Well I really think these are solutions in search of a problem. Need a lightweight vehicle to move quickly in and out? Aerial drones. Need to ‘soften up’ the enemy? We have bombers and artillery...but besides that, we do just fine in tank battles anyway - so well that I doubt any nation will ever again array its forces in a matter that sets up a traditional tank battle. Parachute tanks? The 82nd Airborne already does it with the Sheridan. Finally, unlike Admirals holding onto their battleships, I know tanks might not be in our future...so I’m not holding on for nostalgia’s sake. I jus happen to believe that drones will replace them - not a fleet of RC tanks. And btw, the Admirals’ fears have been realized...we don’t have battleships in our fleet anymore.
A few last thoughts...if you were to see a tank battalion go by on a train, you would immediately identify the tanks, of course...but I believe you would be astonished at all the other ‘stuff’ that is involved.
I looked up our current ‘TOE”:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/army/unit/toe/17375L000.htm
A tank battalion has 604 people...but less than half (252) are tank crewmen. Who are all the others?
Well, there’s the entire mortar platoon, providing indirect fire support to protect the tanks. There’s the entire scout platoon...a function highly reliant on human senses and almost impossible to replicate through a computer screen. Then there’s support - a fleet of fuelers to keep everything moving, a fleet of cargo trucks to keep the ammunition coming, each company has a large recovery vehicle...not only to pull a tank out of the mud, but also used to pull the engine out for major maintenance. Each company has an assortemnt of ‘milvans’ with commonly used parts, for repair. In addition to the M88 recovery vehicle, here are also some other wreckers, to tow around all these trucks, when they break. And, if you’re gonna have mortars and scouts and mechanics...you’re gonna need the medic platoon.
The only way to do without all this other ‘stuff’ is to view the entire battalion as expendable. A one and done. You somehow get the entire force within 150 miles of the battle, and send them in...with absolutely no support...not even enough fuel to come back. Its ‘fired’ at the enemy like any other munition, and expended. I just don’t see that happening.
And there’s a doctrinal roadblock as well. When I was in the army, we had armor battalions...and we had infantry battalions. And, when we would do large scale training at Ft Irwin, we would form ‘combat teams’...essentially the armor and infantry battalions swapped a few companies, so that each battalion would have both armor and infantry. In recent years, this doctrine has been re-inforced, and the modern battalions are neither pure infantry or pure tank...they are hybrid. I think this is a very wise choice...issues ranging from chain of command to parts train are solved by doing this, since the combat teams are no longer temporary arrangements. Its a great idea, alot of egos had to get put aside to make it happen, and we have a much more flexible heavy force. But...now, to go to a remote control tank force unravels all of that and makes the tank force very much seperate from the infantry.
BTW, these ‘super battalions’ also attaches other combat multipliers (heavy artillery and air defense artillery for example) to the battalion, bring their use down from a divisional asset to a battalion asset...i.e., more control from the ‘on the ground’ commander. And the net effect of this organization has allowed commanders to be, well, ‘commanders’...instead of mid-level managers caught in a swamp of red tape and helpless to make things happen, when he needs to. In the civilian world, it would be termed ‘deconstructing silos’. The concept is a subtle change, not even noticed by most, but in my opinion as revolutionary as many of our weapons systems. Its a big deal...and rc tanks doesn’t fit in with the plan.
To some degree you’re right about in search of a problem but drones are no panacea and neither is air power in general. You can’t use drones in mass. You can’t use them in poor visability. You might be able to move a large unmanned tank battalion in quickly and just let it sit there until its needed. You can send it down a road to see if it draws fire or triggers mines. You really don’t know what good it will be until you have it and test it out. But I do think that robotics is going to be the next wave of military technology and I would rather be on the guy dishing it out than the guy taking the hits.