The Marine Corps has long been recognized for its skill in combined arms warfare, integrating infantry, air, armor, artillery, and naval gunfire to put the enemy on the ‘horns of a delimma’ where all the choices are bad and every decision leads to defeat.
Before FD 2030 deactivated the Marine Corps tank battalions, the Marine Corps had more than 450 tanks. Now, just a few are left in the Maritime Preposition Force. When the Russians invaded Ukraine and soon lost so many of their tanks, many people said that proved tanks no longer had value. In the article linked below, author Thomas Mutch explains how recent events in Ukraine show the enduring value of tanks.
The Army, meanwhile, is moving ahead with the acquisition of its new light tank, the 38 ton Mobile Protected Firepower vehicle. In her article, Kelsey Atherton discusses, Everything to Know About the Army’s new 38-ton Light Tank.
https://www.popsci.com/technology/army-tank-mobile-protected-firepower/
Popular Mechanics (popularmechanics. com) October 17, 2022
How the Kharkiv Counteroffensive in Ukraine Proves Tanks Are Still Warfare Workhorses
So Much for the Death of the Tank
By Thomas Mutch
. . . Traditional military doctrine says that tanks are supposed to be supported by dismounted infantry, artillery support, and air cover if available. This is known as “combined arms warfare.” So, the Russian use of tanks is exceptional in this way, based on the Kremlin’s faulty intelligence about the Ukrainian will to fight. In Karabakh, the Armenians lacked the electronic warfare capabilities to disable Azerbaijani drones that many larger militaries take for granted, giving Azerbaijan almost total air superiority.
“People have claimed the tank is irrelevant for a very long time. Usually, the argument is frivolous,” Jack Watling, a senior research fellow for land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute, a British defense and security think tank, tells Popular Mechanics. “Tanks in terms of mobile protective firepower are still very relevant to operations. Tanks are being used in the Donbas usually, but with the threat of guided weapons, they are being used quite differently from normal. They are being used for long-range engagements, almost like precision artillery systems from about four kilometers.”
States looking to upgrade their firepower will still need an armored vehicle that can swiftly cover ground, protect its troops, and offer firepower of its own.
The irony in Ukraine is that many of the tanks being repurposed for the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive that started in September are those that have been captured and refitted on the battlefield . . . .
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a41623878/tanks-in-ukraine/
The hardest thing to getting a new thought in is to shitcan the old thought.
We have yet to learn the lessons of conventional warfare and apply them to the future, which is what Berger has done.
Tanks are obsolete, irrelevant and useless. Easily killed as Ukranians are demonstrating, men against tanks.
The last time they were used as they were designed was in WWII.
They are being used now b/c that is what is on the battlefield--Soviet era tank?!!!
Where is the tank being produced in large numbers in the US to replace the ones being given to the Ukranians?
Where is the demand?
What are the needs of the nation?
Do the needs of the nation require heavy, slow to transport, hunks of metal coffins?
What do we not understand about maneuver (no, I am not referring to movement) warfare applied to the 21st century?
USMC is spot on with strategic vision and operational execution.
Tally Ho. Sic em.