Tanks Are An Easy Target For Trump To Upgrade Army And Create U.S. Jobs

Forbes ^ | January 26, 2017 | Loren Thompson

[2ndDivisionVet]

Franklin D. Roosevelt's "arsenal of democracy" that helped win World War II has been gradually withering away for two generations. This isn't just a story about other countries stealing U.S. jobs, it also reflects a failure of federal leadership in protecting the industrial foundations of America's military might. Washington is the main customer for U.S. weapons output, so if it doesn't manage the defense industrial base wisely, the base decays.

Consider tank production. Tanks have been the premier expression of land warfare since the first primitive armored vehicles appeared on the Western Front a hundred years ago. But even though the Army and Marine Corps depend on Abrams tanks to defeat high-end adversaries, there is only one tank plant left in America, and that tank plant is turning out a grand total of one main battle tank per month. During the Reagan years, it turned out 60 per month.

The tank plant is located in Lima, Ohio, once a crossroads for America's great railroads that was home to locomotive factories, construction-equipment plants, and the nation's biggest maker of buses. That's all gone now -- Lima's population has declined by 30% since 1970 -- but the tank plant remains. Barely. The U.S. Army, which leases it to General Dynamics Land Systems (a donor to my think tank and consulting client) tried to close it for several years, but Congress resisted....

[wally_bert]

For the most part, tanks are at an evolutionary dead end from what joe-nobody me can see.

Small improvements will come but until a tank can levitate or a reliable beam/pulse main weapon comes along or maybe some revolutionary development in armor/powerplant design comes around, I don’t see much growth.

I think Abrams is a heck of piece of technology. What times I drove one playing NG was fun when up to speed.

[GreyFriar]

Unfortunately we don’t have the 5 armored divisions that existed in the 1980s to put those ‘60 tanks a month’ into. They would just end up in a ‘tank bone yard.’ along with the tanks that were surplus after those 5 divisions were disbanded 20 years ago.

[gaijin]

sad to agree with you 100%, very well said.

[Paladin2]

That bug is < ‘66

[Chainmail]

As you may have caught, I have worked in weapon system development but within the government. We designed and built a prototype fire support system successfully, using operational specifications from commanders in the field. We completed the system in half the time as the best vendor estimate and at half the price.

Using this system, we had minimal congressional interference and got what we wanted. The beast we built was fast, accurate, and very compact/light and passed all engineering and safety tests with flying colors.

I'd love to say that that system is now in the field but it isn't: it was stopped by the acquisition system that "didn't want a government design".

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

In past I have wondered if the US could create “economy car” flying drones. That is, a very simple aircraft with an engine, a fuel tank, and fly by wire controlled by an off-the-shelf computer with hardened data storage, so that if it was fried by an AESA radar, or the equivalent, it would continue to fly with its last to-target directions.

A “beer can” body over a low cost frame, with an off-the-shelf engine. The brain is modular and can be plugged in just before ramp launch. A simple weapon like a 500 to 1000 pound bomb. One use, expendable.

In concept it could be made for under $20,000 each.

A Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, after program cost of $66.7 billion, has a per unit flyaway cost of $150 million.

For the price of a single Raptor, you could build an *armada* of, let’s be conservative, five thousand of these drones. If properly directed and launched, say one thousand of these would be impossible to stop short of using an airburst nuclear munition. Over your own territory. Which creates its own problems.

While an advanced fighter aircraft could easily shoot down a dozen of these drones, that doesn’t matter. By the time it returned to its airbase, there would likely be no place left to land, much less refuel and rearm.

With each successive wave of drones, the enemy nation would be far less capable to defend itself. And *then* you send in the high performance and stealth aircraft to take out their hardened targets.

Oh, and flying tanks as well.

[Terry L Smith]

Dear SJ,

Yup, first new tank “in too long a time”, yes?

As to aircraft, MiG’s have always been the air superiority role, except for the -23. Sukhoi’s have always been ‘the other aircraft’, as was with us with McDoug air superiority, and Grumman/Northrop still pushing the -18 series. General Dynamics did make a good one with the -16. All the new ‘alien borrowed design’ aircraft just don’t get the raised eyebrow. The B-2, a redesigned XB-49. Fairchild, with their first jet, the -86, and their last jet, the A-10, are both superb at what they do.

Here’s something ‘loopy’. American pilots, no longer military flight personnel, buy old aircraft, restore them, and fly them at airshows and such. Seems innocent, right? Do they buy old American jet fighters to fly? NO!! They’re flying MIGS!!! Go to youtube and look up by aircraft.