Posted on 02/21/2020 10:39:59 AM PST by Freeport
Tanks are great, IF they can get to where the fight is.
Try driving a tank up and down the mountains of Afghanistan.
Try driving a tank through a marsh or swamp. Or even a big mud puddle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBClILExnaQ
Try driving a tank across a rickety Third World bridge.
Try getting a large tank force anywhere that’s far from a sea port, or an airfield that can accommodate a C-5 Galaxy.
So were the 88s and the tank killer vehicles. The Allies had their equivalents.
From an academic’s perspective (somewhat dated, first published in 2002):
As a side note: A tank’s presence sends a message and it intimidating, and a US Navy warship parked off the coast of a potential enemy can send quite a message, and airpower (as we’ve seen) can be intimidating as heck when at full-afterburner over the leads of an enemy.
Airpower may now, in some situations and under certain circumstances, be the primary fire with ground forces serving as supporting fire. This is a radical departure from traditional thought, but a departure which is long overdue.
Airpower was first viewed as a primary fire by an Italian airpower theorist, Giulio Douhet. Starting in 1917, Douhet envisioned massed air attacks that would destroy an army and terrorize a nation into submission. With today’s technology and weaponry, destroying an enemy with airpower is now a reality, and as far as terrorizing a nation, if not for the Law of Armed Conflict rightfully prohibiting indiscriminate attacks on civilians, this objective could be easily met.
Essentially, Douhet suggested that airpower could be a primary fire that would be key to a successful war effort. It took nearly seventy years before he was proved correct by the role airpower played in Gulf War I. In Gulf War I, airpower was the predominant force that ensured a quick and decisive victory. While airpower was not the sole reason for our success, it was the first time in history that airpower truly functioned as it’s own independent maneuver force, as a primary fire, with ground-based fires performing a supporting role.
Airpower dominated the battlefield and ensured the ground campaign was virtually unopposed in any organized fashion. While it may be argued that airpower did not win Gulf War I, it certainly would have made things a lot more difficult if it had not performed well its strategic and operational mission.
Generally speaking, old school military leaders are in a box when it comes to thinking about airpower. For those of the old school, the success of airpower is measured by how many soldiers, tanks, trucks and artillery pieces were destroyed, which misses the point of airpower altogether. It is the effect we are looking for, not the body count. Indeed, why would killing thousands of enemy soldiers be a measure of success in war? Especially if we can remove a few select personnel and achieve the desired effect. This applies to the targeting of enemy armored assets as well. Why would we expend massive resources to destroy thousands of tanks if we can achieve the same effect by dropping a few bridges here and there, thereby isolating an armored division and removing it from the fight.
The effect of strategic targeting in air campaign planning can be best seen by contrasting two major Vietnam War air campaigns. In the Vietnam War, airpower was ineffective when limited to blowing up shrubbery and suspected truck parks (Operation Rolling Thunder).
Contrast this with the stunning effect airpower had when it was employed against North Vietnam’s strategic targets, such as senior military leadership, command and control nodes, infrastructure, key manufacturing, lines of communication and logistics depots (Operations Linebacker I, II).
Therefore, we can look at the Vietnam experience as early proof that airpower, when properly applied, can achieve exceptional success on its own.
For many military planners and strategic thinkers, this lesson was clear. Use airpower correctly and victory may be achieved quickly, efficiently and with minimal damage and reduced loss of life for both sides. Indeed, Gulf War I air campaign planners used the lessons of Vietnam to help produce an historic air campaign plan that for the first time ever, resulted in a war where airpower was the primary fire and landpower played a supporting role.
This air campaign plan was called “Instant Thunder,” a direct reference to the failed tactical air campaign of Vietnam, “Rolling Thunder.” Unfortunately, some of the old school ignored the strategic airpower lessons of Vietnam and Gulf War I.
During the air campaign in Kosovo, Gen Clark, the combatant commander, gave his staff a specific number of targets to hit, but to what end? What was the desired effect? What was the strategic aim envisioned? Gen Clark didn’t want to be bothered, all he cared about was the number of targets on the hit-list, not the effect. If he was concerned about the effect, he was old school in that he expected “body counts” to be a measure of the effectiveness of airpower. By doing this, he was ignoring what makes airpower truly effective.
By stating his desire for a specific number of targets, Gen Clark demonstrated his ignorance about what makes airpower powerful, ignored the lessons of history, and abandoned his role in translating political objectives into strategic guidance.
His responsibility as the combatant commander was to provide strategic guidance to the component commanders, and then let the component commanders devise a plan to achieve his strategic aims. This is called “strategy-to-task-to-target.” Strategy-to-task-to-target is a planning concept that ensures only essential targets are hit. Each target nominated must be able to trace its lineage to a specific task, and that task must support achievement of a strategic aim. Therefore, when General Clark asked for an arbitrary number of targets to destroy, he invalidated the whole concept of strategy-to-task-to-target. He got his target list, but it was a waste of men, material and effort. Basically, it was only through brute force and the threat of ground invasion that we achieved victory in Kosovo. It was ugly, inefficient, and it proved General Clark was not a visionary. He was a member of ‘the old school.’
What does all this discussion about strategic aims really mean? Simply stated, it means that with insightful intelligence, precise targeting, and the ability of airpower to accurately deliver all sorts of weapons effects, we now have a new weapon in our quiver. Now when the time comes to shoot, we have the airpower arrow from which to choose. It is just as lethal, if not more so in some cases, than any other military instrument.
To mix metaphors, selecting a weapon to use is like deciding on which golf club to use. One doesn’t use a putter for driving, just as one wouldn’t use a putter to hit strategic targets well behind enemy lines. With the impressive ability of airpower, combined with exceptional intelligence and targeting, we now have a full golf bag.
We can now break par.
Well, you are comparing a medium tank to one of the heaviest tanks ever built. If you compare what the Sherman was up against in 1942 in Africa, the Panzer III's and IV's, the Sherman is superior in most aspects.
During the Normandy invasion, over two thirds of German armor were not Panthers and Tigers, and the 75mm gun was effective. A month or so after the invasion, the Sherman was upgraded with a high velocity 76mm gun.
I should also mention that the Brits had already equipped them with the 17 pound 76mm QF gun in time for the Normandy invasion. That gun could penetrate the frontal armor of both the Panther and Tiger. Note that there were more 17 pounder Shermans built than Tiger I's and II's combined.
More info, Post 84. More in-depth look.
ALL aspects of the military are quite lethal and intimidating.
There’s an 88 in the WWII museum in New Orleans. Amazing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmjKODQYYfg
Not at the same time.
Strategy and tactics...
Could not agree more, not a one size fits all situation
Yet how they’re employed and integrated can hamper or increase their lethality and intimidation.
The really frightening part of that one is that those drones don’t seem to have any “undiscovered” or “unknown” features/technologies. It could be done once the integration of the capabilities is engineered into a small enough package...
And I think at least 10 times more tanks etc. then the Germans. The industrial capacity, critical in a world war, was far greater than today. China saw to that.
How ridiculous was American production in World War 2? [images at link ]
All depending on increasingly vulnerable satellites and computers, which China and Russia prioritize on neutralizing in a major conflict.
How Russians hacked the White House [2015]
Russians Hacked White House Via State Department ,
US agency responsible for Trump's secure communication hacked [2 days ago]
2 Russian satellites are stalking a US spysat in orbit .
Our sheer industrial dominance was overwhelming.
Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store. (Deuteronomy 28:5)
Note that America was wholly following the Lord, and thus was also being chastised, but God blessed in grace. However,
But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee:.. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store(Deuteronomy 28:15,18)
But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced be some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness. Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.