[simonh]

So has reactive armour and systems like Trophy. This argument has been made for many decades at this stage. This isn't just about vulnerability. Infantry are vulnerable to practically everything, sometimes they just drop dead all by themselves. It's also about capabilities. What are you going to use instead, and how is it better?

[Pelic4n]

Reported kill rate of javelins fired against tanks in Ukraine is 93%. Just saying.

[simonh]

The numbers don't add up. The US has sent 7,000 javelins to Ukraine and overall they're been sent 30,000 anti-tank weapons and Ukraine is asking for hundreds more per day. It seems unlikely those javelins have killed 6,510 (.93 * 7000) Russian tanks, or that they will be destroying hundreds more per day. Many of the drone videos released by the Ukrainians show tanks hit by ATGMs but not actually being destroyed.

For sure the Russians have lots a lot of vehicles to ATGMs, they have proved to be extremely effective weapons, especially against tanks moving forward in tight formations without infantry support. However nobody is looking at the terrible infantry casualties Russia has suffered, due to poor tactics, training and resupply, and concluding that infantry are obsolete.

Here's a video of a Ukrainian tank ambushing a Russian convoy. Seems like a pretty effective weapon system to me.

https://youtu.be/S27kw7XVvSA

[jandrewrogers]

Javelins are designed to be used for more than destroying armor, it has other selectable operating modes. They are being used by the Ukrainians against non-armor vehicles and as direct-fire weapons (US infantry uses this mode a lot). It also has a mode for helicopters.

[Pelic4n]

Source for the 93% figure: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr/status/1499470411964235781

On the video, the ukrainian tank is of course performing an effective ambush. I don't pretend I have the answers, but I wonder how would perform a bunch of infantry with NLAWs striking the column from multiple places at once, for cheaper than the tank, able to engage multiple targets at once, much less spottable, and so on.

[chrisco255]

This source is a second hand account of second hand information. It is not reliable.

[wanda]

Yeah, an anti-tank missile would be a pretty bad example of its category if it couldn't destroy a tank.

The point is that a properly equipped, prepared and trained military would have taken steps to use assets like tanks well and not marched them into oblivion, and perhaps researched and developed countermeasures to what is clearly a popular anti-tank missile system.

Such a military would also have conducted reconnaissance by drone, scouts, satellite etc. and concluded from the data gathered that driving a tank into [area with lots of unpacked Javelin crates] would perhaps be impractical, and focused on eliminating the munitions before playing the tank card.

The tank can wipe out infantry and survive anything with less-than-anti-tank weapons, the Javelin user can kill the tank, the sniper can kill the Javelin, the counter-sniper can kill the sniper, the artillery strike or sustained covering fire by infantry can cancel out the counter-sniper, etc.

The point is that simply driving tanks into a city full of people with anti-tank missile launchers and a strong inclination to attack invading tanks is not a good idea without mitigating the risk.

The existence of an anti-tank missile launcher does not make the tank irrelevant. Fighter jets still fly despite the existence of anti-aircraft missile systems.

What makes war technology irrelevant is whether it is prohibitively expensive to replace, assuming non-zero odds that the unit will be incapacitated/destroyed.

This is especially true against an opposing military force that has large amounts of existing man-made or natural shelter and cover, high motivation, *and* supplies/support from multiple wealthy countries, etc. that basically doesn't have to spend because it's defending with whatever it has, tooth and nail.

[bee_rider]

That isn't really fair, it is comparing 90's American tech which has presumably been updated over time to, essentially, minimally maintained Soviet tech. Maybe that last 7% is the tanks they've made since ~1990.

[greedo]

The majority of recorded Russian tank losses have been the T-72 B3M Obr. 2016 which is a very new tank, with production starting in 2016 or so...