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Subject: The future of the LIGHT tank
Thomas    6/2/2003 4:54:53 AM
The MBT is the queen of the battle field - no doubt about it. But there are limitations.

As MBT gets lager, better armoured with bigger guns, there is an increasing part of the terrain they can't go to. Which to an extend defeats the purpose of the tank: Go anywhere, kill anything and in one piece afterwards.
There are two factors here weight and physical size. It makes it difficult to use tank in for instance heavily wooded terrain: Range is cut by trees, mines easy to hide, easily stopped by wood chopping.

Secondly the bigger tank the bigger the supply-problem: If the tanks themselves are not vulnerable, the trucks carrying the fuel and ammo are.

Thirdly: as the tank get bigger, they get more expensive all around: Purchase, training, and maintainence: You'll have fewer of them.

Fourthly: The bad guy's withdraw into cities, mountains and woods - as they have allways done. The answer to that appears to be more (light) infantry, but that to some extend means giving up the advantage of a balanced force.

Proposition:

Can we make a light tank with enough protection to stand off RPG and small arms and mines. With a smaller caliber gun, with shorter range to make automatic loading a viable choice, to reduce crew, to reduce size. I've always liked the british Scimitar/Saracen series for such scenarioes - maybe I'm wrong.

I would like to see the usual creative and informed comments - hope You will too.
 
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Horse Soldier    RE:The future of the LIGHT tank ... Shaka    6/4/2003 8:09:47 PM
Current doctrine for reconnaissance stresses that the only cav units that fight for information are the heavy cav units with M1/M3 mix. Humvee scouts who try to fight for info are generally advised to go ahead and stencil their names on their body bags to speed up recovery. Stryker cavalry is angled toward the recon end of the spectrum as well. They've got a bit more substance than humvee scouts, but they are supposed to go "soft" on the recon like the hummers. If called on to fight a counter-recon battle, I suppose the mix their dismounted Javelins with air and arty support, or hand off the battle to line companies to their rear. Airborne units have very limited ability to mount aggressive recon under current doctrine. The 82nd has a total of one ground cavalry troop, and it is, of course, hum-vee mounted. Light infantry battalion scout platoons are strictly see-don't-be-seen affairs. You've also got the divisional LRSD in the Intel battalion, but those guys, again, are ultra-light and fight only to break contact if compromised. That pretty much leaves the air cav troops in the current force mix for any sort of aggressive reconnaissance.
 
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bsl    RE:The future of the LIGHT tank ... Shaka    6/5/2003 7:39:33 PM
If we're going to be using a lot of light armor - actually, even if we're not - it seems to me the premium is to develop and deploy quantities of fire and forget anti-armor munitions. Also, indirect fire anti-armor munitions. There's a huge problem in having light armor have to sit, quietly, while someone steers a missile at a tank. It takes too long and allows the tankers, if they're alert, to target the missile launcher before the missile can strike home. OTOH, if you had missiles which you could ignore once they were away, your lightly armored launchers could be heading for alternate fire postions before the targets noticed the incoming fire. Better, still, you could have a few spotters lying along a ridgeline, while the launchers were on the reverse slope, where the launches couldn't be seen, at all. In this kind of situation, perhaps you could use light armor against heavy armor successfully. And, again, I think there is a real premium on longer ranged munitions. As long as you can engage outside your enemies' engagement envelope, the lack of heavy armor is a much less important consideration.
 
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Thomas    RE:The future of the LIGHT tank    6/10/2003 7:16:03 AM
I know that the Scorpion was issued to RAF-regiments in the 1980'ies. The original role of the light infantry defending the Air Bases was the possibility that the enemy "dropped in" unanounced by parachute. The light infantry was at that time mounted on lorries with roof mounted heavy mashine guns. Then WAPA began dropping their paratrooper with light armour. This seems to have divided: 1. The british equipped the RAF-regiments with light tanks. 2. In Denmark a local defence BTN (with tanks) was assigned - why they kept the airforce light infantry remains a mystery to me. It seem like the upgrade to scimitar was due to the fact, that they were surplus to army requirements.
 
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Thomas    RE:The future of the LIGHT tank ... Shaka   6/10/2003 7:22:03 AM
During the cold war the BDE on Sjælland used the Walker Bulldog for recon. The explanation I got, was it could swim the Suså (river), which a tank couldn't. It seem that in later years either the Leopard 1 learned to swim or that the requirement to swim wasn't really that essential, because the recon sqdn of todays combat group has Leo 1. What the task of the recon sqdn was remains a mystery too. There were (are) Home Guard groups all over the country with several independent signal systems to forward the desired information - but that is off subject.
 
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WinsettZ    RE:The future of the LIGHT tank   7/5/2003 5:45:40 PM
Sheridans or the AGS might be appropriate light tanks.
 
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Horse Soldier    RE:The future of the LIGHT tank   7/5/2003 9:52:47 PM
The Sheridan was long overdue for departure when they finally got rid of them, but I have to agree on the AGS. Not purchasing that thing was one of the dumber moves the army has made in the post-Cold War era.
 
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mattw    To track or not to track   8/29/2003 12:41:25 AM
A truly pertinent question. In total, I believe you want to know whether the U.S. can create an APC that is logistically friendly while simultaneousely capable of delivering firepower equal to current U.S. heavy divisions. Surely it can be done. The obstacles would be the people who claim that even one life is worth the armor. However,the logistical intricacies are somewhat more complicated. For example, if fewer tanks are sacrificed for more urban APCs, then perhaps the number of vulnerable Hummers and their consequential losses would be greater than the number of troops lost to ordnance only a tank could repel. Also, you speak of the British Scimitar as a light tank. I believe it is an APC with a 20mm cannon. Lastly, autoloaders reduce the crew which has maintenance consequences. That statement is for consideration. It was not a condemnation of autoloaders.
 
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oldbutnotwise    RE:To track or not to track   8/29/2003 2:07:22 AM
the Scimitar is a light tank not a apc, you may be confusing it with the warrior which is a bradley type of vehicle (althoug there is a a apc version of the Scimitar but it hasnt got the 20mm. As for urban warfare the brits have a vehicle that meets the requirements, the saxon, this was developed for use in northern ireland a very similar enviroment to that in bagdad at the moment(ie a few bad guys hidding in the general population taking the easy shots at the pbi's) in an urban enviroment you dont want high caliber weapons , in fact an arguement can be made for low caliber ones, big calibers 50 cals 20mm's etc dont hits targets they blow clean through and cary on to hit bits that are quite likely to be innocent bystanders or at least property (even 7.62mm have this tendency but to a lesser degree) so upgunning the urban apc to have these high caliber weapons is counter productive. if you want an example of this overkill read the acton report on some of the west bank urban actions by the IDF, cases of 50 cal rounds going through the intended target and killing innocents in the next street, big own goal by the IDF In these urban fights you need to take out your foes without hitting anything else, else you give them a big propergander victory that far outways the fact you just waxed thier asses. in short what you need for urban warfare is a armoured truck not a apc, however in a conventional open type war a amoured apc is a very handy thing, so a mix of forces is a good compromise heavy apc (bradley, bmp, warrior, marder) to front with mbt's backed up by support vehicles that can be used in urban settings (saxon, unturreted lav?) but I think the light tank is dead, the only role open to it is recon, and that is better done by lighty armoured vehicles like the landrover/hummers
 
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Heorot    RE:To track or not to track   8/29/2003 8:29:07 AM
?but I think the light tank is dead, the only role open to it is recon, and that is better done by lightly armoured vehicles like the landrover/hummers? The advantage of the Scimitar over landrover/hummers is marginal or non-existent in conditions like Iraq, where the ground is likely to be hard, but in say winter European/Korean conditions the Scimitar wins hands down because of its low ground pressure. An example happened in the Falklands where a scimitar drove up to a ridge and the commander jumped off to reconnoitre on foot. He found himself buried to the thighs. The scimitar was sitting quite happily on a bog. A landrover/hummer wouldn?t even have been able to get to that position. And to retreat on those surfaces, the scimitar can drive away at almost full speed.
 
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infantryrulez    RE:To track or not to track   8/29/2003 11:36:39 PM
I think a nice mix of Hummers, and M3 cavalry fighting vehicles(or M113's slightly updated) can do the job of the light tank rather well. of course a dedicated design such as the M8 AGS would be better, but i have a feeling light tanks just won't get any funding any time soon. also, wheeled fighting vehicles such as those the French make seem to be adequate for the light tank role also. just my opinion.
 
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Massive    RE:The future of the LIGHT tank   8/30/2003 2:46:18 AM
The Australian army did operate M113s with a scorpion turret as a medium reconnaisance vehicle (MRV) For a picture: link The scorpion turret was quite low profile and it appears that an M113 with an appropriately gunned low profile turret and applique armour to defeat RPGs and HMGs would fit the role of a light tank as described in other posts in this thread. The reultant vehicle would also be well under the 25 ton limit suggested below.
 
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WinsettZ    RE:The future of the LIGHT tank   8/30/2003 8:52:53 AM
These days I am unsure how likely one is to encounter HMG fire. Guerrillas stress mobility, so it's small-arms, RPG, run away. If a HMG has a bead on you, even if you're armored, if they're armor plate upgrades won't those crack off eventually under a rain of bullets? And if a vehicle is "HMG proof", aren't its windows still fair game? Well, for hummers anyhow. Very light recon should probably be protected against 7.62s and RPGs, light tanks, HMG, RPGs and possibly those "assault cannon" 20mm and 25mm. With a light tank, the Chobham armor is probably limited (heavy), and so is the American "DU encased in steel" armor. (heavier).
 
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Heorot    RE:The future of the LIGHT tank   8/30/2003 10:51:36 AM
Any know what happens when a DU projectile hits DU encased in steel armor?
 
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WinsettZ    RE:The future of the LIGHT tank   8/31/2003 8:43:34 AM
DU as in sabots? Those would probably punch or at least compromise the armor a great deal.
 
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oldbutnotwise    RE:To track or not to track   9/1/2003 1:43:19 AM
valid point, but does it need a 20mm+ cannon? for recon, they are not there to fight. maybe a 21st century version of the bren(universal) carrier of ww2 would be the ideal vehicle small tracked mg armed but with sufficient armour to make it survivable
 
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