The Bismarck was obsolete. It could not operate effectively on the high seas because of allied air power and a bomber took out the Bismark’s rudder and English battleships took out the wounded ship a few days later.
Surface ships and tanks are obsolete and when the next shooting war starts between America and a near peer competitor the carriers will not last long.
Surface ships and tanks are obsolete and when the next shooting war starts between America and a near peer competitor the carriers will not last long.
Makes perfect sense.
Tanks are not obsolete.
The tank of old is obsolete, like the M1 (all these types of tanks, Leo, Chally, Abrams...), but the need for some sort of heavy firepower that can penetrate an enemies defenses and pursue them remains.
These are all 1970s tech in reality and only alive today because the Cold War ended. The development of more modern systems slowed.
Today we keep these older tanks alive with applique subsystems but these tanks have long outlived their designed life. The battlefield has changed. The idea that massive armor on a turret front will keep you safe isn’t going to work when Mr. Missile hits your roof, that is true. What only we had in 1997 (Javelin) or few others had (TOW2B top attack) is today common.
However, that does not mean the tank is dead. It means that we are in desperate need of new maneuver warfare systems that replace the aging M1 and M2. Vehicles where active soft and hard-kill systems, advanced communications and networks, modular armor design that can be tweaked for the threat, newer materials in the hull and turret, designs that lend themselves to better protection against IEDs and mines, are incorporated in the tank from it’s very foundation.
When the M1 came out, there was no such thing as an Internet and networks, the integrated circuit (IC) had just came out a few years prior (the M1 had a digital fire control system and that was novel!), stealth wasn’t feasible, hard and soft kill defensive systems didn’t exist, some of the materials we have today didn’t exist (7068 Aluminum Alloy, some of the ceramics...). The threat was an AT2, AT5 (no dive or top attack), RPG7 with about 400-500mm RHA penetration... We were operating in Europe where the bridges and roads could hold the weight, we were in a defense and didn’t need to worry about massive IEDs and mines (friendly ground - thin and flat bottomed vehicles)... A lot has changed since then.
The need for that type of capability still exists. But what that vehicle will look like will change a lot. We need an entirely new system that has been developed to meet the new operational environment both in where we are fighting but also the threats, which is designed from the bottom up taking into account new technologies.
You are right that what we have today is surviving on “life support,” but if you mean to say that we no longer need that capability, you are mistaken IMHO.