Beyond Tanks To Tank Destroyers and Anti-Personnel Fighting Vehicles

Tank Destroyers Are Better At A Tank's Primary Missions Than Tanks

The main offensive role of a main battle tank is to engage other tanks and hardened targets. The problem with this is that main battle tanks aren't particularly good at this mission.

It has been clear for a long time that no amount of passive armor is sufficient to prevent a tank from being incapacitated by another tank's anti-tank round, by a solid hit from an artillery shell, or an anti-tank missile fired by an infantry soldier, by a "tank destroyer", by a helicopter, by a close air support fixed wing aircraft, or by a drone. Tanks can also be incapacitated by land mines such as "improvised explosive devices" (IEDs), or close up attacks on vulnerable systems by infantry with armor piercing heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, recoilless rifles (a.k.a. bazookas), or by setting fire to flammable materials carried outside the tank's armor.

The trouble is that a tank's main gun, while its direct fire shells can destroy another tank if it hits, has a range shorter than an anti-tank missile or artillery round. It has no stealth capacity whatsoever either. So, tanks are vulnerable to being destroyed by enemy fire before their opponent is within range of its main gun.

Unsurprisingly, in almost every armed conflict since at least the 1991 Gulf War, most tanks incapacitated in battle have been taken down by something other than another tank. 

In the 1991 Gulf War, perhaps a quarter of all incapacitated tanks were taken down by other tanks. A roughly equal number of tanks were incapacitated by Bradley M2 Infantry Fighting Vehicles with anti-tank missiles, with the balance destroyed by dismounted infantry with anti-tank weapons, by helicopter gunships, and by fixed wing aircraft like the A-10 Warthog.

In the current Ukraine War in which Russia has lost more than half of the tanks it started with, and Ukraine has also lost many of its tanks, probably far less than 10% of all tanks incapacitated were taken down by other tanks. There have been some isolated instances of tank v. tank duels, but they have been notable exceptions rather than the rule.

At a minimum, due to the fact that an anti-tank missile has a greater range than a round from a tank's main gun, an armored vehicle armed with anti-tank missiles, which is called a "tank destroyer", usually has the advantage over a tank, even though a tank destroyer is typically smaller, less heavily armored, and less expensive than a main battle tank. Similarly, an anti-tank missile can generally destroy any hardened target that a shell from a tank's main gun can destroy.

But, a tank destroyer is typically much lighter and less expensive than a tank because missile launching systems are much lighter than tank turrets and related tank shell delivery systems. Rather than being heavily armored, it relies upon firing its missiles from outside the range of the tanks it is striking.

Admittedly, anti-tank missiles are much more expensive than tank shells (perhaps $30,000 v. $1,500 each), mostly because of the cost of their guidance systems, which in turn, is mostly due to the intellectual property compensation that goes into that cost that will go away when the soon to expire patents on the guidance system technologies expires. But guided missiles are typically one shot or at most two shots, for each kill, and in war there is an immense premium in terms of the value of a system for one that is the best solution.

One could also create a less expensive set of missiles similar to anti-tank missiles with a less sophisticated guidance system for use against non-moving hardened targets to reduce the cost disparity in those circumstances between tank shells and missiles.

Generally speaking, anti-tank missile systems also have far lower fixed costs than tanks do, which makes up for the higher cost of the missiles themselves unless a very large large number of them are fired in anger against adversaries in actual wars.

The concept of a "tank destroyer" can also be generalized to missile tanks optimized instead for air defense roles, for anti-surface ship roles, or for longer than artillery range, non-line of sight guided missiles like those used by the HIMARS multiple rocket launcher system.

A pure "tank destroyer" or "missile tank" (with wheels rather than tracks for the reasons discussed below) should be possible to deliver to the battlefield with a C-130 transport aircraft.

It wouldn't be hard to keep a missile tank using the JTLV as a foundation which runs about 12 tons unmodified, under the 19 ton weight limit to allow it to be transported by a C-130. And, a JTLV still has significant armor protection that is adequate against ordinary small arms rounds and shrapnel from artillery that is not a direct hit.

A JTLV with Short Range Air Defense Missiles.

Another decent fit to the wheeled missile tank concept is the U.S. Army's Stryker SHORAD platform, equipped with four Stinger and two AGM-114L Longbow Hellfire missiles, a 30 mm M230 chain gun, a 7.62 M240 machine gun, and a 360-degree search radar system. The first vehicles were delivered in 2021, and a total of 144 vehicles will be deployed by 2025. 

The anti-tank guided missile Stryker variant also fits the wheeled missile tank concept.

Anti-Personnel Fighting Vehicles

 

Other problems with tanks in modern warfare were discovered in the Soviet–Afghan War and subsequent Soviet and Russian Federation military engagements:

Combat experience during the lengthy [Soviet-Afghan] war revealed that infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) . . . cannot fully deal with infantry, despite [their] high gun elevation. Although main battle tanks (MBTs) possessed a high amount of firepower, the limited elevation and depression angles of the main gun made them easy targets in mountainous and urban terrain. . . . It was evident that a new vehicle concept was needed. The main requirements for this new machine were to possess large firepower, high angles of elevation and depression, and a protection equivalent to that of an MBT. An additional requirement that was meant to supplement the latter was enhanced protection from close-range hand-held RPGs.

The need for such a vehicle became even more evident during the First Chechen War. When using conventional armor during urban engagements, Russian forces suffered heavy losses in manpower and equipment, including the destruction of an entire mechanized brigade during the first battle of Grozny. While these losses cannot be entirely blamed on technology, it became clear that a dedicated anti-personnel fighting vehicle would provide valuable assistance in an urban environment. Self-propelled anti-aircraft guns were used as a temporary solution in Chechnya. However, these vehicles weren't well-armored and didn't possess the obstacle-clearing capabilities of an MBT.

The U.S. shared these concerns and didn't use its heavy M1 Abrams main battle tanks in mountainous Kosovo, and found its MBTs to be less than optimal in the urban warfare of the Iraq War. The U.S. also learned in Vietnam that tanks are ill suited to jungle warfare.

But, while a tank is not particular good at incapacitating other tanks and armored vehicles compared to almost all of the other alternatives, something quite like a tank can be very effective against infantry units. 

No amount of armor that it is feasible to put on a tank can prevent the tank from being incapacitated by an anti-armor tank round or an anti-tank missile or a direct hit from an artillery shell. But, the armor on a tank makes it virtually invulnerable to military grade small arms up to heavy machine guns usually used by infantry.

The Russian variant on the tank concept to fill the anti-personnel niche, especially in urban and mountainous terrain where main battle tanks are less effective was the following 53 short ton vehicle with crew of five:

The BMPT "Terminator" (Tank Support Fighting Vehicle) . . . an armored fighting vehicle (AFV), designed . . . for supporting tanks and other AFVs in urban areas. The BMPT is unofficially named the "Terminator" by the manufacturers. It is heavily armed and armored to survive in urban combat. The AFV is armed with four 9M120 Ataka missile launchers, two 30 mm 2A42 autocannons, two AG-17D grenade launchers, and one coaxial 7.62 mm PKTM machine gun. The BMPT is built on the chassis of the widely used T-72 main battle tank.

The next generation "terminator" is similar in concept, but incorporates the chassis, hulls, and components of the T-14 Armata tank, the latest and greatest Russian tank design, rather than the outdated T-72 main battle tank which was superseded by the T-80 and T-90 series main battle tanks before the development of the T-14 Armata. The next generation terminator will also have an automatic and remotely operated gun turret and "in the future may have integrated air defense systems and be fully unmanned."

The BMPT has anti-tank missiles that give it the capabilities of a "tank destroyer" that can also be used against armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, and heavily fortified targets, just like a tank's main gun shell, but with greater range and accuracy.

But, the BMPT also has two auto cannons, two grenade launchers, and a machine gun to allow it to engage five different infantry targets at a time (with the cannons and grenade launchers capable of injuring or killing multiple targeted soldiers with a single round), over a much greater range of motion than a tank's main gun, while leaving the five person crew safe from the small arms fire that infantry would usually have at their disposal.

It isn't hard to develop the concept of an anti-personnel fighting vehicle (APFV) even further to fill this niche:

* Give the APFV a small drone of its own to do reconnaissance for it and identify threats and to possibly carry an integrated sniper rifle class weapon to take out scouts and sentinels without alerting an opponent to the APFV's location. The drone could also be used as a secure communications link when the APFV's location can't get a strong enough signal to use its comms at full capacity.

* Give it a system to automatically echolocate the source of unfriendly fire directed at it and aim its weapons accordingly faster than a human operator could identify and respond to its source.

* Give it state of the art night vision, thermal sensors, and telescopic sensors.

* Make its bottom hull "V" shaped to reduce the effect of land mines and IEDs on it.

* Give it integrated variants on existing MANPADS that it can use to defend itself against helicopters, drones, cruise missiles, and low flying aircraft.

* Give it "soft" active defenses like guidance system scramblers and laser dazzlers and flares and smoke grenades to screw up guided missiles and drones that are either remotely controlled or rely upon visual or infrared cameras for guidance.

* Give it "hard" active defenses to destroy incoming tank and artillery shells and anti-tank missiles. This could be with projectiles or lasers. Proof of concept for the laser approach can be found in this experimental U.S. Army weapons system:

Stryker Mobile Expeditionary High Energy Laser (MEHEL): The Army is integrating a directed energy weapon onto the M1131 Fire Support Vehicle version to defend against Group 1 and 2 UAVs (up to 55 lb (25 kg)-class) for mobile forces as the first-ever integration of an Army laser weapon onto a combat vehicle. In an April 2016 test, a 2 kW laser fired from the Stryker shot down 21 drone targets; the vehicle also has an electronic warfare jamming system to scramble drone command signals. A 5 kW version could be operational in 2017, with plans to increase power to 18 kW by 2018. As of January 2022, the next threshold goal was a 300 kW laser sufficient to take down helicopters.

* Replace the tracks with wheels. Wheeled vehicles are faster, more fuel efficient (reducing their vulnerable logistics train), and eliminate the need to deliver tracked vehicles to the theater of battle by train or wheeled tank carriers, both of which are highly vulnerable to attack. If possible, develop wheels that can run flat. In practice, tanks almost never go places that wheeled vehicles designed for off road use can't go anyway.

* Replace the transmission, gears, and diesel engine with redundant electric motors, state of the art vehicle batteries, and a diesel generator to keep the batteries topped up when an electrical grid source to plug it in isn't available. This is more fuel efficient (reducing the vulnerable logistics train), it allows the APFV to operate in "silent mode" that also generates less heat for thermal sensors to detect when running on batteries alone. And, this allows it to be used as a field power generator for other electrical power needs of the military unit of which it is a part, if needed. And, electric motors and a simple single gear diesel generator requires much less maintenance than a conventional tank's engine, gears and transmission.

These innovations may add some weight, but since it is already too heavy to go by anything more than one per C-17 or two per C-5, it has a fair amount of leeway to gain weight without impairing its deployability. Another 20 tons of weight relative to the BMPT wouldn't be a serious problem.

One could also imagine an M2 Bradley without space devoted to carrying infantry passengers to demonstrate the viability of the concept, even with somewhat lighter armor than a main battle tank which would still be adequate for its mission.

The key underlying concept is that in war, you don't want to fight fair fights between opponents of roughly equal capabilities. 

A tank makes sense in the niche of fighting infantry with small arms but no anti-tank weapons, in which it is a nearly invincible opponent with immense firepower.

But a conventional tank is not an optimal solution, in contrast, in the niche of fighting other comparable tanks.