Tank battle in Europe? General Dynamics has a new challenger.

[mojaveman]

I still think one of the biggest mistakes we ever made was withdrawing all of our combat forces from Europe. Interesting to see that someone still realizes there could easily be another large scale conflict in Europe that would involve armored forces.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/09/03/tank-battle-in-europe-meet-general-dynamics-new-ch.aspx?source=isesitlnk00000018mrr=1.00

[MtnGoat]

I feeel the EU has enough Tanks to hold it until the American's come save the day. We have are share there too. Yes more would be nice, but I see more Conventional Warfares turning into Irregular. Something like what's going on inside Iraq. You have Tanks, Mechanized and Wheeled mixed into a Conventional Irregular Warfare/Battles.

As the US Army turns its head and eyes away from Irregular Warfares like COIN and look to Conventional Battle TTPs. I think they are losing the eye sight on what is really happening around the world. Heck look at how the DoD (Army) is getting rid of the Irregular Warfare Center.

[akv]

If only we had a few squadrons of tough proven tank busters in the AO...

[BryanK]

I hope they have better luck than these fellas :munchin

Pentagon Wars: The development of the Bradley fighting vehicle :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA

***The first couple minutes is enough to give you the jist***

[mark46th]

If we have more Hellfire Missiles than they have tanks, we should be OK...

[LarryW]

If only we had a few squadrons of tough proven tank busters in the AO...

Damn right !

[The Reaper]

We have are share there too.

No, unfortunately, we don't.

The last U.S. tanks were brought home from Europe a few years ago.

TR

[SF_BHT]

They brought them home then took a few battalions of M1s and Bradleys back to the big training area so troope can rotate in and use them to train. They are being maintained by contractors but there are not enough to be any good in a real soviet attack.

We need 2 or 3 divisions of gear pre-positioned to be of any advantage.

[Flagg]

I feeel the EU has enough Tanks to hold it until the American's come save the day. We have are share there too. Yes more would be nice, but I see more Conventional Warfares turning into Irregular. Something like what's going on inside Iraq. You have Tanks, Mechanized and Wheeled mixed into a Conventional Irregular Warfare/Battles.

As the US Army turns its head and eyes away from Irregular Warfares like COIN and look to Conventional Battle TTPs. I think they are losing the eye sight on what is really happening around the world. Heck look at how the DoD (Army) is getting rid of the Irregular Warfare Center.

Irregular is the new Regular. And always has been?

The current and future environment also seems like one where all those massive relic Cold War heavy weapons stockpiles finally get used in a bunch of Balkan-ish conflicts.

Irregular/Unconventional War with a seemingly endless supply of heavy weapons.

[Flagg]

Look at how the russians used behind the lines warfare during WWI is what he is talking about but even bigger scale. The next conventional war will probably not look like a conventional war because of new technology etc. The lins will be fluid and undefined. The 2003 invasion of Iraq is a good example. Supply columns were getting ambushed 100 km behind the lines etc.

I found this a while back over at SWJ Forum:

The phases of new-generation war can be schematized as (Tchekinov & Bogdanov,
2013, pp. 15-22):

First Phase: non-military asymmetric warfare (encompassing information, moral, psychological, ideological, diplomatic, and economic measures as part of a plan to establish a favorable political, economic, and military setup).

Second Phase: special operations to mislead political and military leaders by coordinated measures carried out by diplomatic channels, media, and top government and military agencies y leaking false data, orders, directives, and instructions.

Third Phase: intimidation, deceiving, and bribing government and military officers, with the objective of making them abandon their service duties.

Fourth Phase: destabilizing propaganda to increase discontent among the population, boosted by the arrival of Russian bands of militants, escalating subversion.

Fifth Phase: establishment of no-fly zones over the country to be attacked, imposition of blockades, and extensive use of private military companies in close cooperation with armed opposition units.

Sixth Phase: commencement of military action, immediately preceded by large-scale reconnaissance and subversive missions. All types, forms, methods, and forces, including special operations forces, space, radio, radio engineering, electronic, diplomatic, and secret service intelligence, and industrial espionage.

Seventh Phase: combination of targeted information operation, electronic warfare operation, aerospace operation, continuous airforce harassment, combined with the use of high precision weapons launched from various platforms (long-range artillery, and weapons based on new physical principles, including microwaves, radiation, non-lethal biological weapons).

Eighth Phase: roll over the remaining points of resistance and destroy surviving enemy units by special operations conducted by reconnaissance units to spot which enemy units have survived and transmit their coordinates to the attacker's missile and artillery units; fire barrages to annihilate the defender's resisting army units by effective advanced weapons; airdrop
operations to surround points of resistance; and territory mopping-up operations by
ground troops.

I wonder how much thought the Russians put into their UW doctrine to come up with 8 phases in order to have 1 more Phase than the US manual. :)

I get the sense Russia under the SU and now under the thumb of Putin possess greater interoperability between and amongst political/military/economic warfighting centres of gravity to conduct irregular/unconventional warfare operations as well as greater latitude and unity of command.

At least compared to US systemic and legal limitations, as well as potential political leadership shortcomings.

I almost wonder if a new term could be used to describe this form of warfare(at least in the case of Crimea/Ukraine) as "subconventional".

Probably silly and redundant, but to my amateur eye what I'm perceiving are conflicts that are "less than declared war" but possess distinct and significant conventional combined arms operations within a largely unconventional warfare environment.

I may be reading it wrong, but I've often thought that the popular(if inaccurate) perception is that UW/FID supports Conventional Combined Arms and SASO operations, instead of the other way around.

To me, it looks like in the case of Crimea/Ukraine it's Conventional Combined Arms and SASO operations that appear to be supporting a strategic UW campaign.

IF it's effectively a flip-flop of common/popular perception(even within the community employed in uniform), does that justify being distinguished?

[The Reaper]

Well, see they left out the fund-rasing and the playing golf stages.

And we left out the victory stage.

TR

[Flagg]

Not always the case. In fact do not think of them as separate but one and the same.

Here is what I mean. Sometimes it is appropriate to use tanks other times it is better to use just dismounted infantry. Same with tactics. At times line up and take ground and sometimes it is better to use hit and run "UW" type tactics. This is how the Russians look at it as an integrated warfare.

US commanders do not get it. They look at them as separate and UW as unfair, dirty tricks etc. Our operations in El Salvador in the 80's would not have worked by sending in Tanks etc but then again the first golf war would not have worked using UW tactics only.

While in an insurgency the book says the final phase is open conventional warfare that is not always the case. In fact how many coups have occurred all over the world by just assassination or taking the palace etc.

Western Europe and the US in particular is really behind when it comes to UW, when to use them, how to use them etc etc. While many people look at Russia as a European nation in reality many of their thinking process are Asian in nature.

I am over simplifying this because of the constraints of a forum, but hopefully I am articulating my point.

I think I get it.

The way I see typical Western perception of warfare(including many in uniform) is that there are clear delineations between warfighting environments/doctrines, ie conventional OR unconventional, rather than all environments/doctrines being holistic and designed from scratch to work in harmony.

Maybe like a corporation(Big Army) that acquires a new startup business(SF) that independently extends, complements, and overlaps existing corporate capability. But poor human behavior, poorly executed integration of corporate synergy, etc prevents optimal performance/profitability?

Although it should be mentioned the combined arms/service interoperability and advanced capabilities as displayed for the world to see since Desert Storm is incredibly impressive, I just don't see the US/West working at the same level as say the SU during Vietnam where it seemed like the SU were using a total war(albeit warm/kinetic by proxy) doctrine against the US as exemplified by it's comprehensive full spectrum political warfare implemented in the form of funding protest groups to attack the US on the homefront in Vietnam as well as Western Europe protest groups to attempt to defeat NATO capability development.

Desert Storm in open source looks like it was a battle for SF to literally fight just to get IN the fight.

The SU and now Russia appear to be more unified/aligned/holistic in their integration of UW into their warfighting doctrine(at least in the cold and warm proxy sense).

El Salvador is one conflict(based on the open source info I have) success that I think is incredibly relevant(in retrospect) and a possible missed opportunity for using as a case study of how conflict in the last 13 years might have been better executed.

With the vast majority of conflicts in our lifetimes having been irregular rather than conventional, what I would like to know is what % of those irregular conflicts had a "heavy metal" conventional combined arms component?

Is that %/proportion low, medium, or high?

IF "heavy metal" conventional combined arms operations use in irregular warfare is an anomaly, and a more recent and growing anomaly, is that relevant(and if so how) and how is doctrine adapted to defeat it?

I can't help but think about the broad and deep stockpiles of SU Cold War era "heavy metal" that while obsolete in a 21st century conventional conflict against a peer or near peer, worked/work perfectly well in former Yugoslavia, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, etc irregular wars.

Can 100 obsolete partially functional "rebel" T64s pulled out of a retired/reserve depot beat 100 full functional bleeding edge M1A2s that are neither in theatre nor backed by the political fortitude and holistic operational doctrine to leverage them?

Is it a bit like the question of if a tree falls in the forest when no one is around, does it make a noise?

If obsolete relics manned by deniable privateers seize influence/control when no M1A2s/Leopard 2A6s are around, can it be stopped?

Besides good guy guerillas trained on ATGMs of course. :)

But that could be a necessary reactive response instead of a possibly more effective and less costly proactive deterrent.