[DarkWiiPlayer]

I think people vastly underestimate the importance of infantry support. A single soldier with an ATGM can take out a tank, but a single soldier with a gun can take out that single soldier and their ATGM.

It's easy to forget that reality isn't a third-person shooter. When you're sitting in a steel box with an engine in the back and a cannon on the top, situational awareness will inevitably suffer to some degree, and no amount of cameras will completely offset that.

[ChuckNorris89]

>I think people vastly underestimate the importance of infantry support

Do you now what's funny? Even RTS videogames like the Command and Conquer series or Star-Craft made this point clear early in our childhoods.

Tanks will be eaten alive by hoards of cheap disposable units, so you always had to support them with anti-infantry units if you wanted them to be useful in battle.

[UncleMeat]

In the modern day, humans are not necessarily "cheap disposable units." At least for the US, it is not politically feasible to have 50,000-100,000 people die in a war anymore. 4,431 US soldiers were killed in Iraq. The calculus has changed and now dollars are cheaper than lives.

[ChuckNorris89]

>humans are not necessarily "cheap disposable units"

Putin and most of the Russian military doctrine would beg to differ.

[UncleMeat]

"Not necessarily."

It depends on the nation and their political situation.

[AnimalMuppet]

To what degree do you think that Russia's losses in Afghanistan led to the fall of the Soviet Union?

Since 1945, Russia hasn't shown that it can accept a war of mass casualties without political fallout. Russian military doctrine may say that it can, but Putin would be unwise to assume so.

[bena]

Yeah, you don't make units, you make battalions.

Siege tanks are grouped with marines and firebats for protection, Marines and medics run with medics for assistance. Have your infantry out front. Move to a location, plant your troops, put your tanks in siege mode, rain hellfire down upon aerial defenses and approaching units so your Battlecruisers can come in with their Vulture and Wraith support to decimate a base.

It takes a village. You know, to destroy the other guys village. But still. Villages.

[metadat]

Yes, the Warcraft II and III tank units get scrapped real quick if you don't protect them!

[inglor_cz]

The Javelin can kill tanks from what distance, up to four kilometers? (Officially, less so, but the Ukrainians seem to be pulling off more distant hits than what the vendor documentation says.)

No realistic amount of infantry support can shield you against weapons with such a huge range. An entire army could, but that is obviously too much.

[kitrose]

A tank can engage at similar distances.

[inglor_cz]

If it knows what/where exactly to engage...

The point is that a soldier with a Javelin is a much less visible target than a big vehicle. Even if he runs just 40 meters away between the firing of the missile and its impact, any return fire aimed at the original site will likely miss him. And there can be a hundred of such Javelin-equipped soldiers in range.

[kitrose]

I was an armored vehicle officer in the USMC. ATGMs are a long standing threat.

There’s no scenario where hundreds of Javelins are sitting in one infantry company. It’s the type of thing that only makes sense on paper.

Would be much more worried about evolution of loitering fires with drones.

[inglor_cz]

As of today, hundreds are out of question, yes.

But there may be cheaper and better models one day. This war has shown that ATGMs, MANPADs and their ilk have a huge potential, which means that a lot of countries and companies are going to pour resources into R&D. This usually means an overall improvement in capabilities and possibly a reduced price tag.

As an analogy: once it would be considered too expensive and impractical to equip infantry with night vision en masse. Russia still cannot do that, but for rich Western countries, it is an absolutely realistic option.

[kitrose]

Price tag is a small part of it.

Have you ever humped a combat load? It sucks. You’re rolling out with 40 lbs of stuff hanging off you before we even talk sustainment.

Javelin has gotta be 40-50 lbs. Add that on. Want an extra missile? Add another 30 or so.

Now suppose you don’t run into any armor, this is why every infantryman doesn’t/won’t carry one. Maybe 1 per squad, if we want to be super aggressive maybe 1 per fireteam. But that’s now a machine gun they’ve left out, what if they really needed more suppression?

It’s a trade off and humans aren’t capable of bringing all the nice to haves to every fight. This is why there won’t be hundreds in a company.

[CapricornNoble]

>>>But there may be cheaper and better models one day.

And when that "one day" comes around, the tank engineers will have outfitted every vehicle with Trophy-style active protection systems AND laser anti-missile/anti-drone remote weapons stations on the turrets.

>>>As an analogy: once it would be considered too expensive and impractical to equip infantry with night vision en masse.

Interesting that you mention night vision. We used to swear by equipping our infantry with IR lasers as well, for pinpoint accuracy during night combat. Now that more of our adversaries are using night vision, we are swinging back towards NOT using IR lasers because the active emission is just like the old Murphy's Law adage: "tracers point both ways".

[greedo]

Do you know what you call 100 Javelin equipped soldiers in a group? A target rich environment. The paper/rock/scissors idea would have mortars ranging down on that group in a flash. Try running away while humping 45lbs of gear while under mortar fire.

[inglor_cz]

I said "in range", not "in a group". Given the range, that can mean several square kilometers if the terrain is right.

[greedo]

In no way can 100 men cover several square kilometers of terrain in anything close to an effective manner. That's roughly a company sized unit, and they "might" be able to have a 800m frontage, but that depends on how they're equipped. If they're light infantry with limited transportation, not a chance.

[smcl]

The tank would need to actually find the ATGM team though. It's relatively easy to detect a tank in the vicinity - they're loud and big. It's a bit tougher to spot a couple of guys in a bush (or in a ditch, or behind a wall, or in a thicket, or any number of hiding places)

[542458]

I guess my dumb question is: with a Ukraine-style conflict where there’s a ton of ATGMs floating around, do even properly-supported tanks actually provide net value or do they just soak up friendly infantry resources that could be devoted to other things? The range on modern ATGMs is huge, measured in KMs - seems like you’d need a ton of infantry support to keep from getting picked off. If your enemy doesn’t have ATGMs, sure, a tank can provide a lot of value - but it seems like a safe assumption that a modern adversary will have them. Does the value equation still work?

[_kbh_]

Even with men on the ground how useful is a tank, when someone can use a remotely controlled ATGM that can hit targets upto ~5km away?.

[csours]

It's hard to say what net value means in a Ukraine-style conflict.