Tanks simply peaked in the couple decades after WW2. We increased armor and cannon size a bit, but there's just not much to improve on an armored box. Even the most advanced tanks can be disabled by a mine (not much changed since WW2) then taken out by artillery (as seen with the Challenger 2 recently destroyed).
WW2 saw the creation of HEAT and the 1970s saw the perfection of HEAT with stuff like the TOW ensuring that any near-peer conflict turned any tank into a necessary, but risky infantry support platform. Modern drones and fire/forget ATGMs have made this even more true.
> New weapons take time to mass, decades to gain relevance.
This is primarily a function of how governments and government contractors work. When you eliminate barriers, you can get something like the famous P-51 which went from design to working prototype in a mere 102 days.
We are seeing something similar with the Lancet drone where a complete redesign has been completed and shipped in a few months and has radically shifted the game in Ukraine. We saw something similar with the FPV drones employed by the Ukrainians.
> rather than sending 40 year old A10s out there and pretending that we don't have any better tech ourselves.
A-10 would be more survivable in the current Ukraine war than the F-35 (which probably couldn't get off the ground most of the time due to the runway conditions).
In the SU-25, targeting the engine means blowing up right next to the cockpit, wings, and munitions resulting in an extremely high loss rate when hit.
In the A-10, the engine is away from the wing and pilot with the wing standing between the engine and munitions. The upward position of the engine also makes it harder to target in the first place. This is why there are quite a few images of them returning with damage to one engine and little else.
T-54/55 can shoot while moving, but the accuracy is bad. The real question is whether that matter.
If the T-54/55 is going against tanks, it has already losing because those should have been taken out with ATGMs and HEAT drones. If it's going up against trenches, inaccurate fire while moving doesn't matter because the tank will be getting super-close anyway. If it's firing at APCs, then stopping really doesn't put it in any danger and they're in for a very bad day.
Until we can work out the point defense issue vs drones, cheaper "disposable" tanks aren't a terrible idea. That new tank design could probably outperform the T-54/55, but the tank you already have that is good enough to support infantry assaults is better than having to make another and leave it to rot.
Cheap bullets firing airburst rounds effectively negate drones in a close range. The issue with MACE is that it remains vulnerable to helicopters and other more advanced weapons. Etc. etc.
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But that's... fine. Its war. Each weapon has a cheap-and-effective counter. If you know what the opponent is bringing to the frontlines, you can kill them easily.
Your argument style is fundamentally flawed. You're arguing about counter-weapons as if they're the main threat. You should instead be discussing the capability the tank brings to the frontlines.
* Immunity to all small arms fire.
* Immunity to anti-personel mines (and I've seen plenty of Leopards clearing up anti-personel mines by just rolling over them, providing highways for infantry to travel through later).
* High-power gun that kills a vehicle every 6 seconds
* Advanced therman and night-vision sensors enabling accurate 3mile or 5km shots.
* Resistance to artillery: infantry die to shells that are within 100m of them. Tanks require a more-direct hit, closer to ~5m instead. This forces inaccurate enemy artillery to expend far more shells to kill a tank rather than a group of infantry.
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Tanks have always been vulnerable to airplanes, helicopters, and now drones. That's never changed in their 100+ years of use and history. Taking to the skies is the tank's greatest weakness. But against any ground thread (including against lesser tanks), the tank reigns as the supreme anti-ground unit in the world.
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Just because tanks negate AK-47 or other small arms fire doesn't mean that the AK-47 is useless. It just means that you've complicated the frontlines and have forced the enemy to bring multiple weapons to the frontlines to combat effectively. The more weapons you force the enemy to carry, the better. IE: Combined Arms combat.
You bring soldiers (who lose to snipers / AK-47s). You bring light-armor, that defeats those. You bring medium vehicles (like IFVs) to defeat the lighter-vehicles. You bring tanks to defeat the medium vehicles. You bring air-assets (helicopters) to defeat tanks. You bring jets to defeat the helicopters. You bring artillery to defeat different bits. Etc. etc. etc.
WW2 saw the creation of HEAT and the 1970s saw the perfection of HEAT with stuff like the TOW ensuring that any near-peer conflict turned any tank into a necessary, but risky infantry support platform. Modern drones and fire/forget ATGMs have made this even more true.
> New weapons take time to mass, decades to gain relevance.
This is primarily a function of how governments and government contractors work. When you eliminate barriers, you can get something like the famous P-51 which went from design to working prototype in a mere 102 days.
We are seeing something similar with the Lancet drone where a complete redesign has been completed and shipped in a few months and has radically shifted the game in Ukraine. We saw something similar with the FPV drones employed by the Ukrainians.
> rather than sending 40 year old A10s out there and pretending that we don't have any better tech ourselves.
A-10 would be more survivable in the current Ukraine war than the F-35 (which probably couldn't get off the ground most of the time due to the runway conditions).
In the SU-25, targeting the engine means blowing up right next to the cockpit, wings, and munitions resulting in an extremely high loss rate when hit.
In the A-10, the engine is away from the wing and pilot with the wing standing between the engine and munitions. The upward position of the engine also makes it harder to target in the first place. This is why there are quite a few images of them returning with damage to one engine and little else.