>U.S. production of tanks has fallen to the lowest level in living memory. A grand total of 12 Abrams main battle tanks per year are coming out of the nation's last remaining tank plant in Lima, Ohio. Meanwhile, Russia plans to equip its forces in Europe with hundreds of next-generation tanks that look much more survivable than what U.S. soldiers have. >The U.S. Army thus faces a crisis in heavy armor as it races to catch up with Russia after being distracted for many years by the global war on terror. Although Congress is moving to increase spending on tanks, the modernization plan that the Trump administration has inherited from the Obama years would take nearly a quarter-century to upgrade the tanks in armored brigades to a more capable standard. >At that rate, war could break out long before modernized tanks reach most of the force. In fact, the failure of America and its NATO allies to replace their aging armored vehicles has become an invitation to aggression. Russia already enjoys a quantitative edge in regional armored forces. U.S. allies like Germany, France, and Italy each have less than 300 tanks in their active force. Russia has thousands. Moscow also would enjoy the tactical advantage of surprise in any westward thrust. >But now Russia is beginning to field a much better tank than the outdated vehicles operated by the U.S. Army and its allies. Dubbed Armata, the new tank will carry explosive reactive armor, active protection to intercept incoming antitank rounds, and a radar to enhance targeting of enemy forces. U.S. Army officials admit that Russia has reached "parity" with western armored capabilities, but as Armata is fielded it will pull ahead.
What good are tanks when we have advanced aircraft and now drones, and they get blown up by IEDs in the middle eastern shitholes? Serious question, because it could explain why the US Army doesn't seem to think tanks are worth the cost, time, and men.
They're not. The US is making aircraft that is ran by AI that is better than human pilots because they don't have to worry about being human and can thus fly better than a human . Forget modern tech, this is Shadowrunnet shit.
William Phillips
America's military strength comes from its air power. Correct me if I'm wrong though.
Anthony Thomas
Which is why in a war with a real power, it'd lose. It can't hold Continental Europe if no one there knows how to fight.
Angel Anderson
> Russia fielding much better tanks > They have like 12 prototypes > 1 of which broke down in the red square during the parade Lmao
Levi Russell
Bullshit, congress just forced thousands of tanks the army did not want or need into the budget 2 years ago.
In today's low impact combat tanks are nearly worthless and ridiculously expensive/complex to maintain anyways.
Stop acting like we're going to fight the red horde in the Fulda Gap.
Christopher Bennett
Ummm do you follow the news? For years congress refused to stop tank production even though the Pentagon pleaded with them saying they had more than enough.
Now any tank made is going to rust in storage.
Jason Russell
You guys realize the US has thousands of tanks, right?
And the reason Trump halted production is because it's a waste of money to make them
We have so many tanks it is more efficient to ship a new one out when one breaks down rather than to fix existing ones.
Ayden Gonzalez
This and our navy.
Kayden White
Pic related
Ayden Torres
>aircraft that is ran by ai the world we live in is not call of duty you fat cunt.
Camden Walker
tanks are not next level
I suppose you can get more out of them but air and space are the most effective weapons
Jordan Ortiz
>Spending millions on weapons they will never use
Brayden Martin
Wait what ? They have a extremely heavy budget and they have such a shitty military complex that even ours that has been almost completely dismantled by the past three presidents we had is almost just as good ?
Where the fuck is all this money spend on ?
Matthew James
Well it is a strange time. We are beyond programmed way points now. The planes can make some decisions on there on based on changing conditions.
Cameron Butler
>Meanwhile, Russia plans to equip its forces in Europe with hundreds of next-generation tanks
Literally autistic to waste money on tanks when future wars will be fought by either aircraft or missiles. I actually don't even believe your claims, Putin wouldn't be so stupid. If true, worst move Putin has ever made since 1999.
James Howard
>hurr durr you have no tanks >drop tungsten rods from fucking orbit The reason tanks are not being built is because they are pumping that funding into God knows what. Youre guess is as good as mine as to what but I wager it will be x1000 more destructive than a simple MBT
Carson Edwards
Congressmen pork barreling their districts
Levi Cooper
M1A2 SEPv3 is top tier. No crisis. MBTs in large numbers is a thing of the past.
Kayden Long
Tanks are literally useless with the proliferation of rocket and missile technology and the advancement of radar and target acquisition tech
More like built to keep the native population in check. Why do you think the greatest of America will waste money on irrelevant tech. Because civvies cant do shit to an Abrahams and a tank shell/7.62 is way cheaper than a hellfire missile.
Luke Jones
This is why you dont retire the A-10 warthog for christ sake
Jason Cruz
Yeah, I'd wager on this too. There are certainly a lot of black budget programs of who knows what and it/they will only be 'released' when the need arises.
Aaron Bell
>future wars will be fought by either aircraft or missiles meaning killing Taliban with drones? Ukraine has failed to do anything with aircraft, they use ground forces.
You can't occupy land with aircraft, and can't defend it.
William Rodriguez
You can drop napalm on it though
Lucas Lewis
If only these was a mobile armored weapon, somewhere between tanks and infantry.
Jace Turner
Yeah I can't find anything to back up fags I mean OPs claims, tho they do have a 'next gen' tank
And when you find a way to cheat the AI in some way the whole airforce becomes scrap metal.
Jose Smith
They aren't making many because we have more than we need already. The Only reason they're making any at all is to keep some jobs and thus expertise alive.
Tanks aren't even that useful anymore when all these fancy ATGMs exist.
Alexander Gomez
Why would you need any of that? You can't occupy places with something that destructive, and if you were going to use such a weapon it'd be a nuclear retaliation in any case.
Andrew Brown
Do you mean a light/support recon tank? Like the Bradley?
Or an Armored Personnel Carrier? Like the Strike?
Or a Light Armored High mobility vehicle? Like the HMV (HuMVee)?
Or something that can maneuver well, but has a lot of firepower? Like a Marine with a Missile Launcher?
Ayden Bennett
mongering from the defense industry.
Abrahms are fucking fine as long as we have air superiority which we do. It's laughable to think russian tanks are better than ours.
Aaron Wilson
This and how many thousands are already sitting in stockpiles rusting.
Charles Lopez
in the era of high power handheld anti tank launchers and tow apcs what is the role of the tank in modern warfare?
Sebastian Bailey
>tanks are obsolete ex dee
Asher Scott
Tanks don't win wars. Didn't the Germans have the way better tanks in WWII? Their Tiger/Panther/Panzers were way better than the Shermans.
You need alliances (man power), great intel (enigma code cracked), a great navy/air force. Planes will be worth more. Planes can attack ground units and air units. Tanks are limited to ground attacks and there are plenty of anti tank weapons with anti tank guided missiles, RPG-7 and RPG-29. If anything Light Armored Vehicles are way more mobile to provide a swift offensive attack.
Just having them may mean never having to use them.
Hudson Lopez
>not knowing the endgame Half of Earth will be burning within 30 years. Its overpopulated as fuck and the gents at the top of the food chain has already started influencing the next generation for war. The (((Holy))) War Tm. Shot is about to move from Brave New world into the Orwellian universe. We will live just long enough to see the end.
Jason Miller
Aren't tanks just target practice?
What kind of person would want to sit in a car with a giant target painted on it?
Ethan Davis
This is closest to the truth. There was a recent combat exercise between two highly advanced allies in which once electronic warfare began the exercise had to be stopped as two of the ships were in danger of colliding. I am interested in seeing if we go back to good old conventional bullets if electronic warfare starts progressing much further.
Kayden White
>having them >donating them all to israel
Asher Martinez
the US military spending is a joke
Its a big money laundering program whit no actual benefits, except from some weird prototypes that will never get used
Blake Jenkins
Age of tanks are well over.
Leo Jenkins
How exactly does electronic warfare work? I keep hearing about it but know next to nothing about it?
Fuck with radars? EMPs? Messes up targeting systems? What?
Kayden Wright
>Tanks don't win wars. Didn't the Germans have the way better tanks in WWII? Their Tiger/Panther/Panzers were way better than the Shermans.
"quantity has a quality all its own"
Aiden Phillips
>enigma code cracked the british were extremely lucky that the german navy was completely incompetent.
i mean, three u-boats meet up at a random island in the ocean, and then a few hours later a british warship shows up for no apparent reason? and our 130 iq aryan geniuses don't figure out what's going on?
Adam Wilson
>What kind of person would want to sit in a car with a giant target painted on it? A question all proponents of "light armored vehicles" should ask themselves.
Robert Torres
Tanks were used as a psychological weapon, as well as physical. During WWII, seeing a Tiger rumble towards you, when back home all you saw were POS tiny tin cars....demoralising as fuck. A fully crewed and working Tiger could break hundreds of soldiers morale, as the AT weapons of the day were pathetic.
Its 2017 nigger, A Javelin team can fuck up 99% of the current armor tech the world has. A ground with some cover, I'd bet on the Javelin guys before any russian 'supertank'.
The yanks have drones that can rain death from the skies, AT missiles that can calculate their own flight path, and hit targets at retarded ranges. Tanks are no longer the 'Shit your pants' machines they once were.
Current Military tech is on the drone, air, and sea theatres. Land based assaults are going to be done with fast, armored, troop carriers. Thats where the main advances will be, delivering a squad of soldiers safely to whatever area needs cleared.
Tanks....you fucking tool.
Jason Wright
Nice try agent Smith. We all know the they are tinkering with some very bad toys. If you told a guy in the 1940's what an atom bomb was he would laugh in your face as a sci fi nut. Well look what happened five years later. Technology has progressed more in the last fifty years than the previous thousand. I do not even want to know the shit that they have built by now.
Xavier Smith
>Because civvies cant do shit to an Abrahams and a tank shell
lol, that's what you think
David Morris
And our tanks still will BTFO all comers.
Lincoln James
>the new tank will carry explosive reactive armor It's nice to see that the russians still haven't figured out composite armor and have to rely on a technology that is decades old and we have already developed countermeasures for.
Isaiah Thompson
>Javelin >works against Afganit system
Pick one.
Henry Richardson
Yes they had better tanks, but were being outproduced by a vast margin.
Isaac Diaz
It's largely going to be for RPG rounds
Kevin Collins
Tanks are old news, metal gears are where its at. They probably have early model metal gears hidden somewhere. Lets see a tank take something like this down.
Jackson Howard
The future of war is Air, cyber and space power so it makes sense that slow bomb magnets are going away
Hudson Murphy
We have 3000 tanks mothballed in a parking lot. We have so many tanks, the military asked Congress to stop buying tanks
Brody Ortiz
this isnt the 1940's you nigger this is the current year, where the f-35 program is the biggest scam on the planet
most of the defense budget is used on maintenance and salaries for the 1 million soldiers and upkeep of the numerous military bases
Meanwhile Russia can compete whit the USA whit a far smaller budget
Sebastian Bell
this.
this whole article is bullshit. We have run out of room in many places to stick these tanks. It's like the article that came out a few years ago that the navy doesn't have enough ships. The budget is already hilariously over inflated. I would not be surprised if this was written and paid for by defense contractors
Zachary Sanchez
Ke are you gonna blast it with your patriotism? They will see your silly little head peaking around a corner from a mile off with their optics(infrared). Do yourself a favor and look at the tech a top of the line Abrahams has.
Fuckoff and die CIA
Jordan Long
I don't know about your troops, but ours get a special Panzerfaust 3 variant that detonates two warheads, one to make the RA go off early and the other to hit the actual armor; effectively all the RA does is make our AT weapons slightly heavier and more expensive at the cost that infantry can no longer operate close to their tanks as any hit on the RA will cause it to explode, killing anyone nearby.
Henry Howard
>south africa
if you are white, then you will get robbed, shot and cucked by niggers
if you are black then you will starve to death
Liam Kelly
They should just sell tanks to the public kek. >and then people start larping GTA
Aaron Foster
Dont you have a populace to experiment on? Shoo shoo spook boy youll get yours when you outlive your usefulness
Nolan Anderson
>Do yourself a favor and look at the tech a top of the line Abrahams has. >Abrahams I don't think you're in a position to tell anyone of the capabilities of something if you can't even get its name right.
Camden Sullivan
We just have run-of-the-mill at launchers namely carl gustav and m72
Josiah Hughes
>current M1 Abrams in service, 8,848 with another 1,200 tanks in storage The last batch of M1s was forced on the Army who didn't want them because they already had 1200 they weren't using. Congress forced it through anyway because "muh jerbs." The Russians have outright stated that the T14 Armata's primary role is infantry support and the majority of the Russian tank park remains older models that remain in service.
Nathaniel Allen
Spelling or not I know the machines capabilities. Do you?
John Watson
Tanks? Really? When I was last in Iraq, we were losing million dollar vehicles to $50 IEDs. I nearly burned to death in a Bradley thanks to a cheap EFP.
Cooper Carter
>generals and admirals, "we need more money" >didn't the defense department have $1.5 trillion it could account for last year? >MUH NATIONAL DEFENSE!
Owen Clark
air forces are support units
they don't function alone and they don't win wars
Nolan Howard
Yes, and anyone who would have bothered to search out for this kind of information would know better than make the basic CNN-tier "journalist" mistake of calling the M1 an "Abrahams" repeatedly. Such a thing is an immediate cue that shows that the person saying these things likely has no idea what they're talking about.
Gabriel Edwards
I was gunner of L9321U on in the Fulda Gap back in the day. Tanks are never going to be obsolete because land control is the name of the game. They're just going to keep evolving better and better defense systems.
Nicholas Jenkins
lol If we wanted/needed tanks it would be like flipping on a light switch. The industrial capacity and productivity of this country is unfathomable.
Jaxson Baker
>everyone acting like all there is to prepare for is total war
Luke Walker
Abrams is a nice toy, but only opponents you would need it against are the same ones who can turn your own cities into radioactive dust.
Lemme know when you have power armor and infantry rail-guns with computerized fire control
Austin Martin
Without air superiority your tanks are useless.
Ryan Foster
The whole USA navy will get outdated when small autonomous combat dinghies start rolling out
Camden Moore
That big spending is on feminism in the military and equality and diversity programs I shit you not That shit is happening to the ADF and talking to some buddies in the USN they said the same shit is going on there but on a grand scale
Michael Roberts
can you give some examples?
John Torres
Klimkin is unironically a kremlin agent.
Ayden Cooper
Maybe they'll make double RA:s on top of eachother.
Cooper Ramirez
And vice versa. Them Warthogs are pretty effective, add a few helicopters and you know the rest.
Jack Torres
>The whole USA navy will get outdated when small autonomous combat dinghies start rolling out
Intelligent nuclear torpedoes when?
Julian Hughes
yann.lecun.com/ Ask him, he would tell you otherwise.
Jace Phillips
>tanks >being relevant in today's war zones They are nothing more than a larger target. One man can take down a tank with a javelin or a drone
Benjamin Sullivan
This triggers my autism
Joseph Anderson
Specifically recruiting women, coloured and queer people Paying civilian lawyers to review everything we do , paying civilians to take studies and Coke up with statistics, creating new programs to encourage women to join, appointing lawyers to the illegal immigrants we detain and having the lawyers betray Australia to drag out the cases so they make more money I could go on all day Also this year was the first year in ADF history that we recruited more women than men
Levi Long
Warthog is useless; only kept alive by boomer congressmen autistic over "bbrrrrrt" gun sound it makes when it can't do anything against MBT armor past the 1970s and is vulnerable to modern AA systems (in a war with Iran those hogs are slaughtered, now imagine in a war with Russia with the best AA systems in world). The 30MM gun is overkill for insurgents in technicals and most of the kills claimed by the Warthog in the Gulf War were accomplished by its missiles and not it's oversized cannon. In the Gulf War the A10 wasn't even the aircraft with most ground kills (IIRC it was the coalition aircraft with most combat losses).
"B-b-but the morale effect!"
There are more effective ways to put money than wasting it on a outdated white elephant. For instance the Rover 5 "John Madden" hand-held electronic which for CAS allows ground soldiers to see what the pilot sees and direct munitions like John Madden. Congress also cannibalized on F16 upgrades for maintaining the A10 and feeding ghe F35
William Watson
>typical "gib money because muh ebil Russia' article What you need tanks fro anyway? It's not like you'll sell them much, or have borders with nations that could be threating you.
Jacob Gomez
Oh, wait, it's about stuffing someone's pockets, huh. Nevermind then.
