discord.gg/pKuGDHZHrz Want to send me something? Ryan McBeth Productions LLC 8705 Colesville Rd. Suite 249 Silver Spring, MD 20910 USA
Please normalize your audio to match your outro ad, I had to turn my volume up to hear the main content then you nearly blew out my eardrums when the ad started man..
I can imagine i 50 years wars would be fought mostly by "war machines" 2/4/6/8 leged robots/droids that will have one and only target kill enemy troops , but will tanks dissapire , I think not there will replaced by large tracked tank drones , and large number of service men will be work in maitaince (as logistics will be done by drones) , but those are tommorow wars ...
The "survivability onion" reminds me of an old children's joke: A man was in an aeroplane Unfortunately he fell out of the aeroplane Fortunately there was a haystack below him Unfortunately there was a pitchfork in the haystack Fortunately he missed the pitchfork Unfortunately he missed the haystack.
I really liked Old Man Cheiftain's line. "Ask not what the enemy can do to the tank. Ask what the tank can do to the enemy." He then went on to point out that in every war tanks have ever been used in, they were very killable, and were killed in huge numbers. Tanks haven't stayed in every major armor because they suvive all weapons used against them. They stay in use because they bring weapons to use against the enemy that aren't available from other systems that exist. When another system exists that does what the tank does, it might replace the tank, but only in a certain case. If you take the 3 categories of cost, ability to do the missions, and ability to survive, a future system that does something like stays alive as well as a tank, does the same missions and brings the same capabilities as well as a tank, but costs way less, then we have a potential tank replacement. If it does the missions much, much better, costs the same as a tank, and is similarly survivable, we might have a replacement tank. If it costs way less, survives way worse, and cannot do the missions (Striker MGS) we do not have a tank replacement.
The tank won't go away, it will just evolve, just like it has for the last 100+ years. An M1 today has very little in common with a Mark IV from WWI, other than the same basic mission requirements of killing the other guy, being able to move, and hopefully not dying when the other guy tries to kill it. I remember something said back in the 90's by an M1 crewmember that had come from the M-60. He was told not to think of the M1 as a tank, it was closer to a very heavily armored, very low flying attack helicopter in capabilities than it was a tank.
No that doesn't make sense. The hole point of the tank is the combination of lethality, survivability and mobility. If we didn't need survivability or it was to expensive to protect you will get a better vehicles by focusing on mobility and lethality. We seen this happen in the navy, the ship of WW2 are much tougher than the ship we have today and that is simply because it was no longer viable to protect the ship against modern navy weapons and they weren't going to be in range of older ones so they removed survivability. Survivability is the big X factor that tanks bring, if they can't be made survivable we can make much better vehicles by removing that.
@@gavinkemp7920 The designers of the Leopard 1 and AMX-30 were thinking the same way. But the machines they made were still tanks despite having thin armor.
Your conclusion reminds me of a line from the movie "To Hell and Back": The main characters, who are infantrymen, are told by a tanker that their protection is not the best because they only have a couple inches of armor. One of the main characters rebuffs "Oh yeah? How thick do you think this GI shirt is?"
And then there is the classic Bill Mauldin cartoon where a GI says to a tanker, in Normandy when tankers were in short supply because of their high casualty rates, "I'd rather dig. A moving foxhole attracts the eye," This would, of course, essentially just be a discussion of the second layer of the onion.
@@jgw9990 rounds out, adjust fire, rounds out, destruction. the army doesn't train soldiers for strength, but mobility and endurance. it's very difficult to turtle up in real combat.
@@jgw9990 No shite. I bet that might be why they dig trenches. Of course, it the enemy artillery actually is highly accurate, it's not so likely they would waste a shell on just killing one guy instead of taking out a tank.
As an infantryman I can tell you one thing. The NLAW only has a maximum effective range of 300m or so. Getting that close to a MTB is still bloody scary, so hats off to our Ukrainian mates doing it so well.
Yeah, but there are ATGMs with much longer ranges. Spike NLOS has a maximum range of 32 kilometers (or almost 20 miles). No one is pushing an infantry line 20 miles away ahead of the tanks. The infantry would be vulnerable to ambush.
"Are Tanks obsolete now?" is a timeless question that has been asked literally every year since 1919. Right after ww1 ended, see "Tanks are obsolete, apparently since 1919"
Thank you for pointing this out, it's completely true. Generals had no idea what to do with tanks after 1918, some thought it was a one off thing and would never be used again
Also after one of the Arab Israeli wars where Egypt used TOW missiles to destroy lots of Israeli tanks. What it comes down to is tactics. If you use a tank the wrong way it is pretty much a death trap. The wrong way means sticking to roads where vehicles can easily be seen and targeted and having tanks go forward without infantry. A tank has very limited visibility once it’s buttoned up. Without infantry it’s easy for RPGs and missiles to pick off tanks from concealed locations. Same for having your tanks stuck in long columns on large roads. It was Russian tactics that were obsolete, these things were know since early WWII. It’s amazing how bad Russian leadership has been. Although that is pretty true to form. Russians have always had terrible leadership on offense but good at defense. I’m reading a fascinating book now by Alexander Solzhenitsyn called August 1914. It’s about the beginning of WWI where Russian generals confidently advanced toward Germany. They seemed to be having great success at first, only to realize too late that they had walked into a trap set by the Germans and huge Russian armies were encircled and annihilated.
@@michaeldebellis4202 part of the issue with the Russian tactics with tanks is the philosophy, Russian tanks (and by extension their tanks) are supposed to fight head down buttoned up, which leads to much lower visibility for the commander, Western Commanders generally are taught to keep their head out for visibility
No one forget that That is why bullies pick the weakest And that is why super powers fight with other super powers with proxy wars rather than facing each other directly in wars
Mmmm, arguable. War certainly creates a lot of waste, no doubt, on several levels (not least "guns v butter") but to call something "wasteful" as the term is usually used, you have to demonstrate that the waste is disproportionate to the goal achieved. For example, debate "wastes" a lot of time and energy, but arriving at the right conclusion instead of the wrong one is also incredibly valuable, so we keep doing it. Settling such matters in single-combat also wastes a great deal of resources, but also rarely gives the right conclusion, so while we'd call it "wasteful", we'd do so in comparison to debate, which is not (or, at least, less so). Was it Clausewitz who gave us "War is politics by other means"?
I was watching a video of Ukrainians in Soledar today and the one guy was yelling “ we have the tank fixed didn’t you hear!” With much joy in his voice. In the middle of this vicious fighting just getting one tank back on the line was a source of joy and encouragement. When you’re in the thick of battle you’ll take any weapon you can get regardless of Elon’s opinion on the subject!
Well said. I have seen many interviews with some soldiers fighting there. One thing was always common: fear of artillery, tanks and drones. I was watching an interview with a polish guy fighting there for over half a year until he has been injured. He said that kills by firearms are counting for more or less 10% of all kills. The majority is artillery tanks and drones. And yes - tank is still king of war. God is artillery
One of our ukrainian very famous "expert" said "If you say tanks are useless nowadays - it means you never been under tank fire" (he is former marine, was on Donbas after 2014 and knows what he say)
Tanks are still usfull, combined arms will never die, is just that now we have a lot more options for AT that are reasonable effective that the effectiveness of tanks isnt what they once were.
@@Queue3612 think of the battleship, i think tank is in a similar position just on land. outright tanks will be obsolete but frigate/cruiser version of the tanks will be the future. so, some kind of armored fighting tank hybrids
Tanks can be effective if used in a third grade military without advanced ATGM NLAW etc like in Syria, Iraq or Russia itself. You cannot just invade a country and just rely on Tanks against a NATO powered nation like Ukraine.
I think with the introduction and widespread use of drones and Javelin missile system tanks will slowly be phased out. The original idea behind tanks especially WW1 was to get through places soft targets like infantry cant. Like a trench. Nowadays there’s just not much of a need for a Mobile artillery cannon Whos job can be done by a missile hundreds of miles away.
I know there's a lot of discussion about the death of the tank, but to quote The Chieftain: "Tanks will exist as long as doctrine requires them.". I believe that until we can find the mobile firepower to replace the tank, we're still going to need the ability to put 120mm rounds into fixed positions. But this this is of course taking into account combined arms tactics.
There are alternatives to tanks, like guided artillery rounds, that also have the advantage of having a longer range than a tank gun, to just mention one method. The thing is, it's not the delivery system that is important, it's that the package is delivered, ie as long as the target is killed/destroyed it doesn't matter what is doing the killing/destruction. So yes, tanks are most definitely on their way out - they are too heavy, slow and expensive to have in a military force in the long run and will most likely be replaced by Stryker equivalents.
@@Kojak0 People have been saying that the tank is dead since 1918, what everyone of these people always forget is that no other weapon system currently gives the same versatility and capability in one vehicle as the tank does. Yes of course you could in theory replace the tank in every role its used in. But the amount of required different weapons systems and manpower make that unfeasible for all militaries but the largest (and even then its only maybe possible).
@@Kojak0 JYup, just like in the 60's the US did away with the gun on the Phantom II fighter because ACM is dead. Yet after that historic change ALL fighter planes come equipped with a cannon!
@@Kojak0 Artillery will always be less responsive and have magnitudes greater time on target than a direct-fire vehicle, and it's always preferable for a direct-fire vehicle to have a greater chance of surviving a hit. You're never going to replace the need for tactically mobile, highly survivable firepower.
@@TS-bj8my Nope, the Gripen two seaters don't have a cannon; that aside, a cannon on a fighter aircraft is more tradition than anything else - the distance fighter jets fight now is so immense that you have little to no chance to hit anything with a cannon. Hell, a sidewinder has a range of over 20 miles, and that's an old albeit updated weapon system.
Layer one is the most important one here. Don't put tanks in stationary entrenched positions for extended periods of time. Keep them out of the line of fire until you make an aggressive maneuver, and support them with air and mechanized infantry forces to act as mobile strong points. They are effective, just not in the current tactical reality on the ground. It's like putting archers on the front line against ancient cavalry. It's a terrible idea, they will just die. Don't expose your tanks until they can be effective.
It should also be noted that tanks should not be deployed without infantry support, which we saw in the early stages of the war with Russia tanks just getting picked apart by Ukrainian tank hunter teams.
@@xboxman1710 Precisely, and that is largely a consistent pattern dating back to the first tanks in WW1. When infantry and/artillery support was absent or ineffective the tanks would get destroyed with little to nothing gained.
Because of the most recent wars, people are not used to the numbers of equipment and personnel loses. This is what a real war looks like. It surprises a lot of people. Tanks are still relevant on the battlefield.
The tank losses aren't even that particularly high. The loss ratios of equipment I've seen are pretty much in line with everything we've seen since and including WW2. In wars people die, and tanks are not invulnerable. I don't really understand how that surprises people. A weapon system doesn't exist to be invulnerable. It exists because it covers a unique role and capability on the battlefield and it will remain relevant as long as no other system can fill that role better. If Elon Musk thinks tanks are obsolete I'd like him to explain what exactly he'd like to replace them with. Like so many people that are smart in one area, get invited to podcasts and then think they are smart on absolutely every topic under the sun, Elon should shut the f up when he doesn't know what he's talking about. Tanks get destroyed in a war. That's nothing new. Did the Germans stop building Panthers just because they got destroyed? Did the Russians stop building T34s? Last time I checked the T34 wasn't just the most built tank it was also the most destroyed tank. Did that matter? No. Because it was still useful on the battlefield. And what Elon also fails to understand is that destroyed tank doesn't equal killed crew. The Americans lost a crapton of M4s in WW2, yet the tankers had a massively higher survival rate than most other service members. And of all the tanks in the world, western tanks offer the greatest survivability for the crew. Just because a tank can be destroyed doesn't mean it's a death trap. Unless you consider everything you can get killed in a death trap, then war itself is a death trap, and it doesn't really take the brain of a genius to figure that one out. I'd love to put Elon in a fox hole or trench that gets shelled by Russian artillery for one week straight... and then I'll offer him to either stay there or spend the next week in a Leopard or Abrams... let's see what he thinks about tanks then.
@@nebunezz_r I highly doubt that matters much. If anything losses of equipment and men have gone UP through the eras. But at the end of the day full scale land war is full scale land war. And we haven't see that since WW2, not between parties that have comparable equipment. And yes tanks have gotten better but so have anti-tank weapons. Nothing I see here surprises me in losses. If anything they're mild for a war like this. I also don't understand why the impact of hand-held anti-tank weapons surprised anybody. It's not like those exist only since recently. Germany and other nations suffered massive tank losses during WW2 in the early to late stages due to anti-tank rifles, infantry anti tank mines and other stuff. Later the Bazooka and Panzerfaust caused havoc. None of this is new. We just built better stuff to defeat better tanks. The balance is still exactly what it was back then. Tanks are incredibly useful but in a war like this you'll lose a lot of them and need to be able to replace them. It's mind boggling to me how much the Russians have forgotten all lessons of how to lead a war like this from WW2. They do all the tactics wrong, all the logistics wrong, it's insane. We've seen all this before, and it seems they have all forgotten how a war works. If they were THIS oblivious about it, they shouldn't have started it.
"you are going toe to toe with a microchip , it can thinks faster then you and it does not care if it life's or dies." Sums up the effectiveness from smart weapons perfectly.
That -Terminator- missile is out there It can't be bargained with It can't be reasoned with It doesn't feel pity Or remorse Or fear And it absolutely will not stop Ever! Until you are dead!
And the tank has microchips of its own - generally more capable due to the ability to carry larger systems that use more power. And the microchips on the 'Trophy' Active Protection System - which is currently being fielded to US armored fighting vehicles - will literally shoot the incoming missile down. (The Trophy system has been combat tested with a 100% success rate of stopping incoming antitank missiles and rockets, and the US Army tested the Trophy system against every model of antitank missile and rocket that they could buy borrow or steal under simulated combat conditions - and it stopped them all.
Some time ago I saw a tweet that was baiscally saying "why buying tanks when we can buy a shitload of Javelins, it's much cheaper" And someone replied "you can't launch an offensive with Javelins"
Not wasteful. It employees people, makes people rich and has led to an insane amount of tech leaps forward. And kills and maims leading to advances in medical technology. And yes I am being silly, sort of.
This sentence was also used in legendary book The Adventures Of Good Soldier Svejk, a dark satire from the 1st world war about notorious Hungaro-Austrian Soldier Svejk, a Czech national, a God's gifted, yet shallow minded soldier and later also deserteur of brilliant "character" outlined by his ability to cause every disaster or mishap possible, all while completely wrecked. Although unlucky, he luckily escapes every single absence of luck & his own sanity, doing that so masterfully, that his commanders are questionning themselves about the rationale of the situations which could be classified as sabotages, involving Svejk's invisible genius, his superiors have to deal with over and over again, slowly drowning their careers just because for some reason they have come in the contact with Josef Svejk, a true soldier of fortune. There is a one liner scene in the book and movie reminding me similar attitude you describe, which made me write the whole story. Soldiers having a break in the trenches, eating, cleaning a gear when suddenly there is artillery barrage incoming, first explosions prompted Svejk quickly back up on his feet now running immediately towards the line of impact, waving his hand's on an enemy and shouting: "What are you doing? Have you lost your mind completely?There are people here, for Christ's sake!!!"
I'm guessing tanks work really well when they're an integral part of combined arms. Rolling in with IFV support, satellite recon, accurate artillery support, air cover, etc... all managed and rolling in realtime, it'd be almost impossible to stop. You'd take some losses, but you'd also roll up almost anything conventional.
Comparing the fiasco clown show that Russia put on in Ukraine with any other type of battle field scenario is just ignorant. It's like Elon just became interested in warfare, read some tweets and decided he was an expert.
M1 A1 And A2 TANKER HERE 1/1 CAV MOS 19 KILO NUMBER OF USA ABRAMS TANKERS KILLED IN COMBAT BY ENEMY FIRE ..... 0 LOOK IT UP IF YOU DONT FUKIN KNOW DONT TALK SHIT (THERE IS A REASON THE ARMOR ON AN ABRAMS IS STILL CLASSIFIED) ABRAMS IS A ROLLING KILLER NOT A DEATH TRAP
All of what you describe requires a massive investment in equipment, logistics, and training. It all works brilliantly when you are fighting an enemy who has no clue about combined arms and has invested little in the above. It doesn't work nearly as well when fighting a sophisticated near peer who has done all the hard work.
@@rfwillett2424 I NEVER SAID COMBAT ARMS WAS AN EASY LIFE I SUFFER EVERY DAY.... SO SAD ALL THESE PRICKS THINK THEY KNOW SOMETHING WHEN THEY DONT KNOW WHAT SERVICE IS { HOW MANY MEN HAVE YOU SEEN BLOWN IN HALF WITH A 50 CAL IVE SEEN TOO MANY}
MBT have armor, a gun, and mobility. The point is that the armor doesn't work, because at almost 2 km range a man portable one shot kill weapon that costs 100x less than you do. While full plate armor is still effective against broadswords and knives, modern soldiers don't wear it because man portable guns bypass it. And when you subtract Armor from MBT, you get a gun and mobility. The tank's main gun is built to kill other tanks. A tank destroyer has the same gun without the same armor. A IFV has the mobility without the (same) gun An artillery unit has better "gun" (more daka) without the armor and less mobility. None of them are MBT. It isn't armored stuff that is obsolete; it is the MBT. The MBT could shrug off all but short ranged or airforce attacks from enemy units, so with combined arms provided an armored spine to an attack. When the MBT is easier to kill at range than the escorting infantry, all of that heavy expensive armor was a waste. It becomes an overweight under speed artillery piece.
The "Don't be hit" is still a very valid defense that is lately increasing in efficiecy again due to active protection systems. Both hardkill and softkill systems are very effective at protecting a tank from being hit, but like everything they do not work 100% of the time. Tanks won't go away, a drone or javalin missile cannot do what a tanks role is. There is a reason why tanks are being build, it is cause their role is needed. You cannot punch through enemy lines with infantry, you end up with WW1 style of combat.
@JZ's BFF Doesn't even need to be social media, just having hundreds of mobile phones from a Russian carrier connected to towers in Ukraine can do that.
Yup, yet Infantry still exist. Helicopters and Carriers still exist. They will continue to exist until a better system can replicate what they do. You don't replace weapon systems because they can be killed now, you replace them because something new does the job better and possibly safer. Protected mobile firepower is still needed for offensive actions, and will be around until something can replace it.
@@FulkNerraIII "You don't replace weapon systems because they can be killed now, you replace them because something new does the job better ." Well put! And there is a better idea: WDWJ, or Why Don't We Just! So here's a better idea... Why Don't We Just abolish war and embrace peace?!
M1 A1 And A2 TANKER HERE 1/1 CAV MOS 19 KILO NUMBER OF USA ABRAMS TANKERS KILLED IN COMBAT BY ENEMY FIRE ..... 0 LOOK IT UP IF YOU DONT FUKIN KNOW DONT TALK SHIT (THERE IS A REASON THE ARMOR ON AN ABRAMS IS STILL CLASSIFIED) ABRAMS IS A ROLLING KILLER NOT A DEATH TRAP
In my time working with Lockheed Martin the Engineer I worked with his opinion while still have the use they are Death Traps. When a Tank enters the theater of the Battle it's high priority to take them out.
As an Australian Army veteran with deployments in Iraq, E. Timor & Afghanistan, I agree with everything you said! Very well put together and explained.
Tanks are death traps, but you need them if you want to do anything fast or aggressive. Kharkiv was all about tanks and IFV’s making aggressive moves. It’s like how helicopters are piss easy to destroy, but there’s nothing else which can do that job so we have to put up with a high loss rate.
I Like how you lay everything out in all your topics and have come to respect your viewpoints. Its a little late but happy new year dude! Forgot to mention how cool your shirt was too!
Thanks for confirming my suspicions that sitting in a metal can moving not so fast while people are shooting rockets and other exploding things at you and while hoping not to drive over a mine could be described as a death trap. Who knew. 🙂 Now, seriously, thanks for the analysis. You bring clarity.
"The tank will be replaced by some sort of IFV." Tanks have their roles and IFV have their own roles. And there is not enough room under armor to do both in a single vehicle. And please don't mention the Merkava.
It’s an old point from WW2 but it’s infantry considered tanks death traps because of all the fire they drew, but tanker casualties only numbered in the thousands compared to the tens and hundreds of thousands for the infantry. Even adjusting for relative numbers you were still orders of magnitude safer in a tank. Artillery does most of the killing, and unless you’re unlucky and get a direct hit then generally that tank is going to protect you
@@skorza212 The Sherman was an excellent tank everybody wants to think the Nazis had the edge with Panthers and Tigers, but that's just believe the propaganda 70 years later, they generally weren't in the numbers to make a difference... kind of like the Russian T-14 Armata it's so classified even the Russians in Ukraine haven't seen it lmao
I would contend that the solution to the survivability onion is remove the crew. Then no one dies when a tank dies. I doubt tanks will be phased out, unless you're specifically referring to them being replaced by tank drone. And to address the dumbest person in the room (musk), if they weren't useful, they wouldn't be used. Yet both sides are desperate for more and better tanks. War has a steep learning curve and if they had determined they weren't needed, they would be phased out very quickly. War is wasteful, but unnecessary waste is cut as often as possible because every wasted dollar is one less that can be spent removing the enemy from their positions.
Those first 4 levels of the onion still exist, they're just a lot harder to use. Then again, given Russian equipment lacks a lot of thermals and night vision gear, that's a nice boost for Ukraine. Thermal camo and soft/hard kill defensive systems exist too.
1:36 Many MBT designs have prioritized mobility and reliability over survivability. Think of the AMX-30 for example which served well into the 90s with the French and Spanish militaries, or the Leopard 1 variants.(Even the US Patton tanks couldn't withstand shots from main caliber cannons). These tanks weren't designed to withstand main caliber cannons but could withstand autocannons pretty well. Edit: my point was that even though they could survive shots when they were introduced, they can't anymore. And that the designation of these tanks doesn't change with the years. So the definition he used is flawed since it doesn't account for innovation.
All of these were designed and built before composite armor was introduced, since most shells that were able to be fired had much more penetrating power than what could reasonably be absorbed by steel. Composite armor changed that massively and made it possible to actually survive shots 👍
When it was designed the M48 patton could resist its own 90mm gun at pretty much all ranges (if it hit the turret or glacis. Turret ring, not so much) and had pretty good resistance towards the russian 100mm at longer ranges, and the M60 Patton had even more armor (being able to resist the 100mm quite close up). The 105mm (standard armament of the M60) was a different matter, but that wasn't the gun it was supposed to face. The introduction of the russian 125mm and better armor piecing sabot rounds (with the T-64 and later the mass produced T-72) of course made the M60 (and quite a few other 2nd generation MBTs) quite obsolete, so NATO considered itself at something of a disadvantage until the third generation MBTs were produced in some numbers (Abrams, Leopard 2, Challenger)
@@fiendishrabbit8259 Until the mass production of cheap, accurate, effective, active protection systems against incoming targeted, maneuvering rounds, the tank is dead due to cost basis alone. No one can fight let alone WIN a war with a cost ratio of 80:1 It is mathematically impossible. Brings back the nuclear question... at what point will they be used? For sure if Ukraine invades Russia. Brings back the have vrs have not question which has always been true through all of history. Either you are big enough to have the tech and support countries which you give said tech to keeping them in your alliance, or your country is a vassel state with a rare few neutral countries who are just trying to not get run over and turned into slaves.
@@w8stral If we judged every weapons viability by the current russian failure to apply such weapons effectively we'd have a very short list of viable weapons. The tank is in a tougher spot than it was 30 years ago, but hardly obsolete, especially considering that ukraine has managed to use even modernized T-64s effectively.
You had me at "let's look at the data." Great information content! It's hard to find balanced commentaries on this conflict and the related issues. I can think of one other commentator who is similarly balanced and informed. I also like your energy. This is an incredibly important time in the the complex geopolitical evolution on our planet and we need information on the small and large issues. thank you!
M1 A1 And A2 TANKER HERE 1/1 CAV MOS 19 KILO NUMBER OF USA ABRAMS TANKERS KILLED IN COMBAT BY ENEMY FIRE ..... 0 LOOK IT UP IF YOU DONT FUKIN KNOW DONT TALK SHIT (THERE IS A REASON THE ARMOR ON AN ABRAMS IS STILL CLASSIFIED) ABRAMS IS A ROLLING KILLER NOT A DEATH TRAP {I CANT HEAR SHIT THO THAT'S WHY IM YELLING LMAO}
Hello! My dad was on a 'Daisy chain team'. Someone had to haul explosives in front of a tank. Also, as a 60's/70's Vet, crashed in helicopters three times. Had great pilots with brown pants. Regards
The thing that many tank people on UA-cam and Ryan said that a lot of people should note is that. The Tank plays a role. There isn't a replacement to that role currently. But if you don't play that role, you are at a severe disadvantage and danger. And yes they are deathtrap... It's war many things are.
Those last two layers of the onion still create a huge problem for the enemy that they have to devote resources and attention to. I guess on the battlefield it simply manifests as "oh crap that one didn't penetrate either", but it's still a very real problem in terms of preparing for a battle.
I started watching videos from both you and Perun last year shortly after the invasion started in Ukraine and I've been loving both channels ever since. Great video!
Something you HAVE to take into consideration is that most of what ELON posts online is a “retweet” without the credit. He often sees something he likes and then he posts it as his own. This is extremely common with him.
Everyone does that. How much do you know about the world first hand and how much do you just repeat from what you heard? Edit: I am not saying you all have Elon's big mouth. I am saying that many statements that everyone makes is as uncertain and dubious as Elon. As for " not everyone has a platform with millions of eyes trained on it", that's irrelevant and a tautology given that not everyone can be popular. And I dare say that likely an overwhelming number of popular figures on the internet makes claims beyond their circle on competence. Is it as ludicrous and as often as Elon? Maybe not, but they are in the same boat.
@@romxxii Elon fits in so well with the character of Miles Bron that his fans took offense when the movie was released and accuse Rian Johnson of political bias
What tends to kill the crew is internal ammunition explosions so storage in an area with a blow out panel seems to be the top factor in the survivability of the crew. I see tanks going the way of UAV. Once you remove the crew from the tank and replace them with remote operators the tank can become much smaller and have a very low profile and we can also remove most of it's armor to make it really cheap.
uavs have a lot of weaknesses like losing connection. Thats why modern russo-ukrainian Uavs, often employ Ai assistet targetting in order to finish a mission even if connection is lost. Do you realy want to have a tank run around on ai, or lose it because it fails to have a stable connection. Mind Tanks, are multipurpose, multiuse, 3-5 million dollar things. Not like the throaway 3k dollar suicide drone.
@@J-IFWBR One other thing to consider is that tanks are big, heavy machines. Driving them isn't exactly easy, and they get stuck and detrack all the time. I'm not saying an autonomous tank isn't possible, but it would be much harder in the EW space of a modern battlefield. AI could go a long way to supplement this, but again you run into the problem of having man out the loop killing machines, not a good look. To OPs point about crew survivability, western tanks are generally much better about having ammo containment and separation from the crew, leading to much better survivability. No tank is 100% indestructible, but not sitting on your ammo goes a long way if you do get hit.
@@J-IFWBR Exactly. I work in tech (computer programmer/engineer). The more autonomous you try to make vehicles from people, the harder it gets to protect them from electronic hacking/jamming (Electronic Warfare). This reality will keep humans in the loop, full stop. Radio signals (which is how Unmanned Vehicles work) can be masked/interrupted. There is no way to prevent that. They use frequency hopping to try to prevent it.. but just like the armor/weapon arms race, there is a 'radio control/jam' arms race that is also in play. So there is no surefire way to prevent enemies from jamming your control for long. A multi-million dollar tank is a big investment that can be jammed away with the right technology. It is why I doubt we'll a autonomous tanks for a while (if at all). Too easy to lose control and lose that huge investment.
As a young man I was British Army Chieftain tank crew. It does seem likely that tanks will become obsolete but just not yet. First it is likely that anti drone devices will make those weapons obsolete first. Then one advantage a tank has over short range AT weapons is distance ..... a tank can happly 'work out' at between 1000 and 2000 metres and get first round hits every time. Beyond range of AT. However distance has to be closed eventually and they will then be within range of AT. Another advantage of AT is that the user can very easily be trained (in some of them) in just a few hours. Thats from my own experience with a Carl Gustav. So tanks always need an infantry screen moving forward ahead of them while they provide direct fire on any target of opportunity. But it sucks to be an attacker and what will make tanks and indeed any vehicle obsolete will be infantry weapons increasing in such ability and numbers that no vehicle, tanks or APCs will be able to move without being destroyed. Anti artillery weapons will also inprove and eventually it'll be everyone back into trenches again. Then perhaps this madness will be over.
Ryan, idk if you'd see this comment or if it's old news, but here(Belarus) we have two news appearing overnight: 1)civilian trains from Murmansk and SPB going to Minsk and Smolensk were made to wait between 4 and 6 hours while something else was passing by ie huge amount of cargo going from the north to south; 2)Crimean bridge being shut down for civilians "for repairs". Even though repairs were supposedly going on for months and usage of both bridges was limited. Meaning that likely once again, the goal is to prevent civilians from filming it and bridge likely was brought into "sufficient enough" condition to be used with caution. Or maybe it's just repairs and I'm paranoid¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Tldr seems like Russia is moving serious quantities of materiel to the northern border of Ukraine and Crimea today.
In the age of satellite intel, it's almost impossible to slip supplies anywhere without the US knowing exactly where it is and where it's going. Real time battlefield intel which can be transmitted instantaneously is the most important advantage the US/NATO enjoys.
@@chillinlee it is true, but we're not NATO analytics, enjoying full access to those. We're working with scraps, trying to find out what's going on and how much worse situation can become in near future.
@@zaco-km3su IF? They were launching missile and air strikes from our territory from day 1! Some people even claimed that they've used our markings and uniforms for their aircraft and pilots. No solid evidence of false flag use though, but I wouldn't be surprised. We're bloody Vichy, that's what we are. And we don't even have a fleet to sink to preserve at least a drop of our dignity. IF. Ha...
@LTNetjak you've yourself said it. 1)conscripts make poor soldiers; 2) they're understaffed; 3)it's useless without manpower. Any manpower. And however poor, they're still filling the role of a soldier at least as to an extent of forcing ukranians to waste ammo to drive them off or worse, handle POWs under fire from other russian forces without any idea if those POWs are hiding weapons and are only mocking surrender 乁( •_• )ㄏ You're forgetting one important detail - nobody making decisions in Russia plans to go to the front themselves. Or cares. Sadly history had proven many times over that there is a value of sending more men in direction of your enemy, however unprepared and unwilling they are. Meanwhile examples of such forces joining the other side and fighting their oppressors are mostly rare exceptions:(
As a former 19K that's an M1 Abrams tanker. That latter reclassed as a 27E that's a TOW missile repairman. That helped develop the javelin system with Raytheon. I can tell you that a main battle tank still has a place on the battlefield. It is in need of an update but 70 tons of killing machine rolling towards you will test any persons courage. I have a few ideas that would make tanks relevant for the next hundred years.
A layer that might be missing here is close support; the reason to have infantry/IFV and tanks support each other is so that the infantry can detect and possibly take out threats that might otherwise kill the tank. It becomes more difficult to use portable Antitank weapons with enemy infantry nearby. The russians rely too much on their tanks to operate without proper support, causing more casualties. Not to mention they forget theres an engine in it aka when detected you need to drive fast to avoid getting hit!
M1 A1 And A2 TANKER HERE 1/1 CAV MOS 19 KILO NUMBER OF USA ABRAMS TANKERS KILLED IN COMBAT BY ENEMY FIRE ..... 0 LOOK IT UP IF YOU DONT FUKIN KNOW DONT TALK SHIT (THERE IS A REASON THE ARMOR ON AN ABRAMS IS STILL CLASSIFIED) ABRAMS IS A ROLLING KILLER NOT A DEATH TRAP {I CANT HEAR SHIT THO THAT'S WHY IM YELLING LMAO}
That worked against short range antitank weapons but a Javelin can hit you from 2km away and a Kornet from 5km or more. Infantry can't help you there. At that range the only thing you can do is to detect your enemy first with your thermals and hit them with a missile as some tanks and IFVs can shoot missiles too, but you're a much bigger target than some atgm team hiding in a ditch.
@@Tezcax MY LONGEST SHOT IN AN ABRAMS WAS 7 MILES i AGREE THAT PASSING ONE DUDE IN A TRENCH HITS YOU FROM BEHIND YOUR IMOBILIZED i THINK THATS WHY THEY WENT WITH A SMALLER MBT FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF TANKS abrams is a HUGE TARGET LOL
@@Tezcax 5 km distance means tankers have plenty of time to deploy countermeasures that would make the missile miss. Infantry are extra eyes to help the tank crew, however I can see how tanks would get a set of 360 degree cameras to automate the process. Like tanks already have lazer tag detection system that makes them spot the missile like Kornet and thus make such missile useless.
The most important educators are the ones that can demonstrate to students that the most obvious answers are often not the correct ones, and furthermore, how the addition of new information to one’s reasoning about a problem can completely transform the conclusion. You do this with style and aplomb, in a subject domain that is filled with an unhelpful amount of judgement-clouding machismo. It’s clear from your videos that the difference you’re making in the understanding of viewers is it’s own reward for you, so congratulations on your success 👍🏻
Actually - he screwed the pooch with this one. His Sagger example failed to mention that in a matter of days the effectiveness of that missile was negated by changes in Israeli tactics. (Actually, more like going back to using proper tactics instead of lining the tanks up and yelling 'charge!') And he also failed to mention the fact that modern APS (Active Protection System) systems make it look like the antitank missile may go obsolete like the antitank gun did. The US is fielding the Trophy APS to our armored fighting vehicles, and this is a combat proven system that has a perfect record of destroying every antitank missile or rocket fired at Israeli tanks. (And its performance during the US Army's 'torture testing' of the system also shot down 100% of the 50 different models of antitank missiles and rockets that were fired at it')
The criticality of accuracy and completeness in education varies from context to context. If you’re teaching surgery to people who will be performing operations within the next 12 months, then accuracy and completeness will be highly critical. If you’re discussing military strategy and the relative merits of various weapons, equipment, and approaches to warfare, to an audience not of soldiers, or military tacticians, but of regular joes subscribed to your UA-cam channel, then they’re appreciably less critical. Public education is a multi-faceted endeavour that encompasses so much more than being a talking encyclopaedia. In reality, next to none of the information presented in these videos is ever going to be battle-tested, and hence the true function of videos like this is obviously not merely to inform, but much more crucially, to engage, and encourage active reasoning. It might seem quite cynical to devalue the importance of accuracy where education is concerned, but as long as you are clear-eyed and honest about the difference between various “educational theatres” like a UA-cam channel vs an actual modern field operations manual of sorts, then you can reason intelligently about why their goals are, and should be, different. Granted, you can be engaging, and encourage active reasoning whilst still being accurate and complete, but if a video on this channel ever espouses a poorly substantiated conclusion about the supposed obsolescence of a given tactic, or category of equipment, that alone would not “screw the pooch”, so long as the other, IMO more vital, objectives are achieved. In this case, I still think that they are.
@@matthewoldham4804 His objective was to prove the tank is obsolete. And he used flawed reasoning and misleading historical example to prove his point.
I can see that survivability onion being an interesting thing on a quality t-shirt or hoodie. OD green or coyote brown please. Black is ok too, but I feel black shows dog hair too easily. 😆 The Chiron level survivability onion would require some people who view it to think more than they are used to... but I like when that happens. From a fellow retired veteran, thank you for all you do Ryan. I know researching and editing these video presentations together is time and effort consuming. As always, the information you provide is in line with what I have learned and know.
Ryan, it’s worth pointing out that tanks are also extremely exposed and very limited in mobility in comparison to smaller vehicles, and then obviously infantry. There was actually a study done in Ukraine for how much of the ground could actually support a tanks movement. In the dry season it was only about 40% if I remember correctly, and in the mud seasons it is more like 10-15%. I may be off on my numbers, but the point stands as this: with tanks having such limited mobility, it is extremely easy to predict their movements and position anti-tank equipment accordingly, plus the usage of drones to spot them for these weapons it makes it literally impossible to use an MBT effectively unless the enemy is just under equipped in a specific area. Although infantry might be exposed, their movement is virtually unlimited. I believe this is why tanks will be phased out unless we start to make them lighter, like the Abrams X, and start sacrificing their frontal protection to APFSDS for just 360° all around (including top down) chemical warhead protection as well as active protection systems. This will allow them to lose some chubbiness and regain some mobility they have lost over the years of tank development. This is also why I believe vehicles like the Bradley are so effective in Ukraine, high mobility and versatility.
Elon said he left S. Africa to stay out of the military, so I don't think he should even have the right to an opinion about anything to do with the military. But that is just my opinion.
My uncle was lost (MIA) in 1943 during the fighting leading up to the Battle of Kasserine Pass, in either an M3 Stuart or early M4 Sherman “Ronson”: it is safe to say that facing Rommel's antitank weaponry at that time and place, both of those tanks could be considered gasoline-powered death traps.
Having been a tanker in the 70's there is no way I'd do it again. There are just to many ways to be seen and destroyed. Granted the new Abrams have an excellent survivability rate. Tanks get killed but you live. I did feel invincible in my M60A1 and was surprised at how accurate the 105 was. They were a blast to drive too. Young and dumb for sure. After a month in the army hospital I was reassigned to the OSU (Office Service Unit) and loved that job. US ARMY = expensive toys.
I served on the M60A3, M1IP, and M1A1. I'm of the opposite opinion - if you want to return home after the war with all your body parts, your best bet is to be in a tank. Way too easy to kill infantry and lightly armored vehicles.
As someone who doesn’t know. I think the future of tanks is unmanned. You want the kind of fire power a tank can bring. But people wont survive being in them, so have an operator nearby to pilot the tank remotely and it will have significantly higher survivability if it can take a few more shots before becoming inoperable due to systems being damaged instead of immediately inoperable after a single penetration
The cheiftain basically proved it with his tank obsolescence video as well- until you have something that can provide the same mobile rapid fire power as a giant gun/cannon you will always have a tank , rockets and missiles have a long flight time, a tank round does not, and if a tank is used properly firing from cover or during maneuver, then it’s really not that vulnerable.
You are also not taking into account the fact that the US Army is fielding the 'Trophy' APS (Active Protection System) to our armored fighting vehicles (and integrating it into the design of new ones). And APS takes advantage of the fact that tanks have more electricity to power electronics and these systems detect and shoot down incoming antitank missiles and rockets. (The 'Trophy' system has been used by the Israeli army with a 100% success rate at stopping antittank missiles and rockets under actual combat conditions. During US Army trials the system stopped every one of the 50+ different models of antitank missiles and rockets under simulated combat conditions. At the very least the 'real world' effectiveness of the high-tech/high-cost antitank missiles are going to be reduced to the point where the expense of buying those missiles become questionable. (And make firing one of then to be not very survivable because the system will instantly aim the main gun at the launch point of the missile.
@@isstuff Racist narcissistic megalomaniacs with rich daddies both of them - both like to take credit for the hard work of other people - both were buddies with Epstein - I mean, the signs were there, but thanks to the entertainment industry, a lot has been done to hide those sides of them!
These thermals which are great for detecting tanks are also great at detecting infantry, the battlefield is a really deadly place for anyone. And AFVs are great for both mounting sensors and mounting long range weapons that can use those sensors.
M1 A1 And A2 TANKER HERE 1/1 CAV MOS 19 KILO NUMBER OF USA ABRAMS TANKERS KILLED IN COMBAT BY ENEMY FIRE ..... 0 LOOK IT UP IF YOU DONT FUKIN KNOW DONT TALK SHIT (THERE IS A REASON THE ARMOR ON AN ABRAMS IS STILL CLASSIFIED) ABRAMS IS A ROLLING KILLER NOT A DEATH TRAP {I CANT HEAR SHIT THO THAT'S WHY IM YELLING LMAO}
I look at it this way.....what hunts Tanks? Everything! Other Tanks, IFV's with Rockets, Infantry with Rockets, Airplanes. Helicopters, Mines, Artillery, not to mention all of these that can launch misslies and rockets with mines. And lets not forget almost EVERY Obstacle in the battle field. As a former Combat engineer, 90% of the things I threw at the enemy in the US Army's Arsenal was designed to stop or slow tanks so other assets can pick them off. Are they a death trap? Not if you move and shoot and avoid the enemys ability to channel you into a kill zone. But they are NOT to be used as a field fortification.
Remain's to be seen if tanks are obsolete. Love the shirt,Ryan. Even though I was a mortarman I won a coin flip to shoot a live TOW while training at Subic Bay in 1989.Very easy system to learn to shoot.
M1 A1 And A2 TANKER HERE 1/1 CAV MOS 19 KILO NUMBER OF USA ABRAMS TANKERS KILLED IN COMBAT BY ENEMY FIRE ..... 0 LOOK IT UP IF YOU DONT FUKIN KNOW DONT TALK SHIT (THERE IS A REASON THE ARMOR ON AN ABRAMS IS STILL CLASSIFIED) ABRAMS IS A ROLLING KILLER NOT A DEATH TRAP {I CANT HEAR SHIT THO THAT'S WHY IM YELLING LMAO}
M1 A1 And A2 TANKER HERE 1/1 CAV MOS 19 KILO NUMBER OF USA ABRAMS TANKERS KILLED IN COMBAT BY ENEMY FIRE ..... 0 LOOK IT UP IF YOU DONT FUKIN KNOW DONT TALK SHIT (THERE IS A REASON THE ARMOR ON AN ABRAMS IS STILL CLASSIFIED) ABRAMS IS A ROLLING KILLER NOT A DEATH TRAP
Tanks have a unique special purpose. Shock, on a narrow front. Just like Heavy Cavalry. What tanks need are two things. Some way to deal with mines. Some way to deal with AT missiles. Drones, aircraft, long range missiles, and massed artillery are also threats but can be dealt with by support units and tactics.
My all time best quote about misery and the military: As we were getting shit together to go on an Army training op, one of the guys who was ex-Marine was joking with the two battle hardened, multiple Vietnam tour Ranger Sgts about the cots they were taking. Sgt. Hines poked his finger in the Corporals direction and said these words of wisdom: "You do not have to go looking for MISERY.....it is looking for YOU!" How true!
I can’t deny your assessment. In fact you are saying almost everything I have been saying for about 39 years now. I spent 20 years in the Army. I joined in 1987 when the only defense an infantry soldier had against enemy armor was a LAW rocket. They were about 100 yard shoulder fired disposal rocket launchers. When I retired in 2007. We had several very accurate easy to use very effective weapons that our infantry could shoot and scoot with. When I joined. Enemy armor could very effectively collapse a positions flank or punch through the middle. By the time I retired. Enemy armor was not near as much of a threat to your position. What truly terrifies me is drone warfare. I truly believe that drone warfare is going to be the next evolution of warfare. By that I mean bow to flint lock to rifle to high capacity rifle, type of evolution. Drone warfare is going to completely rewrite the books on how wars will be fought.
During Army war games testing, the hit rate against armor using AT weapons was only 20%, from what I remember this stat was specific to TOW, but could have included other AT weapons like MPATs. I would imagine the hit rate would be even lower in actual combat.
Yeah. I have watched the interview with a guy who took part in conflict. He said that "yes, of course you will see all tanks we destroyed, but no-one will show graves of these who missed". The guy was polish - he was injured by tank firing back at him (he shot at tank but projectile hit just in front of tank and he missed). The tank missed. Ammo exploded 20meters in front of a guy. He woke up couple of hours later in hospital. I think these numbers might be right. The high rate at the beginning of war was caused by the lack of foundation in strategy and logistic knowledge.
Haha @1:50 I love this description of what a tank is. Really wish I had of used this in the past while teaching AFV recognition lol. I will also say that tanks need to be used as part of a combined arms strategy, and obviously if they are left on their own with no support, or stationary in hasty fighting positions then yes they are going to get destroyed. However, if the crew is able to move tactically, take up proper positions, and have support then they can be extremely successful leading an attack. They can also be very useful for breaching obstacles and minefields when equipped with proper implements
What always baffles me are the costs of war. In the middle ages, knights in full plate armour were obscenely expensive, but then cannons came along that increased the costs of war by orders of magnitude! Plus, it forced logistics to change and states to have a more potent economy when they changed from land skirmishes with a hundred knights to naval battles with hundreds of men per ship and from castles to star forts. Then, we come to iron clad ships, then primitive planes and tanks and now high tech ones...
Actually, the armored knights became cavalry units that persisted until the tank demonstrated that it was better at performing that mission. This mission has been around as long as warfare has. The heavily armored cavalry was an improvement of the lightly armored cavalry armed with lances. When firearms were developed the cavalry became lightly armored and armed with firearms and sabers. And they were then replaced by the tank - which performed the same mission better.
I like the analysis. I saw this back in 1970 when I was among the first group of TOW instructors in the regular US Army after having been dependent upon the much-flawed LAW system. I was once even on a 90mm M67 team in combat (but not against tanks). And as events have since unfolded, I have seen these layers Ryan showed peeled back. Yes. Tanks are death traps in the modern world. As Ryan pointed out, helicopters are as well. Personally, I visualize the day when helicopters are not utilized in Air Assaults any longer due to their vulnerability but are used as second echelon vessels. And the poor old grunt, layered with armor like a modern knight, unlike the thin shirts we wore, is even more vulnerable in today's battlefield. It ain't gonna get any safer out there for anyone.
I loved your Elon Musk impression. That man certainly loves to believe he has some unique intelligent perspective on a subject he has no expertise on. And people hang on his every word.
It's sort of fitting that he bought twitter. Speaking out of their ass about something they don't fully understand is pretty much what everybody on that platform does. It is like being down here in the youtube comments but they found a way to make it all dumber somehow.
This video essentially argues the very point that Elon made. Which was no more than food for thought and why Ryan made this video. For every doting listener of Elon, there's a self assured fool going on about how dumb he is
Tanks boil down to basic things. 1. It’s better to ride than walk. 2. Better to hope you have a heater than to be cold. 3. Better to not be wet in a trench. 4. The guns are nice. So of all the ways to die it’s better to be riding and dry and maybe warmer
@5:30 - "You can't cheat physics. You can't cheat chemistry." As a ship designer back in the day, I fought that same fight with people that should have known better. BTW, ships also fight a similar iron triangle of design; in our case it is speed, range, and payload, but the point is the same.
To some it up war is a death trap. Elon also said that a swarm of drones could seek out infantry and destroy them . You would be safer in a tank in that circumstance.
great video as always :) I just want to add that 100k$ is indeed less than 8mil$ but by putting an 8mil$ MBT you're forcing your opponent to buy, equip, deliver, and train AT personal which is also time and money consuming. Now, for US this is nothing but for other countries it is a lot of cash, and as you described you would never want to stand in front a Tank alone without a highly accurate, long rang, top attack AT missile. This is a keynote that many miss, I make my war more expensive but also my opponents.
The thing that was completely missed by the author is that APS (Active Protection System) are already being fielded on US tanks and has seen combat service with Israel. The Trophy system used by Israel and being fielded by the US has been so successful that I went and started digging into it because I doubted that any combat system can be 'that good.' Apparently - it is.
@Colin Campbell good point. I'm Israeli myself, and I know from my friends who served in Armour brigades about the Trophy capabilities. It is a game changer.
@@colincampbell767 That's the neat thing with ICBM MIRVs. My country will end up a radioactive wasteland and so will theirs. It's a loose loose situation. No matter how pissed off a superpower is they aren't suicidal. And I consider going to any war a great loss of human resources and economy. So might as well not get into it by having the greatest deterrence mankind have ever built. Sometimes is better to bring a grenade in a gunfight so that people are forced to talk it though.
Really depends on the era and who made the tank. If it a Soviet made tank then yes it is very likely a "Death Trap" due to it design on where they put the ammo racks. American made means that you have a very good chance of surviving a hit. Sure it can still be knock out but you will be far safer in a M1 then a T-90. Oh and we got rid of our best tank killer (I.E. A-10 Warthog). I saw what one could do against tank armor, melts it like butter and turns the armor into Swiss cheese.
But the new 5th or upcoming 6th generation tank has also that microchip in it and a few dozens more, missile counter measures, suizide and spy drones etc. It becomes a true multi-role weapon platform. So if a javelin costs 100k and it gets destroyed repeatedly by the tank with the help of AI and additionally uncovers the position of the infantry anti tank crew during that process recalculating the trajectory of the missile this could make these future tanks very lethal assets, doesn't it?
Fighter exists in the context of a boxer 🥊🥊 ... Two opponents in a ring, equal stature, equal weight class. A jet fighting a jet, in the sky. The letter A exists in AH-1, AH-64, AC-130, A-10, A-6, F/A-18 for "attack" .. as in Ground Attack. Gunships Pilots are Attack Pilots... Not sure why "Gunship pilot" or "Attack pilot" .. or "Attack Helicopter Pilot .. or even "Helicopter Gunship Attack Pilot" isn't cool enough for you
I was a 19E (M60A1) crewman and later Cavalry officer (M60A3, M1, M3) in the 1980s, and I've been hearing this same line about the pending demise of tanks from pundits ever since. Ever consider WHY there are so many anti-armor weapon systems on the battlefield? Nobody makes herring repellant or herring proof cages for scuba divers. No one ever brags about fishing or even seeing them in the wild. But sharks?
Great video. A real eye opening moment for me when I was an Armd Tp Ldr in the early 90's was hearing a guest speaker at a mess dinner state that 80% of all weapons made were designed to kill tanks...I'm sure it's higher than that now
@@lip124 The engineers he hires know rockets and cars. Still not convinced of his own knowledge. Watching him throw a rock through his unbreakable truck window was fun.
@@dougearnest7590 Major combat operations were over. Mostly had to face IED’s, indirect mortar fire / RPG’s. We were mostly in HMMWV’s with retro fitted steel armor.
how can you use twitter ? iam not old by any strech of imagination , but dosent it feel like a job? you always have to be online and look at the phone for every notification .
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Elon's original tweet:
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Tanks ARE deathtraps, now more than ever, mainly because modern anti-tank weapons have reduced the survivability onion down to two layers. However, war is dangrous and wasteful and tanks stil have a role to play on the modern battlefield.
The layers of the survivability onion are:
Don't be there.
Don't be detected.
Don't be aquired or identified.
Don't be hit.
Don't be penatrated.
Don't be killed.
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Nice Elon impression. You missed the "in the next year or so" prediction.
Please normalize your audio to match your outro ad, I had to turn my volume up to hear the main content then you nearly blew out my eardrums when the ad started man..
Otherwise, great video. Thanks for keeping us well-informed.
I can imagine i 50 years wars would be fought mostly by "war machines" 2/4/6/8 leged robots/droids that will have one and only target kill enemy troops , but will tanks dissapire , I think not there will replaced by large tracked tank drones , and large number of service men will be work in maitaince (as logistics will be done by drones) , but those are tommorow wars ...
Tanks? Death trap.
Humvees? Death trap.
Helicopters? Death trap.
Bradleys? Death trap.
Cyber Truck? LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT ITS GPS CAPABILITES!
Isn’t every aspect of war a death trap, literally?
Unless you want to wage a war on, like, illiteracy or something....
Except for Drone warfare.
REMF's have it good
Yes. It's your duty to give the enemy every possible chance, to give his life, for his country.
@@Rensune the drone operator could trip over their own shoelaces and snap their necks or stab themselves with their pencil to be fair
The "survivability onion" reminds me of an old children's joke:
A man was in an aeroplane
Unfortunately he fell out of the aeroplane
Fortunately there was a haystack below him
Unfortunately there was a pitchfork in the haystack
Fortunately he missed the pitchfork
Unfortunately he missed the haystack.
Feels like this dudes good luck/bad luck ratio balances out perfectly...
Read this in Richard Hammond’s voice
that’s a children’s joke? sounds like something norm would say happened to his uncle
I’m stealing that one
Fortunately the airplane didn’t take off yet.
I really liked Old Man Cheiftain's line. "Ask not what the enemy can do to the tank. Ask what the tank can do to the enemy." He then went on to point out that in every war tanks have ever been used in, they were very killable, and were killed in huge numbers. Tanks haven't stayed in every major armor because they suvive all weapons used against them. They stay in use because they bring weapons to use against the enemy that aren't available from other systems that exist. When another system exists that does what the tank does, it might replace the tank, but only in a certain case. If you take the 3 categories of cost, ability to do the missions, and ability to survive, a future system that does something like stays alive as well as a tank, does the same missions and brings the same capabilities as well as a tank, but costs way less, then we have a potential tank replacement. If it does the missions much, much better, costs the same as a tank, and is similarly survivable, we might have a replacement tank. If it costs way less, survives way worse, and cannot do the missions (Striker MGS) we do not have a tank replacement.
Beautiful explanation, totally saving that.
It's like people go "the pike was invented, horse now useless!"
The tank won't go away, it will just evolve, just like it has for the last 100+ years. An M1 today has very little in common with a Mark IV from WWI, other than the same basic mission requirements of killing the other guy, being able to move, and hopefully not dying when the other guy tries to kill it.
I remember something said back in the 90's by an M1 crewmember that had come from the M-60. He was told not to think of the M1 as a tank, it was closer to a very heavily armored, very low flying attack helicopter in capabilities than it was a tank.
No that doesn't make sense. The hole point of the tank is the combination of lethality, survivability and mobility. If we didn't need survivability or it was to expensive to protect you will get a better vehicles by focusing on mobility and lethality. We seen this happen in the navy, the ship of WW2 are much tougher than the ship we have today and that is simply because it was no longer viable to protect the ship against modern navy weapons and they weren't going to be in range of older ones so they removed survivability.
Survivability is the big X factor that tanks bring, if they can't be made survivable we can make much better vehicles by removing that.
Well, by that logic we'd still have cavalry charges...wait, we do, the Bradley fighting vehicle?
@@gavinkemp7920 The designers of the Leopard 1 and AMX-30 were thinking the same way. But the machines they made were still tanks despite having thin armor.
"Don't be penetrated."
- "Surviving a P. Diddy Party", ch. 1, pp. 4.
Don't be there xd
Yes in fact the entire survivability onion can be applied to a P. Diddy party
@@G31M1 If you are there don't be seen ;)
HA!HA!HA!HAAA!HA! 😂😂😂😂 ...that was a GOOD ONE, mate! 🤣
Ha ha, someone actually read the handbook!
Your conclusion reminds me of a line from the movie "To Hell and Back":
The main characters, who are infantrymen, are told by a tanker that their protection is not the best because they only have a couple inches of armor. One of the main characters rebuffs "Oh yeah? How thick do you think this GI shirt is?"
And then there is the classic Bill Mauldin cartoon where a GI says to a tanker, in Normandy when tankers were in short supply because of their high casualty rates, "I'd rather dig. A moving foxhole attracts the eye," This would, of course, essentially just be a discussion of the second layer of the onion.
Wait if I remember it correctly isn't their a latter scene where the infantry man comes across the same tank but destroyed and the crew dead?
@@thomasjamison2050 A static foxhole is easily bombed by artillery. Infantry are most vulnerable to artillery
@@jgw9990 rounds out, adjust fire, rounds out, destruction. the army doesn't train soldiers for strength, but mobility and endurance. it's very difficult to turtle up in real combat.
@@jgw9990 No shite. I bet that might be why they dig trenches. Of course, it the enemy artillery actually is highly accurate, it's not so likely they would waste a shell on just killing one guy instead of taking out a tank.
As an infantryman I can tell you one thing. The NLAW only has a maximum effective range of 300m or so. Getting that close to a MTB is still bloody scary, so hats off to our Ukrainian mates doing it so well.
I just googled it and I'm seeing effective range from 20 to 800 meters 🤷
@@dyggas Yeah I wouldn't believe him being an infantryman either
Yeah, but there are ATGMs with much longer ranges. Spike NLOS has a maximum range of 32 kilometers (or almost 20 miles). No one is pushing an infantry line 20 miles away ahead of the tanks. The infantry would be vulnerable to ambush.
@@dyggas Yeah, over a flat piece of land with zero obstruction. Now try a real environment.
@@user-uy1rg8td1v Even then, no one is sighting a tank 20 miles out.
"Are Tanks obsolete now?"
is a timeless question that has been asked literally every year since 1919. Right after ww1 ended, see "Tanks are obsolete, apparently since 1919"
Thank you for pointing this out, it's completely true. Generals had no idea what to do with tanks after 1918, some thought it was a one off thing and would never be used again
Also after one of the Arab Israeli wars where Egypt used TOW missiles to destroy lots of Israeli tanks. What it comes down to is tactics. If you use a tank the wrong way it is pretty much a death trap. The wrong way means sticking to roads where vehicles can easily be seen and targeted and having tanks go forward without infantry. A tank has very limited visibility once it’s buttoned up. Without infantry it’s easy for RPGs and missiles to pick off tanks from concealed locations. Same for having your tanks stuck in long columns on large roads. It was Russian tactics that were obsolete, these things were know since early WWII. It’s amazing how bad Russian leadership has been. Although that is pretty true to form. Russians have always had terrible leadership on offense but good at defense. I’m reading a fascinating book now by Alexander Solzhenitsyn called August 1914. It’s about the beginning of WWI where Russian generals confidently advanced toward Germany. They seemed to be having great success at first, only to realize too late that they had walked into a trap set by the Germans and huge Russian armies were encircled and annihilated.
@@michaeldebellis4202 part of the issue with the Russian tactics with tanks is the philosophy, Russian tanks (and by extension their tanks) are supposed to fight head down buttoned up, which leads to much lower visibility for the commander, Western Commanders generally are taught to keep their head out for visibility
@@michaeldebellis4202 TOW was never used in those wars.
@@cstgraphpads2091 Hilarious how he makes stuff up.... "Back in the Battle of France Guderian used his HIMARS with amazing effectiveness"
Old favorite about helicopters. Helicopters don't fly, they beat the air into submission.
No they use black magic and gremlins. Fixed wing is real flying. Helicopters are black magic.
War is wasteful indeed, thank you for pointing that out, I feel like people tend to forget that.
No one forget that
That is why bullies pick the weakest
And that is why super powers fight with other super powers with proxy wars rather than facing each other directly in wars
@@ahmedmohamed-fo5jl well also because if both said superpowers were to fight then nobody would be alive by now
War is indeed wasteful and a tragedy. But losing a war is a worst wasteful, tragedy--than winning one.
@@ahmedmohamed-fo5jl Pretty sure that last part has more to do with not crossing the MAD line.
Mmmm, arguable. War certainly creates a lot of waste, no doubt, on several levels (not least "guns v butter") but to call something "wasteful" as the term is usually used, you have to demonstrate that the waste is disproportionate to the goal achieved. For example, debate "wastes" a lot of time and energy, but arriving at the right conclusion instead of the wrong one is also incredibly valuable, so we keep doing it. Settling such matters in single-combat also wastes a great deal of resources, but also rarely gives the right conclusion, so while we'd call it "wasteful", we'd do so in comparison to debate, which is not (or, at least, less so).
Was it Clausewitz who gave us "War is politics by other means"?
I was watching a video of Ukrainians in Soledar today and the one guy was yelling “ we have the tank fixed didn’t you hear!” With much joy in his voice. In the middle of this vicious fighting just getting one tank back on the line was a source of joy and encouragement. When you’re in the thick of battle you’ll take any weapon you can get regardless of Elon’s opinion on the subject!
Well said. I have seen many interviews with some soldiers fighting there. One thing was always common: fear of artillery, tanks and drones. I was watching an interview with a polish guy fighting there for over half a year until he has been injured. He said that kills by firearms are counting for more or less 10% of all kills. The majority is artillery tanks and drones. And yes - tank is still king of war. God is artillery
I mean Elon Dunce IS a moron and barely knows anything actually important
Yes, Elon can't change the fact that a few kilos of explosives are flying at you every few seconds from a for you impenetrable moving box.
@@sluin Impenetrable? not at fucking all, tough? maybe
@@toddthreess9624 Tell that to all the russian cannon fodder killed by HIMARS, fucking scrub lol
One of our ukrainian very famous "expert" said "If you say tanks are useless nowadays - it means you never been under tank fire" (he is former marine, was on Donbas after 2014 and knows what he say)
Tanks are still usfull, combined arms will never die, is just that now we have a lot more options for AT that are reasonable effective that the effectiveness of tanks isnt what they once were.
@@Queue3612 think of the battleship, i think tank is in a similar position just on land. outright tanks will be obsolete but frigate/cruiser version of the tanks will be the future. so, some kind of armored fighting tank hybrids
Tanks can be effective if used in a third grade military without advanced ATGM NLAW etc like in Syria, Iraq or Russia itself. You cannot just invade a country and just rely on Tanks against a NATO powered nation like Ukraine.
I think with the introduction and widespread use of drones and Javelin missile system tanks will slowly be phased out. The original idea behind tanks especially WW1 was to get through places soft targets like infantry cant. Like a trench. Nowadays there’s just not much of a need for a Mobile artillery cannon Whos job can be done by a missile hundreds of miles away.
@@CaptnxKnuckles Not unless tanks will be equiped with Anti Drone + Javelin advanced laser weapon or rail gun. It will be again unstoppable.
In war, which one is a death trap? Answer: everything. You just have to learn how to position your tank from a distance.
I know there's a lot of discussion about the death of the tank, but to quote The Chieftain: "Tanks will exist as long as doctrine requires them.". I believe that until we can find the mobile firepower to replace the tank, we're still going to need the ability to put 120mm rounds into fixed positions. But this this is of course taking into account combined arms tactics.
There are alternatives to tanks, like guided artillery rounds, that also have the advantage of having a longer range than a tank gun, to just mention one method. The thing is, it's not the delivery system that is important, it's that the package is delivered, ie as long as the target is killed/destroyed it doesn't matter what is doing the killing/destruction. So yes, tanks are most definitely on their way out - they are too heavy, slow and expensive to have in a military force in the long run and will most likely be replaced by Stryker equivalents.
@@Kojak0 People have been saying that the tank is dead since 1918, what everyone of these people always forget is that no other weapon system currently gives the same versatility and capability in one vehicle as the tank does. Yes of course you could in theory replace the tank in every role its used in. But the amount of required different weapons systems and manpower make that unfeasible for all militaries but the largest (and even then its only maybe possible).
@@Kojak0 JYup, just like in the 60's the US did away with the gun on the Phantom II fighter because ACM is dead. Yet after that historic change ALL fighter planes come equipped with a cannon!
@@Kojak0 Artillery will always be less responsive and have magnitudes greater time on target than a direct-fire vehicle, and it's always preferable for a direct-fire vehicle to have a greater chance of surviving a hit. You're never going to replace the need for tactically mobile, highly survivable firepower.
@@TS-bj8my Nope, the Gripen two seaters don't have a cannon; that aside, a cannon on a fighter aircraft is more tradition than anything else - the distance fighter jets fight now is so immense that you have little to no chance to hit anything with a cannon. Hell, a sidewinder has a range of over 20 miles, and that's an old albeit updated weapon system.
Layer one is the most important one here. Don't put tanks in stationary entrenched positions for extended periods of time. Keep them out of the line of fire until you make an aggressive maneuver, and support them with air and mechanized infantry forces to act as mobile strong points. They are effective, just not in the current tactical reality on the ground. It's like putting archers on the front line against ancient cavalry. It's a terrible idea, they will just die. Don't expose your tanks until they can be effective.
Agreed. I think this is what Ukraine has been doing. Keeping their limited number of thanks safe until needed.
It should also be noted that tanks should not be deployed without infantry support, which we saw in the early stages of the war with Russia tanks just getting picked apart by Ukrainian tank hunter teams.
You nailed it. Exactly!
@@edwinadvincula7309 all of their artillery including mortars are mobile and fast mobile. They hit and move before the Russian artillery can lock on.
@@xboxman1710 Precisely, and that is largely a consistent pattern dating back to the first tanks in WW1. When infantry and/artillery support was absent or ineffective the tanks would get destroyed with little to nothing gained.
Because of the most recent wars, people are not used to the numbers of equipment and personnel loses. This is what a real war looks like. It surprises a lot of people. Tanks are still relevant on the battlefield.
The tank losses aren't even that particularly high. The loss ratios of equipment I've seen are pretty much in line with everything we've seen since and including WW2. In wars people die, and tanks are not invulnerable. I don't really understand how that surprises people. A weapon system doesn't exist to be invulnerable. It exists because it covers a unique role and capability on the battlefield and it will remain relevant as long as no other system can fill that role better.
If Elon Musk thinks tanks are obsolete I'd like him to explain what exactly he'd like to replace them with. Like so many people that are smart in one area, get invited to podcasts and then think they are smart on absolutely every topic under the sun, Elon should shut the f up when he doesn't know what he's talking about. Tanks get destroyed in a war. That's nothing new. Did the Germans stop building Panthers just because they got destroyed? Did the Russians stop building T34s? Last time I checked the T34 wasn't just the most built tank it was also the most destroyed tank. Did that matter? No. Because it was still useful on the battlefield.
And what Elon also fails to understand is that destroyed tank doesn't equal killed crew. The Americans lost a crapton of M4s in WW2, yet the tankers had a massively higher survival rate than most other service members. And of all the tanks in the world, western tanks offer the greatest survivability for the crew.
Just because a tank can be destroyed doesn't mean it's a death trap. Unless you consider everything you can get killed in a death trap, then war itself is a death trap, and it doesn't really take the brain of a genius to figure that one out.
I'd love to put Elon in a fox hole or trench that gets shelled by Russian artillery for one week straight... and then I'll offer him to either stay there or spend the next week in a Leopard or Abrams... let's see what he thinks about tanks then.
@@LeutnantJoker.....Yes if Elon thinks a tanks bad he should try riding into battle in a tesla.
@@LeutnantJoker yes but you have to account the fact that this era is closer to Iraq than it is to WW2
@@nebunezz_r I highly doubt that matters much. If anything losses of equipment and men have gone UP through the eras.
But at the end of the day full scale land war is full scale land war. And we haven't see that since WW2, not between parties that have comparable equipment.
And yes tanks have gotten better but so have anti-tank weapons.
Nothing I see here surprises me in losses. If anything they're mild for a war like this.
I also don't understand why the impact of hand-held anti-tank weapons surprised anybody. It's not like those exist only since recently. Germany and other nations suffered massive tank losses during WW2 in the early to late stages due to anti-tank rifles, infantry anti tank mines and other stuff. Later the Bazooka and Panzerfaust caused havoc. None of this is new. We just built better stuff to defeat better tanks. The balance is still exactly what it was back then. Tanks are incredibly useful but in a war like this you'll lose a lot of them and need to be able to replace them.
It's mind boggling to me how much the Russians have forgotten all lessons of how to lead a war like this from WW2. They do all the tactics wrong, all the logistics wrong, it's insane. We've seen all this before, and it seems they have all forgotten how a war works. If they were THIS oblivious about it, they shouldn't have started it.
@@nebunezz_r you have to take into account that Russia's doctrine hasn't really evolved since ww2
What Elon knows about the military can be written on an aspirin with a blunt pick.
What Elon knows about anything can be written on an aspirin, except how to con Americans and steal blood emeralds from his dad.
Elon is a genius and you are not! He can probably write on an aspirin more data than you could process in your lifetime 😅
Very little
@@pashapasovski5860no mate, he isn't, and you know nothing about being a soldier.
@seanthefatone131 between you and me, I am the only one who actually was a soldier!
1919: “Tanks are obsolete!”
2023: “Tanks are obsolete!”
Nothing lasts forever (Unless it's the B-52 and M2 browning). It's good to make statements like this to check if it's true.
"you are going toe to toe with a microchip , it can thinks faster then you and it does not care if it life's or dies." Sums up the effectiveness from smart weapons perfectly.
Yeah, the "does not care if it lives or dies" part cracked me up. 😆
That -Terminator- missile is out there
It can't be bargained with
It can't be reasoned with
It doesn't feel pity
Or remorse
Or fear
And it absolutely will not stop
Ever!
Until you are dead!
What is that suppose to mean? If you can make a smart weapon with microchip then you can make a smart tank with microchip and much more destructive.
And the tank has microchips of its own - generally more capable due to the ability to carry larger systems that use more power. And the microchips on the 'Trophy' Active Protection System - which is currently being fielded to US armored fighting vehicles - will literally shoot the incoming missile down. (The Trophy system has been combat tested with a 100% success rate of stopping incoming antitank missiles and rockets, and the US Army tested the Trophy system against every model of antitank missile and rocket that they could buy borrow or steal under simulated combat conditions - and it stopped them all.
@@khmer31 basically means you don't want to be in a scenario where you play chicken with them.
Some time ago I saw a tweet that was baiscally saying "why buying tanks when we can buy a shitload of Javelins, it's much cheaper"
And someone replied "you can't launch an offensive with Javelins"
Why buy weapons when you can just bend over.
Sure, it hurts a bit at the beginning, but you'll soon get used to it.
For some nations, it doesn't make financial sense to have tanks, Netherlands comes to mine.
Most countries don't care about launching offensives.
@@Cygnus888 *Counter* offensives are pretty important though.
@@Cygnus888 If you can't launch an offensive, those battle lines are only going to move one way.
"War is the most wasteful thing we do as a species" is a quote that every human should know by heart, it should go down in history
Not wasteful. It employees people, makes people rich and has led to an insane amount of tech leaps forward. And kills and maims leading to advances in medical technology.
And yes I am being silly, sort of.
Agreed, I replayed that quote a few times.
unironically, most things we use today were first made for warfare.
and ultimately shaped the modern world.
but war also gave us most of modern technology too. Advances in food, medicine, computers, aircraft, rockets, ships, sensors, etc.
@@SoloRenegadewe would have those advances in peacetime too, if the lives of the guys in charge were on the line then as well.
"War is dangerous" is by far the most underrated statement I've ever heard.
This sentence was also used in legendary book The Adventures Of Good Soldier Svejk, a dark satire from the 1st world war about notorious Hungaro-Austrian Soldier Svejk, a Czech national, a God's gifted, yet shallow minded soldier and later also deserteur of brilliant "character" outlined by his ability to cause every disaster or mishap possible, all while completely wrecked. Although unlucky, he luckily escapes every single absence of luck & his own sanity, doing that so masterfully, that his commanders are questionning themselves about the rationale of the situations which could be classified as sabotages, involving Svejk's invisible genius, his superiors have to deal with over and over again, slowly drowning their careers just because for some reason they have come in the contact with Josef Svejk, a true soldier of fortune.
There is a one liner scene in the book and movie reminding me similar attitude you describe, which made me write the whole story.
Soldiers having a break in the trenches, eating, cleaning a gear when suddenly there is artillery barrage incoming, first explosions prompted Svejk quickly back up on his feet now running immediately towards the line of impact, waving his hand's on an enemy and shouting: "What are you doing? Have you lost your mind completely?There are people here, for Christ's sake!!!"
I'm guessing tanks work really well when they're an integral part of combined arms. Rolling in with IFV support, satellite recon, accurate artillery support, air cover, etc... all managed and rolling in realtime, it'd be almost impossible to stop. You'd take some losses, but you'd also roll up almost anything conventional.
Comparing the fiasco clown show that Russia put on in Ukraine with any other type of battle field scenario is just ignorant. It's like Elon just became interested in warfare, read some tweets and decided he was an expert.
M1 A1 And A2 TANKER HERE 1/1 CAV MOS 19 KILO NUMBER OF USA ABRAMS TANKERS KILLED IN COMBAT BY ENEMY FIRE ..... 0 LOOK IT UP IF YOU DONT FUKIN KNOW DONT TALK SHIT (THERE IS A REASON THE ARMOR ON AN ABRAMS IS STILL CLASSIFIED) ABRAMS IS A ROLLING KILLER NOT A DEATH TRAP
All of what you describe requires a massive investment in equipment, logistics, and training. It all works brilliantly when you are fighting an enemy who has no clue about combined arms and has invested little in the above. It doesn't work nearly as well when fighting a sophisticated near peer who has done all the hard work.
@@rfwillett2424 I NEVER SAID COMBAT ARMS WAS AN EASY LIFE I SUFFER EVERY DAY.... SO SAD ALL THESE PRICKS THINK THEY KNOW SOMETHING WHEN THEY DONT KNOW WHAT SERVICE IS { HOW MANY MEN HAVE YOU SEEN BLOWN IN HALF WITH A 50 CAL IVE SEEN TOO MANY}
MBT have armor, a gun, and mobility.
The point is that the armor doesn't work, because at almost 2 km range a man portable one shot kill weapon that costs 100x less than you do.
While full plate armor is still effective against broadswords and knives, modern soldiers don't wear it because man portable guns bypass it.
And when you subtract Armor from MBT, you get a gun and mobility.
The tank's main gun is built to kill other tanks. A tank destroyer has the same gun without the same armor. A IFV has the mobility without the (same) gun
An artillery unit has better "gun" (more daka) without the armor and less mobility.
None of them are MBT. It isn't armored stuff that is obsolete; it is the MBT. The MBT could shrug off all but short ranged or airforce attacks from enemy units, so with combined arms provided an armored spine to an attack.
When the MBT is easier to kill at range than the escorting infantry, all of that heavy expensive armor was a waste. It becomes an overweight under speed artillery piece.
Your impression of Elon Musk was on point. 🤣
Impression and impersonation.
To accurate
🤌
EXACTLY
SPOT on 😆
The "Don't be hit" is still a very valid defense that is lately increasing in efficiecy again due to active protection systems.
Both hardkill and softkill systems are very effective at protecting a tank from being hit, but like everything they do not work 100% of the time.
Tanks won't go away, a drone or javalin missile cannot do what a tanks role is. There is a reason why tanks are being build, it is cause their role is needed. You cannot punch through enemy lines with infantry, you end up with WW1 style of combat.
Just imagine when Elon realizes that bullets can kill infantry
Imagine if he realizes that rifle bullets can't kill people in tanks.
@JZ's BFF Doesn't even need to be social media, just having hundreds of mobile phones from a Russian carrier connected to towers in Ukraine can do that.
@@Schnittertm1 imagine the logistical nightmare to that nonsense, id rather a bullet than a cook off death
Yup, yet Infantry still exist. Helicopters and Carriers still exist. They will continue to exist until a better system can replicate what they do. You don't replace weapon systems because they can be killed now, you replace them because something new does the job better and possibly safer. Protected mobile firepower is still needed for offensive actions, and will be around until something can replace it.
@@FulkNerraIII "You don't replace weapon systems because they can be killed now, you replace them because something new does the job better ."
Well put! And there is a better idea: WDWJ, or Why Don't We Just! So here's a better idea... Why Don't We Just abolish war and embrace peace?!
we also thought ww2 would be the last time we would see the mosin nagant and the maxim machine gun
this is fire
Maxim my beloved
.. good point
[laughs in Ukrainian]
The Maxim is a beast. Water cooled meat grinder machine guns.
I love the concept of the survivability onion, especially if you consider weapon range/accuracy and mobility as part of the "don't be there" layer
M1 A1 And A2 TANKER HERE 1/1 CAV MOS 19 KILO NUMBER OF USA ABRAMS TANKERS KILLED IN COMBAT BY ENEMY FIRE ..... 0 LOOK IT UP IF YOU DONT FUKIN KNOW DONT TALK SHIT (THERE IS A REASON THE ARMOR ON AN ABRAMS IS STILL CLASSIFIED) ABRAMS IS A ROLLING KILLER NOT A DEATH TRAP
It also works for Prison -- it's true, go back and watch that bit where he reads all the layers at the beginning again 😂🤣 2:00
In my time working with Lockheed Martin the Engineer I worked with his opinion while still have the use they are Death Traps. When a Tank enters the theater of the Battle it's high priority to take them out.
As an Australian Army veteran with deployments in Iraq, E. Timor & Afghanistan, I agree with everything you said!
Very well put together and explained.
Tanks are death traps, but you need them if you want to do anything fast or aggressive. Kharkiv was all about tanks and IFV’s making aggressive moves.
It’s like how helicopters are piss easy to destroy, but there’s nothing else which can do that job so we have to put up with a high loss rate.
I Like how you lay everything out in all your topics and have come to respect your viewpoints. Its a little late but happy new year dude! Forgot to mention how cool your shirt was too!
Thanks for confirming my suspicions that sitting in a metal can moving not so fast while people are shooting rockets and other exploding things at you and while hoping not to drive over a mine could be described as a death trap. Who knew. 🙂 Now, seriously, thanks for the analysis. You bring clarity.
Ryan McBeth is like a tank psychologist. He just created a Mazlow’s Heirarchy of needs for Tank Survivability
😂👍
The Integrated Survivability Onion is an old concept in the sphere of defense research.
Do you hear that? It's very feint, but it's there: That's the Chieftain nodding in approval. 😉
"The tank will be replaced by some sort of IFV." Tanks have their roles and IFV have their own roles. And there is not enough room under armor to do both in a single vehicle. And please don't mention the Merkava.
@@charlesmartin1121 those were solely designed for "other" matters...
It’s an old point from WW2 but it’s infantry considered tanks death traps because of all the fire they drew, but tanker casualties only numbered in the thousands compared to the tens and hundreds of thousands for the infantry. Even adjusting for relative numbers you were still orders of magnitude safer in a tank. Artillery does most of the killing, and unless you’re unlucky and get a direct hit then generally that tank is going to protect you
World War II U.S. total Armored Force KIA December 1941 to December 1946, 1645, with half of those occurring outside of the tank.
@@brucenorman8904 wow, it was even more lopsided than I remembered. About 1600 killed in the whole war is insanely low (thankfully)
@@brucenorman8904 when they got out to eat, sleep, and poop/pee that's why modern tankers use wag bags and learn to sleep in the abrams
@@skorza212 The Sherman was an excellent tank everybody wants to think the Nazis had the edge with Panthers and Tigers, but that's just believe the propaganda 70 years later, they generally weren't in the numbers to make a difference... kind of like the Russian T-14 Armata it's so classified even the Russians in Ukraine haven't seen it lmao
That's why Artillery has been called the Kings of battle for centuries. Napoleon said God fights on the side with the best Artillery.
I would contend that the solution to the survivability onion is remove the crew. Then no one dies when a tank dies. I doubt tanks will be phased out, unless you're specifically referring to them being replaced by tank drone. And to address the dumbest person in the room (musk), if they weren't useful, they wouldn't be used. Yet both sides are desperate for more and better tanks. War has a steep learning curve and if they had determined they weren't needed, they would be phased out very quickly. War is wasteful, but unnecessary waste is cut as often as possible because every wasted dollar is one less that can be spent removing the enemy from their positions.
Your survivability onion is missing "Don't be shot at" after "Don't be acquired". Some really great military stories are based on that principal.
Those first 4 levels of the onion still exist, they're just a lot harder to use. Then again, given Russian equipment lacks a lot of thermals and night vision gear, that's a nice boost for Ukraine. Thermal camo and soft/hard kill defensive systems exist too.
The problem is that the Russians are deploying beetroot
Boy, you got no idea when and how quickly they ran out of such equipment.
They do exist and the latest upgrades to US IFVs bring 'situational awareness' to a new level.
1:36 Many MBT designs have prioritized mobility and reliability over survivability. Think of the AMX-30 for example which served well into the 90s with the French and Spanish militaries, or the Leopard 1 variants.(Even the US Patton tanks couldn't withstand shots from main caliber cannons). These tanks weren't designed to withstand main caliber cannons but could withstand autocannons pretty well.
Edit: my point was that even though they could survive shots when they were introduced, they can't anymore. And that the designation of these tanks doesn't change with the years. So the definition he used is flawed since it doesn't account for innovation.
Mobility _is_ survivability. That's the whole point of the survivability onion. This dates all the way back to the success of the M18 Hellcat in WW2.
All of these were designed and built before composite armor was introduced, since most shells that were able to be fired had much more penetrating power than what could reasonably be absorbed by steel. Composite armor changed that massively and made it possible to actually survive shots 👍
When it was designed the M48 patton could resist its own 90mm gun at pretty much all ranges (if it hit the turret or glacis. Turret ring, not so much) and had pretty good resistance towards the russian 100mm at longer ranges, and the M60 Patton had even more armor (being able to resist the 100mm quite close up). The 105mm (standard armament of the M60) was a different matter, but that wasn't the gun it was supposed to face. The introduction of the russian 125mm and better armor piecing sabot rounds (with the T-64 and later the mass produced T-72) of course made the M60 (and quite a few other 2nd generation MBTs) quite obsolete, so NATO considered itself at something of a disadvantage until the third generation MBTs were produced in some numbers (Abrams, Leopard 2, Challenger)
@@fiendishrabbit8259 Until the mass production of cheap, accurate, effective, active protection systems against incoming targeted, maneuvering rounds, the tank is dead due to cost basis alone. No one can fight let alone WIN a war with a cost ratio of 80:1 It is mathematically impossible. Brings back the nuclear question... at what point will they be used? For sure if Ukraine invades Russia. Brings back the have vrs have not question which has always been true through all of history. Either you are big enough to have the tech and support countries which you give said tech to keeping them in your alliance, or your country is a vassel state with a rare few neutral countries who are just trying to not get run over and turned into slaves.
@@w8stral If we judged every weapons viability by the current russian failure to apply such weapons effectively we'd have a very short list of viable weapons. The tank is in a tougher spot than it was 30 years ago, but hardly obsolete, especially considering that ukraine has managed to use even modernized T-64s effectively.
You had me at "let's look at the data." Great information content! It's hard to find balanced commentaries on this conflict and the related issues. I can think of one other commentator who is similarly balanced and informed. I also like your energy. This is an incredibly important time in the the complex geopolitical evolution on our planet and we need information on the small and large issues. thank you!
"War is dangerous." Best military analysis that I've heard in decades lol. Seriously though, Ryan, I love your work! Great video!
He’s expert on what’s the trend, he talks with the confidence of his money not his knowledge
Dude paid $44B for Twitter. Immediately declared it was basically bankrupt. Meanwhile Tesla drops by over $200B. BOHICA Elon.
Mmmmmmm....
true
It's like the "submarine for a cave rescue" idea.
@@deuspax "owns the company" ≠ part of an actual engineering team.
You know Apartheid Clyde doesn't have a degree right?
"IF YOU CAN SURVIVE A BULLET TO THE FACE, YOU ARE A TANK!"
I'm fucking weak 😂😂😂
M1 A1 And A2 TANKER HERE 1/1 CAV MOS 19 KILO NUMBER OF USA ABRAMS TANKERS KILLED IN COMBAT BY ENEMY FIRE ..... 0 LOOK IT UP IF YOU DONT FUKIN KNOW DONT TALK SHIT (THERE IS A REASON THE ARMOR ON AN ABRAMS IS STILL CLASSIFIED) ABRAMS IS A ROLLING KILLER NOT A DEATH TRAP {I CANT HEAR SHIT THO THAT'S WHY IM YELLING LMAO}
@@seha6391 ... You're replying to SARCASM
@@seha6391 Update your OPSEC, weirdo
You’re a great educator about all of this stuff, I have learned a lot since I started watching your vids.
Hello! My dad was on a 'Daisy chain team'. Someone had to haul explosives in front of a tank. Also, as a 60's/70's Vet, crashed in helicopters three times. Had great pilots with brown pants. Regards
The thing that many tank people on UA-cam and Ryan said that a lot of people should note is that. The Tank plays a role. There isn't a replacement to that role currently. But if you don't play that role, you are at a severe disadvantage and danger. And yes they are deathtrap... It's war many things are.
i kinda feel like that survivability onion applies to all walks of life.
Yeah same lol
An introverts guide how to deal with society
“womans guide on how to behave around drunken football fans”
Those last two layers of the onion still create a huge problem for the enemy that they have to devote resources and attention to. I guess on the battlefield it simply manifests as "oh crap that one didn't penetrate either", but it's still a very real problem in terms of preparing for a battle.
POV: when you reading those last two layers from prison 😂 2:00
Ok, I joke .. prisoner abuse is a serious thing in America... I'm still gonna chuckle
Sure, but 100x cheaper to kill than to make is a hard ratio to win a war with.
I started watching videos from both you and Perun last year shortly after the invasion started in Ukraine and I've been loving both channels ever since. Great video!
Something you HAVE to take into consideration is that most of what ELON posts online is a “retweet” without the credit. He often sees something he likes and then he posts it as his own. This is extremely common with him.
so he just took his business model and applied it to his tweets
Everyone does that. How much do you know about the world first hand and how much do you just repeat from what you heard?
Edit: I am not saying you all have Elon's big mouth. I am saying that many statements that everyone makes is as uncertain and dubious as Elon. As for " not everyone has a platform with millions of eyes trained on it", that's irrelevant and a tautology given that not everyone can be popular. And I dare say that likely an overwhelming number of popular figures on the internet makes claims beyond their circle on competence. Is it as ludicrous and as often as Elon? Maybe not, but they are in the same boat.
He's the rich billionaire in Glass Onion.
@@alan5506 Not everyone does that. And more importantly, not everyone has a platform with millions of eyes trained on it.
@@romxxii Elon fits in so well with the character of Miles Bron that his fans took offense when the movie was released and accuse Rian Johnson of political bias
What tends to kill the crew is internal ammunition explosions so storage in an area with a blow out panel seems to be the top factor in the survivability of the crew. I see tanks going the way of UAV. Once you remove the crew from the tank and replace them with remote operators the tank can become much smaller and have a very low profile and we can also remove most of it's armor to make it really cheap.
uavs have a lot of weaknesses like losing connection. Thats why modern russo-ukrainian Uavs, often employ Ai assistet targetting in order to finish a mission even if connection is lost. Do you realy want to have a tank run around on ai, or lose it because it fails to have a stable connection. Mind Tanks, are multipurpose, multiuse, 3-5 million dollar things. Not like the throaway 3k dollar suicide drone.
@@J-IFWBR One other thing to consider is that tanks are big, heavy machines. Driving them isn't exactly easy, and they get stuck and detrack all the time. I'm not saying an autonomous tank isn't possible, but it would be much harder in the EW space of a modern battlefield. AI could go a long way to supplement this, but again you run into the problem of having man out the loop killing machines, not a good look. To OPs point about crew survivability, western tanks are generally much better about having ammo containment and separation from the crew, leading to much better survivability. No tank is 100% indestructible, but not sitting on your ammo goes a long way if you do get hit.
@@J-IFWBR
Exactly. I work in tech (computer programmer/engineer). The more autonomous you try to make vehicles from people, the harder it gets to protect them from electronic hacking/jamming (Electronic Warfare). This reality will keep humans in the loop, full stop.
Radio signals (which is how Unmanned Vehicles work) can be masked/interrupted. There is no way to prevent that. They use frequency hopping to try to prevent it.. but just like the armor/weapon arms race, there is a 'radio control/jam' arms race that is also in play. So there is no surefire way to prevent enemies from jamming your control for long. A multi-million dollar tank is a big investment that can be jammed away with the right technology. It is why I doubt we'll a autonomous tanks for a while (if at all). Too easy to lose control and lose that huge investment.
And its cannon, that can go too
As a young man I was British Army Chieftain tank crew. It does seem likely that tanks will become obsolete but just not yet. First it is likely that anti drone devices will make those weapons obsolete first. Then one advantage a tank has over short range AT weapons is distance ..... a tank can happly 'work out' at between 1000 and 2000 metres and get first round hits every time. Beyond range of AT. However distance has to be closed eventually and they will then be within range of AT. Another advantage of AT is that the user can very easily be trained (in some of them) in just a few hours. Thats from my own experience with a Carl Gustav. So tanks always need an infantry screen moving forward ahead of them while they provide direct fire on any target of opportunity. But it sucks to be an attacker and what will make tanks and indeed any vehicle obsolete will be infantry weapons increasing in such ability and numbers that no vehicle, tanks or APCs will be able to move without being destroyed. Anti artillery weapons will also inprove and eventually it'll be everyone back into trenches again. Then perhaps this madness will be over.
Awesome! You do such an amazing job clarifying stuff and making us all laugh. Thank you!
Ryan, idk if you'd see this comment or if it's old news, but here(Belarus) we have two news appearing overnight: 1)civilian trains from Murmansk and SPB going to Minsk and Smolensk were made to wait between 4 and 6 hours while something else was passing by ie huge amount of cargo going from the north to south;
2)Crimean bridge being shut down for civilians "for repairs". Even though repairs were supposedly going on for months and usage of both bridges was limited. Meaning that likely once again, the goal is to prevent civilians from filming it and bridge likely was brought into "sufficient enough" condition to be used with caution. Or maybe it's just repairs and I'm paranoid¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Tldr seems like Russia is moving serious quantities of materiel to the northern border of Ukraine and Crimea today.
In the age of satellite intel, it's almost impossible to slip supplies anywhere without the US knowing exactly where it is and where it's going. Real time battlefield intel which can be transmitted instantaneously is the most important advantage the US/NATO enjoys.
@@chillinlee it is true, but we're not NATO analytics, enjoying full access to those. We're working with scraps, trying to find out what's going on and how much worse situation can become in near future.
@@zaco-km3su IF? They were launching missile and air strikes from our territory from day 1! Some people even claimed that they've used our markings and uniforms for their aircraft and pilots. No solid evidence of false flag use though, but I wouldn't be surprised. We're bloody Vichy, that's what we are. And we don't even have a fleet to sink to preserve at least a drop of our dignity. IF. Ha...
@LTNetjak you've yourself said it. 1)conscripts make poor soldiers; 2) they're understaffed; 3)it's useless without manpower.
Any manpower. And however poor, they're still filling the role of a soldier at least as to an extent of forcing ukranians to waste ammo to drive them off or worse, handle POWs under fire from other russian forces without any idea if those POWs are hiding weapons and are only mocking surrender 乁( •_• )ㄏ
You're forgetting one important detail - nobody making decisions in Russia plans to go to the front themselves. Or cares.
Sadly history had proven many times over that there is a value of sending more men in direction of your enemy, however unprepared and unwilling they are. Meanwhile examples of such forces joining the other side and fighting their oppressors are mostly rare exceptions:(
@@zaco-km3su Chill the fuck down, the man is from Belarus and reported something he thought interesting.
As a former 19K that's an M1 Abrams tanker. That latter reclassed as a 27E that's a TOW missile repairman. That helped develop the javelin system with Raytheon. I can tell you that a main battle tank still has a place on the battlefield. It is in need of an update but 70 tons of killing machine rolling towards you will test any persons courage. I have a few ideas that would make tanks relevant for the next hundred years.
A layer that might be missing here is close support; the reason to have infantry/IFV and tanks support each other is so that the infantry can detect and possibly take out threats that might otherwise kill the tank. It becomes more difficult to use portable Antitank weapons with enemy infantry nearby. The russians rely too much on their tanks to operate without proper support, causing more casualties. Not to mention they forget theres an engine in it aka when detected you need to drive fast to avoid getting hit!
I was looking for this comment!
The video leaves out what you pointed out, which is crucial.
M1 A1 And A2 TANKER HERE 1/1 CAV MOS 19 KILO NUMBER OF USA ABRAMS TANKERS KILLED IN COMBAT BY ENEMY FIRE ..... 0 LOOK IT UP IF YOU DONT FUKIN KNOW DONT TALK SHIT (THERE IS A REASON THE ARMOR ON AN ABRAMS IS STILL CLASSIFIED) ABRAMS IS A ROLLING KILLER NOT A DEATH TRAP {I CANT HEAR SHIT THO THAT'S WHY IM YELLING LMAO}
That worked against short range antitank weapons but a Javelin can hit you from 2km away and a Kornet from 5km or more. Infantry can't help you there. At that range the only thing you can do is to detect your enemy first with your thermals and hit them with a missile as some tanks and IFVs can shoot missiles too, but you're a much bigger target than some atgm team hiding in a ditch.
@@Tezcax MY LONGEST SHOT IN AN ABRAMS WAS 7 MILES i AGREE THAT PASSING ONE DUDE IN A TRENCH HITS YOU FROM BEHIND YOUR IMOBILIZED i THINK THATS WHY THEY WENT WITH A SMALLER MBT FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF TANKS abrams is a HUGE TARGET LOL
@@Tezcax 5 km distance means tankers have plenty of time to deploy countermeasures that would make the missile miss.
Infantry are extra eyes to help the tank crew, however I can see how tanks would get a set of 360 degree cameras to automate the process.
Like tanks already have lazer tag detection system that makes them spot the missile like Kornet and thus make such missile useless.
The most important educators are the ones that can demonstrate to students that the most obvious answers are often not the correct ones, and furthermore, how the addition of new information to one’s reasoning about a problem can completely transform the conclusion.
You do this with style and aplomb, in a subject domain that is filled with an unhelpful amount of judgement-clouding machismo.
It’s clear from your videos that the difference you’re making in the understanding of viewers is it’s own reward for you, so congratulations on your success 👍🏻
Actually - he screwed the pooch with this one. His Sagger example failed to mention that in a matter of days the effectiveness of that missile was negated by changes in Israeli tactics. (Actually, more like going back to using proper tactics instead of lining the tanks up and yelling 'charge!')
And he also failed to mention the fact that modern APS (Active Protection System) systems make it look like the antitank missile may go obsolete like the antitank gun did. The US is fielding the Trophy APS to our armored fighting vehicles, and this is a combat proven system that has a perfect record of destroying every antitank missile or rocket fired at Israeli tanks. (And its performance during the US Army's 'torture testing' of the system also shot down 100% of the 50 different models of antitank missiles and rockets that were fired at it')
The criticality of accuracy and completeness in education varies from context to context.
If you’re teaching surgery to people who will be performing operations within the next 12 months, then accuracy and completeness will be highly critical.
If you’re discussing military strategy and the relative merits of various weapons, equipment, and approaches to warfare, to an audience not of soldiers, or military tacticians, but of regular joes subscribed to your UA-cam channel, then they’re appreciably less critical.
Public education is a multi-faceted endeavour that encompasses so much more than being a talking encyclopaedia. In reality, next to none of the information presented in these videos is ever going to be battle-tested, and hence the true function of videos like this is obviously not merely to inform, but much more crucially, to engage, and encourage active reasoning.
It might seem quite cynical to devalue the importance of accuracy where education is concerned, but as long as you are clear-eyed and honest about the difference between various “educational theatres” like a UA-cam channel vs an actual modern field operations manual of sorts, then you can reason intelligently about why their goals are, and should be, different.
Granted, you can be engaging, and encourage active reasoning whilst still being accurate and complete, but if a video on this channel ever espouses a poorly substantiated conclusion about the supposed obsolescence of a given tactic, or category of equipment, that alone would not “screw the pooch”, so long as the other, IMO more vital, objectives are achieved.
In this case, I still think that they are.
@@matthewoldham4804 His objective was to prove the tank is obsolete. And he used flawed reasoning and misleading historical example to prove his point.
@@colincampbell767 Dude. You're arguing with a bot.
I can see that survivability onion being an interesting thing on a quality t-shirt or hoodie. OD green or coyote brown please. Black is ok too, but I feel black shows dog hair too easily. 😆
The Chiron level survivability onion would require some people who view it to think more than they are used to... but I like when that happens.
From a fellow retired veteran, thank you for all you do Ryan.
I know researching and editing these video presentations together is time and effort consuming. As always, the information you provide is in line with what I have learned and know.
I'd buy it lol
Yeah with pastel colors for the layers and a cartounish tank in the middle it would look awesome ! Good idea man !
Ryan, it’s worth pointing out that tanks are also extremely exposed and very limited in mobility in comparison to smaller vehicles, and then obviously infantry.
There was actually a study done in Ukraine for how much of the ground could actually support a tanks movement. In the dry season it was only about 40% if I remember correctly, and in the mud seasons it is more like 10-15%. I may be off on my numbers, but the point stands as this: with tanks having such limited mobility, it is extremely easy to predict their movements and position anti-tank equipment accordingly, plus the usage of drones to spot them for these weapons it makes it literally impossible to use an MBT effectively unless the enemy is just under equipped in a specific area. Although infantry might be exposed, their movement is virtually unlimited.
I believe this is why tanks will be phased out unless we start to make them lighter, like the Abrams X, and start sacrificing their frontal protection to APFSDS for just 360° all around (including top down) chemical warhead protection as well as active protection systems. This will allow them to lose some chubbiness and regain some mobility they have lost over the years of tank development. This is also why I believe vehicles like the Bradley are so effective in Ukraine, high mobility and versatility.
Elon said he left S. Africa to stay out of the military, so I don't think he should even have the right to an opinion about anything to do with the military. But that is just my opinion.
My uncle was lost (MIA) in 1943 during the fighting leading up to the Battle of Kasserine Pass, in either an M3 Stuart or early M4 Sherman “Ronson”: it is safe to say that facing Rommel's antitank weaponry at that time and place, both of those tanks could be considered gasoline-powered death traps.
Having been a tanker in the 70's there is no way I'd do it again. There are just to many ways to be seen and destroyed. Granted the new Abrams have an excellent survivability rate. Tanks get killed but you live. I did feel invincible in my M60A1 and was surprised at how accurate the 105 was. They were a blast to drive too. Young and dumb for sure. After a month in the army hospital I was reassigned to the OSU (Office Service Unit) and loved that job. US ARMY = expensive toys.
I served on the M60A3, M1IP, and M1A1. I'm of the opposite opinion - if you want to return home after the war with all your body parts, your best bet is to be in a tank. Way too easy to kill infantry and lightly armored vehicles.
Mate - you can be just regular infantry and random explosion 30 meters away can kill you or make you paralyzed.
As someone who doesn’t know. I think the future of tanks is unmanned.
You want the kind of fire power a tank can bring. But people wont survive being in them, so have an operator nearby to pilot the tank remotely and it will have significantly higher survivability if it can take a few more shots before becoming inoperable due to systems being damaged instead of immediately inoperable after a single penetration
The cheiftain basically proved it with his tank obsolescence video as well- until you have something that can provide the same mobile rapid fire power as a giant gun/cannon you will always have a tank ,
rockets and missiles have a long flight time, a tank round does not, and if a tank is used properly firing from cover or during maneuver, then it’s really not that vulnerable.
You are also not taking into account the fact that the US Army is fielding the 'Trophy' APS (Active Protection System) to our armored fighting vehicles (and integrating it into the design of new ones). And APS takes advantage of the fact that tanks have more electricity to power electronics and these systems detect and shoot down incoming antitank missiles and rockets. (The 'Trophy' system has been used by the Israeli army with a 100% success rate at stopping antittank missiles and rockets under actual combat conditions. During US Army trials the system stopped every one of the 50+ different models of antitank missiles and rockets under simulated combat conditions.
At the very least the 'real world' effectiveness of the high-tech/high-cost antitank missiles are going to be reduced to the point where the expense of buying those missiles become questionable. (And make firing one of then to be not very survivable because the system will instantly aim the main gun at the launch point of the missile.
You know someone is a dangerous man when he can spew out whatever the fuck he wants and a large population of people just take it as matter of facts.
Trump and musk, I am surprised… I didn’t think they would have as much in common as they do.
@@isstuff
Racist narcissistic megalomaniacs with rich daddies both of them - both like to take credit for the hard work of other people - both were buddies with Epstein - I mean, the signs were there, but thanks to the entertainment industry, a lot has been done to hide those sides of them!
@@isstuff trump living in your head rent free. Nobody even was talking about trump.
@@Default012 Aw, sweetie.
Try learning what words mean before you parrot them.
@Bastiaan Oh, honey. That wasn't even coherent.
Hey Ryan, I couldn’t help but notice your cool bicycle seat! I have to look that bad boy up via the internet. Love what you do!
These thermals which are great for detecting tanks are also great at detecting infantry, the battlefield is a really deadly place for anyone. And AFVs are great for both mounting sensors and mounting long range weapons that can use those sensors.
M1 A1 And A2 TANKER HERE 1/1 CAV MOS 19 KILO NUMBER OF USA ABRAMS TANKERS KILLED IN COMBAT BY ENEMY FIRE ..... 0 LOOK IT UP IF YOU DONT FUKIN KNOW DONT TALK SHIT (THERE IS A REASON THE ARMOR ON AN ABRAMS IS STILL CLASSIFIED) ABRAMS IS A ROLLING KILLER NOT A DEATH TRAP {I CANT HEAR SHIT THO THAT'S WHY IM YELLING LMAO}
Would love to see you (former anti-tank guy) debate this with The Chieftain (former tank guy)
Are tanks obsolete?
- Yes
- No
War will not abide by the results of this poll.
True and also they might be a bad idea, but we don't have anything better tbh
I'd say the tanks being fielded in Ukraine are pretty freaking obsolete.
@@trustworthy_fishYT I've always said the tank is the best solution to a problem with no good solutions.
Not everyone is going to get this joke, Max, but those of us who caught the reference think this was an underrated comment. 😃
Not obsolete, but maybe obsolescent.
I look at it this way.....what hunts Tanks? Everything! Other Tanks, IFV's with Rockets, Infantry with Rockets, Airplanes. Helicopters, Mines, Artillery, not to mention all of these that can launch misslies and rockets with mines. And lets not forget almost EVERY Obstacle in the battle field. As a former Combat engineer, 90% of the things I threw at the enemy in the US Army's Arsenal was designed to stop or slow tanks so other assets can pick them off. Are they a death trap? Not if you move and shoot and avoid the enemys ability to channel you into a kill zone. But they are NOT to be used as a field fortification.
Every time someone says "why don't they just", you are about to see the Dunning Kruger bias in action.
This! And it applies as much to historical, sociological, and psychological stuff as technical.
“Why don’t they just” is a great question, but delivered as a statement it just exposes your ignorance.
Remain's to be seen if tanks are obsolete. Love the shirt,Ryan. Even though I was a mortarman I won a coin flip to shoot a live TOW while training at Subic Bay in 1989.Very easy system to learn to shoot.
M1 A1 And A2 TANKER HERE 1/1 CAV MOS 19 KILO NUMBER OF USA ABRAMS TANKERS KILLED IN COMBAT BY ENEMY FIRE ..... 0 LOOK IT UP IF YOU DONT FUKIN KNOW DONT TALK SHIT (THERE IS A REASON THE ARMOR ON AN ABRAMS IS STILL CLASSIFIED) ABRAMS IS A ROLLING KILLER NOT A DEATH TRAP {I CANT HEAR SHIT THO THAT'S WHY IM YELLING LMAO}
Ryan's definition of a tank in essence: "You need to be tanky"
M1 A1 And A2 TANKER HERE 1/1 CAV MOS 19 KILO NUMBER OF USA ABRAMS TANKERS KILLED IN COMBAT BY ENEMY FIRE ..... 0 LOOK IT UP IF YOU DONT FUKIN KNOW DONT TALK SHIT (THERE IS A REASON THE ARMOR ON AN ABRAMS IS STILL CLASSIFIED) ABRAMS IS A ROLLING KILLER NOT A DEATH TRAP
And sneaky
Tanks have a unique special purpose. Shock, on a narrow front. Just like Heavy Cavalry. What tanks need are two things. Some way to deal with mines. Some way to deal with AT missiles. Drones, aircraft, long range missiles, and massed artillery are also threats but can be dealt with by support units and tactics.
I'm impressed you got Elon to read out that tweet on your channel 😂
Can't believe you got Elon to read his tweet in you video!
My all time best quote about misery and the military: As we were getting shit together to go on an Army training op, one of the guys who was ex-Marine was joking with the two battle hardened, multiple Vietnam tour Ranger Sgts about the cots they were taking. Sgt. Hines poked his finger in the Corporals direction and said these words of wisdom: "You do not have to go looking for MISERY.....it is looking for YOU!" How true!
I can’t deny your assessment. In fact you are saying almost everything I have been saying for about 39 years now. I spent 20 years in the Army. I joined in 1987 when the only defense an infantry soldier had against enemy armor was a LAW rocket. They were about 100 yard shoulder fired disposal rocket launchers. When I retired in 2007. We had several very accurate easy to use very effective weapons that our infantry could shoot and scoot with. When I joined. Enemy armor could very effectively collapse a positions flank or punch through the middle. By the time I retired. Enemy armor was not near as much of a threat to your position. What truly terrifies me is drone warfare. I truly believe that drone warfare is going to be the next evolution of warfare. By that I mean bow to flint lock to rifle to high capacity rifle, type of evolution. Drone warfare is going to completely rewrite the books on how wars will be fought.
During Army war games testing, the hit rate against armor using AT weapons was only 20%, from what I remember this stat was specific to TOW, but could have included other AT weapons like MPATs. I would imagine the hit rate would be even lower in actual combat.
Yeah. I have watched the interview with a guy who took part in conflict. He said that "yes, of course you will see all tanks we destroyed, but no-one will show graves of these who missed". The guy was polish - he was injured by tank firing back at him (he shot at tank but projectile hit just in front of tank and he missed). The tank missed. Ammo exploded 20meters in front of a guy. He woke up couple of hours later in hospital. I think these numbers might be right. The high rate at the beginning of war was caused by the lack of foundation in strategy and logistic knowledge.
'True even lower under stress, by real death or life situation. Though NLAW and Javelin are fire and forget the AI will do the homing.
Haha @1:50 I love this description of what a tank is. Really wish I had of used this in the past while teaching AFV recognition lol. I will also say that tanks need to be used as part of a combined arms strategy, and obviously if they are left on their own with no support, or stationary in hasty fighting positions then yes they are going to get destroyed. However, if the crew is able to move tactically, take up proper positions, and have support then they can be extremely successful leading an attack. They can also be very useful for breaching obstacles and minefields when equipped with proper implements
What always baffles me are the costs of war. In the middle ages, knights in full plate armour were obscenely expensive, but then cannons came along that increased the costs of war by orders of magnitude! Plus, it forced logistics to change and states to have a more potent economy when they changed from land skirmishes with a hundred knights to naval battles with hundreds of men per ship and from castles to star forts. Then, we come to iron clad ships, then primitive planes and tanks and now high tech ones...
Actually, the armored knights became cavalry units that persisted until the tank demonstrated that it was better at performing that mission. This mission has been around as long as warfare has. The heavily armored cavalry was an improvement of the lightly armored cavalry armed with lances. When firearms were developed the cavalry became lightly armored and armed with firearms and sabers. And they were then replaced by the tank - which performed the same mission better.
I like the analysis. I saw this back in 1970 when I was among the first group of TOW instructors in the regular US Army after having been dependent upon the much-flawed LAW system. I was once even on a 90mm M67 team in combat (but not against tanks). And as events have since unfolded, I have seen these layers Ryan showed peeled back. Yes. Tanks are death traps in the modern world. As Ryan pointed out, helicopters are as well. Personally, I visualize the day when helicopters are not utilized in Air Assaults any longer due to their vulnerability but are used as second echelon vessels. And the poor old grunt, layered with armor like a modern knight, unlike the thin shirts we wore, is even more vulnerable in today's battlefield. It ain't gonna get any safer out there for anyone.
I loved your Elon Musk impression. That man certainly loves to believe he has some unique intelligent perspective on a subject he has no expertise on. And people hang on his every word.
Clearly you, random UA-cam commenter, has greater insight. Do tell.
@@bollockjohnson6156
And you, random UA-cam commenter, has greater insight than him. etc Spare us and don't tell.
It's sort of fitting that he bought twitter. Speaking out of their ass about something they don't fully understand is pretty much what everybody on that platform does. It is like being down here in the youtube comments but they found a way to make it all dumber somehow.
This video essentially argues the very point that Elon made. Which was no more than food for thought and why Ryan made this video.
For every doting listener of Elon, there's a self assured fool going on about how dumb he is
@@johnathanh2660 ah, another Redditor who's on break from r/antiwork.
Tanks boil down to basic things. 1. It’s better to ride than walk. 2. Better to hope you have a heater than to be cold. 3. Better to not be wet in a trench. 4. The guns are nice. So of all the ways to die it’s better to be riding and dry and maybe warmer
That Elon impression was perfection
@5:30 - "You can't cheat physics. You can't cheat chemistry." As a ship designer back in the day, I fought that same fight with people that should have known better. BTW, ships also fight a similar iron triangle of design; in our case it is speed, range, and payload, but the point is the same.
You're doing such an amazing job, Ryan. Thank you for making my day a little less crappy.
To some it up war is a death trap. Elon also said that a swarm of drones could seek out infantry and destroy them . You would be safer in a tank in that circumstance.
Enter electronic warfare, i.e. drone jammers. He's thinking too one dimensional, should stick to his cars, rockets and mean tweets.
Depends what kind of round they use on the tank.
We had rounds that blasted through reinforce concrete before.
Things will only get better.
great video as always :)
I just want to add that 100k$ is indeed less than 8mil$ but by putting an 8mil$ MBT you're forcing your opponent to buy, equip, deliver, and train AT personal which is also time and money consuming. Now, for US this is nothing but for other countries it is a lot of cash, and as you described you would never want to stand in front a Tank alone without a highly accurate, long rang, top attack AT missile. This is a keynote that many miss, I make my war more expensive but also my opponents.
The thing that was completely missed by the author is that APS (Active Protection System) are already being fielded on US tanks and has seen combat service with Israel. The Trophy system used by Israel and being fielded by the US has been so successful that I went and started digging into it because I doubted that any combat system can be 'that good.' Apparently - it is.
@Colin Campbell good point. I'm Israeli myself, and I know from my friends who served in Armour brigades about the Trophy capabilities. It is a game changer.
Or you can build just one ICBM and never have to go war with any superpower.
If only Ukraine didn't give up it's nuclear arsenal.
@@khanch.6807 Yea - you can piss that superpower off to the point where your own country becomes a lifeless radioactive desert.
@@colincampbell767 That's the neat thing with ICBM MIRVs. My country will end up a radioactive wasteland and so will theirs. It's a loose loose situation. No matter how pissed off a superpower is they aren't suicidal.
And I consider going to any war a great loss of human resources and economy. So might as well not get into it by having the greatest deterrence mankind have ever built.
Sometimes is better to bring a grenade in a gunfight so that people are forced to talk it though.
The MBT has been obsolete for years. We simply haven't dealt with a capable and advanced threat which allowed this Cold War concept to survive.
Really depends on the era and who made the tank. If it a Soviet made tank then yes it is very likely a "Death Trap" due to it design on where they put the ammo racks. American made means that you have a very good chance of surviving a hit. Sure it can still be knock out but you will be far safer in a M1 then a T-90. Oh and we got rid of our best tank killer (I.E. A-10 Warthog). I saw what one could do against tank armor, melts it like butter and turns the armor into Swiss cheese.
But the new 5th or upcoming 6th generation tank has also that microchip in it and a few dozens more, missile counter measures, suizide and spy drones etc. It becomes a true multi-role weapon platform. So if a javelin costs 100k and it gets destroyed repeatedly by the tank with the help of AI and additionally uncovers the position of the infantry anti tank crew during that process recalculating the trajectory of the missile this could make these future tanks very lethal assets, doesn't it?
I love how you mentioned the helicopter pilots. If someone deserves to be called a fighter pilot it would be them
Fighter exists in the context of a boxer 🥊🥊 ... Two opponents in a ring, equal stature, equal weight class.
A jet fighting a jet, in the sky.
The letter A exists in AH-1, AH-64, AC-130, A-10, A-6, F/A-18 for "attack" .. as in Ground Attack.
Gunships Pilots are Attack Pilots... Not sure why "Gunship pilot" or "Attack pilot" .. or "Attack Helicopter Pilot .. or even "Helicopter Gunship Attack Pilot" isn't cool enough for you
I was a 19E (M60A1) crewman and later Cavalry officer (M60A3, M1, M3) in the 1980s, and I've been hearing this same line about the pending demise of tanks from pundits ever since.
Ever consider WHY there are so many anti-armor weapon systems on the battlefield?
Nobody makes herring repellant or herring proof cages for scuba divers. No one ever brags about fishing or even seeing them in the wild.
But sharks?
I discovered your channel a couple of months ago and just wanted to say thank you for your factual, interesting, and thorough analysis.
Great video. A real eye opening moment for me when I was an Armd Tp Ldr in the early 90's was hearing a guest speaker at a mess dinner state that 80% of all weapons made were designed to kill tanks...I'm sure it's higher than that now
And the reason so many weapons are made to stop tanks is because of just how dangerous tanks are.
Elon knows things but he doesn't know everything. He would like to think he does.
And some (most?) people think he does for some reason...
For example, he doesn't know how to run Twitter
Elon has basically one skill: marketing his own name.
Elon knows 2 things rockets and cars nothing more.
@@lip124 The engineers he hires know rockets and cars. Still not convinced of his own knowledge. Watching him throw a rock through his unbreakable truck window was fun.
Obsolete in the Marine Corps.
My tank battalion was deployed in 2005 without the Tanks 😅.
- but was that on purpose, or because someone screwed up? See, I know how the Marine Corps works, too.
@@dougearnest7590 Major combat operations were over. Mostly had to face IED’s, indirect mortar fire / RPG’s.
We were mostly in HMMWV’s with retro fitted steel armor.
I remember seeing elons tweet and i just had a feeling he would address it
hahahah thought the exact same thing
I was thinking he would deny it but no he didn't lol.
how can you use twitter ? iam not old by any strech of imagination , but dosent it feel like a job? you always have to be online and look at the phone for every notification .
I dont use twitter, a friend showed it to me
@@Gramfel glad to hear it m8 :)
The Elon impersonation was phenomenal, nice video Ryan! Can’t wait to see where the channel goes this year.
He's really good at it, must have picked up a few things when he got elocution lessons.