Replies

This "news" is some pretty heavy sh!t.

The Israeli's have been dealing with the Hizzies for a while. Their Merkavas is a pretty damn good tank; but like all tanks is vulnerable without light infantry abound.
Even then, without light infantry, the Hizzies had a hard time against this beast.

This article is sending more of a message to idjits in lands adjacent; "Mess with us, we'll enter the heart's of your country" and without the need for light infantry everywhere, they'll make it happen (while conventional bombing the hizzies into literal oblivion; saves a nuke, right?)

It will not be that easy even with systems like the Trophy (which is quite the system. Israel, together with Russia and the US, have been exploring various hard and soft kill systems to protect their tanks, particularly since in the perennial war between weapon and armor the weapon has been having the upper hand for quite some time now. Not even the Leopard 2, Challenger 2 or Abrams are invulnerable). What a system like Trophy does is protect the tank from dual-warhead modern anti-tank missiles. The system works (and not just the Israeli one but also the Russian one, and the US has been testing some concepts that also show promise - if they are not cancelled).

The PROBLEM is that the 'war' between weapon and armor (whether the 'armor' is rolled homogenized steel, chobham armor, ERA packs, or a hard-kill system like Trophy) is that the weapon immediately starts to evolve as well. Already Russia is showing a concept whereby the missile fired releases a small 'micro-missile' ahead of it, which is intercepted by the hard kill system, enabling the 'main' missile to impact the tank! You pick a stick, I wear leather, you make a sword, I wear chain mail, you invent the bow, I wear plate mail, you invent a gun, I build a tank, you build a missile, etc etc etc etc. The war between weapon and armor goes on.

Furthermore, even without the new missile designs, the Trophy system can be saturated. It may intercept one Kornet missile, but what if four are launched at the same time? The cost of a Kornet is far far far less than the cost of a Merkava. Or, if I was in charge of guerilla tactics against Merkavas in an urban environment (one of the worst places for a Main Battle Tank), I would have 5 chaps with RPG-7s and two chaps operating Kornets. Have the 5 guys fire the RPGs, and a moment later the Kornets are fired. I'd bet doughnuts that the Merkava, if not killed, is definitely out of commission.