Anti-tank lessons from Ukraine

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It appears that drone teams greatly complemented ATGM teams and Panzerfaust/Bazooka/RPG style short range weapons in anti-tank missions in the Russo-Ukrainian War. Anti-tank mines proved essential to prevent breakthroughs through well-fortified sections of the frontline.

Military history showed that heavy weapons (anti-tank guns, assault guns, tank destroyers, tanks) destroyed by far the most tanks. Even millions of Panzerfausts didn't change that outside of the urban battlefield of Berlin. ATGMs and MBTs were expected to be the big tank killers during the Cold War and justified this expectations in 1967, 1973 and 1991. The small infantry weapons such as Panzerfaust/Bazooka/RPG were rather repelling weapons that served to keep tanks at a distance and that kept tanks from moving through closed terrain (forestry roads, streets).

Videos from Ukraine showed that sometimes tanks and IFVs fight against infantry at incredibly short distances such as 50 m. Maybe the enemies were known to be poorly equipped, but the commonly deployed poor prenetration or poor effect man-portbale anti-tank wepaons may explain this as well.

Most tank killing is done by multi-kilometre anti-tank systems such as ATGMs and FPV drones, as was to be expected. Hardly any MBT vs. MBT fights were documented, they appear to be exceedingly rare at least since the fronts became fortified. This may be different in a more mobile phase.

FPV drones have vastly more opportunities to engage enemy tanks than the in-service milspec ATGMs and tanks because they don't rely on a line of sight between user and target. We had this approach with rocket or turbojet motor missiles decades ago (EFOGM, Polyphem), few such missiles were introduced and instead the imaging infrared seeker missile approach (Javelin, Spike etc.) became the fashion that achieved the big sales.

My longtime insistence that we shouldn't trust even the best ATGMs because they're too easy to counter was rebuffed by Russians not having fielded ANY improvements over 1980's Red Army tank protections. They even lack simple things such as digital camera-based missile approach sensors and red phosphoroues (shorttime opaque in infrared spectrum) smoke munitions. In short; the Ukrianians are lucky that the Russians are so stupid.

Attack helicopters played almost no role whatsoever against tanks in this conflict.

 

This greatly questions the whole (very expensive) approach of NATO's anti-tank efforts.

We could make do with fibreoptic and thermal camera-guided FPV drones. Simply use these sub-1,000€ drones to saturate whatever defences exist against them, then engage any tank in 5-10 km radius. Such drones can safely touch down and lie in ambush for a while without losing radio commlink or requiring an airborne radio repeater. An approaching tank company could be faced by a hundred fibreoptic thermal cmaera FPV drones lying in wait at its route, having arrived there just in time.

What anti-tank weaponry does the infantry still need? Whatever portable anti-tank equipment they could have would be heavy or of little use.

It may be that the section or platoon leaders' radios deserve to be not just the main but even the only anti-tank capability in infantry platoons. So that radio link needs to be reliable and not cut by emissions control orders.

This frees up weight carried by the infantry. This in turn can be used either to lighten the burden and/or to increase the firepower against "soft" targets (which includes buildings, by the way). The ability to blast open a door (maybe even create a wall hole to crawl through) at 30 m or to badly injure an enemy in a 100 m distant room with closed window is still very desirable. Greater ranges are of little relevance and no necessity IMO.

This opinion is an advance on my previous opinion that the infantry should only carry anti-BMP weapons rather than anti-MBT weapons most of the time and be issued anti-MBT weapons rarely. The German army disbanded the anti-tank branch and left the use of ATGMs to infantry (and Panzergrenadiere, often nto be considered to be infantry).

It appears that a return of the anti-tank branches is superfluous. We should probably build up a PGM branch for up to battalion level instead.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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