(The action starts at 0:36 min. The huge explosion likely stems from a side penetration by the SACLOS ATGM that reached the front hull munitions storage. A mere 15 quick-to-use rounds can be stored in the safer turret bustle)
The (old) German tanking field manuals that I read strongly implied that the threat (felt like 90% of the threat) was a MBT (T-64, T-72, T-80, but also T-62 and even T-55 well into the 80's). One example; the field manual advised to avoid the middle of a large open field and to instead drive along the edge of woodland. Such a movement is a horrible idea if you fear RPGs, but it's the thing to do if you fear hostile MBTs and ATGMs. Tactics were built on the often only implied assumption that the long-ranged MBTs and ATGMs rather than short-ranged RPGs were the main threat.
The Leopard 2 was devised as a well-rounded duel vehicle to combat tanks. It had great mobility on Central European terrain, great penetration power, and great (though of course not perfect) protection in the frontal 60°. Its reverse gears allowed for quick evacuation of firing positions in a delaying action and its gun depression allowed the exploitation of hull down firing positions in the many rolling hills areas of Central and Southern West Germany. Damaged or broken down tanks were relatively quickly repaired, but the tank was designed to not break down very often anyway. The tank commander had an excellent all-round vision (without head protection), as there wasn't much equipment installed on the rather flat roof. Gunners, drivers and loaders could be 18-month conscripts.
The tank was designed with the defence of Central Europe in mind, with an emphasis on blunting the numerically superior armoured spearheads of the Warsaw Pact. The delaying action against superior numbers was considered to be a very important tactic for attrition of the hostile tank force.
The tank was designed with the defence of Central Europe in mind, with an emphasis on blunting the numerically superior armoured spearheads of the Warsaw Pact. The delaying action against superior numbers was considered to be a very important tactic for attrition of the hostile tank force.
People don't usually seem to be aware of it, but the Cold War Soviet forces and indeed even the late WW2 Soviet forces were rather weak on infantry quantity in the combined arms mix (the Red Army suffered horrible loses in 1941-1945, and was rather bled white by 1945 as was the whole nation till the 60's). That's where the emphasis on artillery and tanks came from. So if you assume a tank- and arty-centric opposition, you expect few infantry forces with RPGs in suitable firing positions. Additionally, the West knew that RPG-2 and RPG-7 were inaccurate (terribly so in crosswind) when it developed the first Chobham tank generation including the Leopard 2. A 30 kph moving tank was at little risk of getting hit by a RPG gunner in a stressful combat situation at 100 m distance.
Now fast forward to the 2000's and 2010's and Chobham generation MBT users find themselves clobbering brown Muslim war bands that are almost devoid of heavy arms and have few ATGMs. MBTs are mostly employed in stationary overwatch missions, or as assault guns. Those wars last years, not months - and troops cannot maintain vigilance indefinitely.
It's as if the Americans hadn't shown that such campaigns are stupid and unproductive. Other powers did the same stupid and unproductive shit in 2015-2019 with no end or gain in sight.
It's as if the Americans hadn't shown that such campaigns are stupid and unproductive. Other powers did the same stupid and unproductive shit in 2015-2019 with no end or gain in sight.
Many of the assumptions of the Leopard 2 design don't apply in such a scenario, and thus the design is suddenly not well-rounded, but rather a mismatch to the mission. Some users rush upgrade kits into service, which adds costs, maintenance demands and mass, and reduces soft soil mobility (which may be decisive on Baltic terrains) and readiness rates.
S O
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"with no end or gain in sight", well it looks like that is coming to a head. Rather than just 'joining the effort', "paying the blood price" (Tony Blair quote) there is going to have to be a set direction. It would seem there is a disagreement on what that direction is.
ReplyDeleteUS, Turkey, France and Germany. Seems like Germany is going to screw PESCO, France, the EU and cuck to Trump. The hope is that France has the resolve to go it alone again, though they are far weaker now than they were under de Gaulle.
Funny to watch the yank wonks running around with their hair on fire. "They're being divisive. They're dividing the alliance." So in other terms, "Why don't they just shut up and follow this twat who is sitting in the white house like good little career minded cowards like we do?"
I don't know whats going to happen.
Leopard 2? I think it looks best in purple/orange camo. Adds to the mystique.
In short: the tank is good against a "legitimate" enemy but bad when it is in the hands of a friend on the wrong side of the fence.
ReplyDeleteVery moral story.
No need to develop except this: you have to choose your "friends" carefully.
Other aspects of the issue.
1-Tactic ensuring maximum safety for a tank: fight at 60 km/h. Use the ground protections. No stopping in open ground.
Very difficult when the tank is used to frighten civilians in poor villages.
Ankara's satrape is therefore a bad tactician (!) and thus a not very recommendable friend.
Very moral story.
2-What a great firework display when the shells in turret explodes.
3- How many tanks exploded between Afrin and Azaz, often by YPJ women, as in the video. I counted 14 without any guarantee of accuracy.
Tanks get lost in combat, which is in reality not very suprising, designed for some combat situations or not. Losses in real warfare are inevitable. The main question to quantify this should be how many enemy missiles are needed to destroy one tank and this ratio shows clearly, that even in the turkish case in which poor tactics are used and the overall fighting quality is not realy well many many shots are used to destroy only one tank.
ReplyDeleteThe same was in the Libanon war in which the israeli tank losses were ridicolous low in comparison to the amount of anti tank missiles fired at them.
Moreover the turks do not send the newest version of the leopard 2 as this version is no available to them. The older turkish leopard 2 versions are simply not up to date.
Also Hard Kill Systems today beat weapons like rpg easily, even the most elaborated ones. Equip the same older leopard 2 models with modern hardkill and none of this hits would have been succesful. Also such an hardkillsystem does not add to much to the mass and therefore the reduced overall terrain mobility does not suffer much from it.
As hardkillsystems getting better and better the things are changing again into an far future scenario in which classical infantry anti tank weapons will become near to useless and complete new concepts must be introduced.
Hard kill APS won't help much if the tank is used in stationary overwatch for weeks. You won't be able to run such a system for hundreds of hours, at least not without an unacceptable quantity of false alarms.
DeleteThe Turkish tanks won't be there just for weeks - they may total months in such overwatch positions over the next two years or so.
It's about the same problem as with the CIWS on warships. They seem to be almost never activated when a missile is incoming for real.
"The same was in the Libanon war in which the israeli tank losses were ridicolous low in comparison to the amount of anti tank missiles fired at them."
DeleteThe Jews lost more than enough tanks to repel their ground assault.
There were plenty hits and penetrations and the IDF (and Israeli press) was very dissatisfied with the armour corps' performance. Most problems were of non-technical nature, though.
DeleteAbout half of the ATGM hits were penetrating in 2006.
The quantity of ATGMs used in Lebanon 2006 was skewed by their use of ATGMs against infantry (especially when infantry was in isolated buildings).
As the israelis clearly show it is easily possible to run such a system for hundreds of hours and even for weeks as Merkava Tanks have showed several times and it works and protected the merkava well. But i can absolutley agree with you that it will not work for months if a tank stays stationary for such a long time.
ReplyDeleteBut this is only a question of tactics. To use tanks in overwatch positions for months failed for the soviets in affghanistan, as it fails now for the turks or for anyone else who would try such an stupid thing.
No weapon system will work if it is used in an extreme wrong way and wronger it cannot be to use an tank in such way.
As turkish tanks losses increase in syria the turks now want to equip their tanks also with hardkill systems:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xwz9PNeTwMM
The isreali systems shows cleary the superior protection through such systems even if the tanks stays stationary for a "longer" period of time. But the turkish system is not really combat ready and only the level israel had even 8 years before today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2VOwPydPn4
For your claim that such systems has a high quantity of false alarms: i do not know any source for such an claim. The rate of false alarms in the newest israeli generation is to the opposite near to zero. The additional maintaince and the costs are a question if used over months, but not false alarms as far as i am informed through israeli sources.
Zero false alarms were already standard in 2014 and since the such systems has become even better:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.defensenews.com/land/2016/01/28/israel-to-equip-troop-carriers-with-trophy-aps/
The main problem with staying months at the same position is that the enemy can then move several anti tank weapons into the area and can coordiante their fire to the point that the aps is satiated. But the standard syrian militia / terrorits etc cannot use such elaborated tactis or have not showed them until now.
The problem is not the tank it is the soldiers. No tank survives a side hit like that. APS cannot be kept on. In a hot war it will give off signals that EW systems will pin point, earning you cluster MLRS.
ReplyDeleteI can tell you this problem goes all the way to even SOF units. My estimation is 60-70% of the population does not possess the initiative for warfare. Most guys even NCOs and Officers just wait for orders and have zero initiative. Institutionally this is reinforced by on one end saying soldiers are allowed to make decisions in field yet are punished when things go awry. You cannot punish soldiers like that if you want any sort of effective military. More often it is the guys you have trouble keeping on a leash not in the case of undisciplined but "idea fairies that keep pointing out flaws" that are the most effective "Actual" soldiers rather than just bodies on a roster.
What I see are Turkish soldiers who know better but follow through with stupid tactics because that is what their NCOs and Officers tell them to do. Egos are fragile. These leaders do not want to be replaced by more competent upstarts. It is my opinion that this sort of negligence should be punished from a severity ranging from the death penalty to permanent demotion to ranks holding no leadership roles after an investigation. Ideally no one should want a leadership role but it should fall on the most competent, semi-reluctant, those with the instinct. But that of course only happens in the perfect world.
So far the bigger Nato states have been getting away with bad leadership in the field for a long time because of the incredible competence and technical abilities of EW and military intelligence. You take that away and you will see things like what happened to these Turks on the regular. That is why China is developing "Systems Destruction Warfare".
If the sole purpose is to have a gun, a 106mm or 120mm recoilless rifle will do the job a heck of a lot cheaper than a tank. If all that's needed is a pillbox, then concrete and rebar are, again, cheaper than a tank. But if that pillbox absolutely has to be a tank (because . . . thermal sights? esprit de corps? élan? panache?), then (after bringing up a dozer to dig a hull down position) why not build a fence around it? It wouldn't be that hard to put up and take down a fence-variation-on-slat-armour as these mis-employed tanks move around (whether Turkish Leopard 2s, or Saudi M1s in Yemen). Each battalion could get its dedicated "fence building" platoon (and a dozer). It wouldn't change the fact that the tactics are terrible and the resource expenses are terrible (how much diesel is wasted in those pillboxes?!), but at least they'd be marginally less terrible.
ReplyDelete@Unknown:
ReplyDeleteThe radar scanner of the trophy system which detects the incoming threat is in reality an aesa radar type with an limited range. Neither it is so easily spotted by EW nor is it possible so easy as you suggest here to pin point it for distance fire.
Moreover such dedicated ECM / ECCM technology is not available for syrian militia and the threat discussed here (guerilla / Partisan warfare in an war of occupation for months and years). Of cause your argument is valid for other kinds of war (peer warfare between major powers) but in such warfare an tank would not sit down in an overwatch position for weeks anyway !
For the rest of your argument, that the soldiers matters more and that the problem is a question of command and not of technology i can completly agree with you. Especially about the overall attitude and military culture of most soldiers which hinders them to take forcefully the initiative.
You are right. Only great power states have the EW capabilities to detect those kind of radars which is true. Fireweaver but most likely "Titan" are the precursors to the fusion between SIGINT and Fires Allocation/Cell which will make these kind of things I alluded to possible. It honestly depends how hot the war gets. If world war 3 happens volume of fire will be intense to make up for potential inaccuracy. For example if overhead got knocked out, you need ground EW teams to paint a deep picture into the enemy interior, and any suspicious cluster of signals activity whenever or not it is a decoy or not should at least deserve a degree of harassment given plentiful munitions. Unlike the complicated deconfliction that characterizes COIN/Colonial/ or low intensity warfare munitions will be expended liberally and in quantity to make up for the dud rate for which is actually already pretty high in the Syria theater.
ReplyDeleteI would also like to say that in a peer conflict troops will not sit in one place in an overwatch position for weeks. More likely it will be days. What it is really going to boil down to is survival of the fittest. Only those lucky enough, smart enough, or fast enough will survive leaving a force that is not as nearly easy to pick apart as what we have now.
The problem I see employing tank, or whatever, using a wrong tactics is that the military en general became used to them.
ReplyDeleteThat even in situations where are not only wrong but dangerous like a peer war, where a tank in overwatch would last the time the artillery takes in sending to it half a dozen shells.
JM