As Obsolete As Infantry

Chant Du Depart is having a tank obsolescence debate.

But as an armchair armor historian and former 19K...

How many times has the tank been declared obsolete?

Airplanes made them obsolete during WW2.

HEAT rounds made them obsolete.

ATGM made them obsolete.

Fuel consumption made them obsolete.

Inability to cross bridges made them obsolete.

Inability to be quickly transported to the battlefield made them obsolete.

And now drones have made them obsolete.

Oh and nuclear warfare made all other kinds of war obsolete, taking tanks with them.

Every time the tank goes obsolete, we get the end of horse cavalry trotted out as an example.  And they bring up Poland v Nazi Germany every-single-time.  That was a unique case and it really doesn't illustrate what they think it does.

Horse cavalry persisted for decades after WW2.  It lasted until light vehicles became reliable enough to supplant them and was finally replaced when the logistics support got good enough to support vehicles that far forward.

It is of note that while the US Armor Branch harkens back to Cavalry, they never really were cavalry.  Jokes to the contrary aside.  ie "Death before dismount!"

Armor does serve the same role as heavy cavalry did, as a shocking force, but it's got other roles too.

A tank is a wonderful mobile machine gun post in support of infantry that can engage with that machine gun without the distraction of being killed by small-arms fire or shell splinters.

To be obsolete, you need to have been replaced.

Almost all of the claims of obsolescence come from it being more dangerous to be a tanker than it had been.

Is war.  Is dangerous.

Every time someone has come up with a clever new way to kill tanks, it's not that long before a clever way of negating or, at least, mitigating that threat appears.

Drones are commonly mentioned and the Ukraine v Russia war cited.

Like horse cavalry and Poland v Germany wasn't representative of cavalry, drones in Ukraine v Russia isn't representative of tank warfare.

Neither side is using their tanks like we would.

Lots of evidence of a lack of combined arms from over there and it's really surprising to me because I was led to believe the Russians knew about it and used it.  I guess that was just the USSR...

We'd be doing this war differently.  First off, we'd not be hamstrung by the inability to do deep penetration strikes into Russia.  There wouldn't be a functioning rail network by the end of the first week and without that Russia's log-train collapses.  Our air force isn't Ukraine's.

Our tank doctrine is not theirs either.  We emphasize mutual support and combined arms.  We coordinate and communicate better, and we own our own over-the-horizon comms.

Anti-drone weapons, both electronic and kinetic, are coming if they haven't already started being fielded.  The near boredom exhibited by Armor officers when replying to queries about drones makes me think we've got a solution to the drone problem we're actually keeping secret for a change.

It is especially obvious reading these threads that my decision to no longer offer one commenter a soapbox to sound smarter than they are was wise.

I'm far more concerned that the helicopter has become useless in war than the tank.