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Re:Does the Tank Have a Future? by echelon on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @12:46PM (#31755669)
Is there a good rundown of every piece of weaponry and its corresponding utility and strategy somewhere?

I'd love to update or correct my understanding of tanks, artillery, HIMARS, aircraft carriers, cruisers, littoral combat, submarine classes, F-22, F-35, AWACS, etc.

Re:Does the Tank Have a Future? by dragontamer on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @01:41PM (#31756489)
Video games.

https://www.matrixgames.com/game/armored-brigade

Armored Brigade is probably a good start. 4 minutes for artillery to aim, 1 to 2 minutes for shells to actually arrive, 10 minutes for air-support to fly in.

1 to 2 minutes to deliver commands to any particular squad (depending on how good their radio contact is).

Roughly realistic levels of arms, armor and penetration. Angle of shots and type of weapon (kinetic energy, such as APFSDS, or Chemical energy, such as M47 Dragon or HEAT rounds) are factored in.

Guided missiles, top-down missiles, fire-and-forget missiles. Etc. etc. Its not every weapon, but its a solid set of important weapons that probably cover a wide variety of possible combat situations.

Line-of-sight is simulated on an incredible degree: height maps matter, but so do trees (partially obscured), houses, and smoke grenades even. Line of sight is best at 12noon. Line of sight is worst at night, unless your squads are equipped with thermal vision. Weather (foggy conditions especially) can change things dramatically.

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The simulated soldiers/tanks aren't the best, but they're smart enough to run away during artillery barrages and hunker down. They'll seek cover on their own (and if you tell them a direction to defend against, they'll look for cover on their own too against that direction). Tank commanders "button up" during enemy fire (reducing their vision but likely saving the commander's life). Covering fire is therefore effective.

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The AI is okay. The AI runs into traps and ambushes, and never really figures them out. Still, good enough to get you the basics of strategy of each of these weapons.

Seeing the 3000m range of a tank vs the 150m range of a M72 LAW really demonstrates the bravery that those unguided anti-tank bazooka squads have.

Re:Does the Tank Have a Future? by Ducking_Insane on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @08:50PM (#31761332)
An interesting game that addresses a very similar conflict is Combat Mission:Black Seas [1]. This simulates a hypothetical 2011 conflict between Ukraine and Russia. This game was made before the 2014 invasion. Versions of the game are used to train officers in the British Army. A youtuber, Usually Hapless [2] covers a lot of combined arms warfare stuff on his channel using Combat Mission as a base. It's worth looking at.

[1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1502380/Combat_Mission_Bl...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9egpHJiRis89uHkeyJiEug/vid...

Re:Does the Tank Have a Future? by jacquesm on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @03:26PM (#31758125)
There are some very interesting developments in this field:

https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1523791050313433088

Re:Does the Tank Have a Future? by MezzoDelCammin on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @01:08PM (#31756010)
Single place? Probably no. But You can go branch by branch.

For armor, Chieftain is probably as good as it gets in English when it comes to universality (he's both a historian and an active service Lt.Col. in the US NG).

For further armor sources, I'd highly recommend the YT channel of Tank Museum Bovington: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheTankMuseum

The chap whose video Chieftain replies to ("Perun") is worth following in his own right for the modern take on Russian / Ukraine war. He's more of an economist / logistician, but well worth watching:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC3ehuUksTyQ7bbjGntmx3Q

From Perun You'll often hear the name "Michael Kofman". He doesn't get one single place where you could find all of his stuff, but google him and go through the articles / videos he is in. He's often used as a source for quite a lot of commentary about Russian Army in the past 20 years or so. https://russianmilitaryanalysis.wordpress.com/

When it comes to general doctrine, it's sometimes useful to know the compositions of forces. This is a good starting point: https://www.youtube.com/c/BattleOrder

When it comes to modern navy, Jive Turkey (now called "SubBrief") is probably a cool starting point. Mainly submarines (he's an ex US Navy 688 sonar operator), but : https://www.youtube.com/c/SubBrief

Re:Does the Tank Have a Future? by ansible on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @04:50PM (#31759308)
Upvote for Perun. He very recently did a video on the apparent infantry shortage that the Russian forces seem to be facing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKewF8_SiIs

The short, short, short version is that the Russian BTGs (battalion tactical groups) and undermanned in general, and the conscripts are supposed to be filling most of the infantry slots. Theoretically, because this isn't a declared war, the conscripts aren't supposed to be fighting, and weren't sent to the "special military operation".

I enjoyed watching all the Ukraine war videos on that channel.

Re:Does the Tank Have a Future? by MezzoDelCammin on Thursday June 16, 2022 @05:45AM (#31764146)
Thanks. I'm still kinda new to this upvote thing ;-)

If You like Perun and want to dig a bit deeper, try checking out Kofman's articles / videos. He's used quite often as a source (and with quite some reverence) by Perun and others.

Here's one from 2019 where he basically says what everyone figured out in 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UktY0XePs0

Beware, it's not the best presentation, but his public speaking skills have seriously improved since ;-)

Here's a panel he did with West Point right at the beginning of the invasion, if You'd like to check how his stuff holds up (Col. L. Collins is a good one on his own as well). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXEvbVoDiU0&t=2378s&ab_chann...

Re:Does the Tank Have a Future? by nonameiguess on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @03:57PM (#31758589)
The US Army keeps a public repository of all field manuals approved for general release here: https://armypubs.army.mil/ProductMaps/PubForm/FM.aspx

I think the closest to what you're looking for is FM 3-96 the Brigade Combat Team (https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN31505-FM_3-9...). The is the smallest unit that includes effectively everything the Army can bring to bear, including infantry, armor, artillery, and rotary aviation. There might still be some fairly specialized intelligence, surveillance, and recon assets only available to divisions, but most of what the Army can deploy for fighting purposes exists in the BCTs at this point. I imagine other branches of service have their equivalents in terms of doctrine on how to employ submarines and fighter jets, but I only ever served in the Army and am most familiar with their tactics and doctrine.

Re:Does the Tank Have a Future? by themadturk on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @04:56PM (#31759374)
One place for a quick look at different types of armor and their uses, is the recent post at the A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry blog:

https://acoup.blog/2022/05/06/collections-when-is-a-tank-not...

Re:Does the Tank Have a Future? by pizzachan on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @01:00PM (#31755894)
I used to get a copy of Janes Defense Weekly at work. It was always a good read when I was a young kid on the hill. They even used to put out a buyers guide for IFVs/LAVs. If you want to cut through the noise for good military analysis you usually have to drop some decent dough.
Re:Does the Tank Have a Future? by ranger207 on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @04:04PM (#31758706)
Not a single source, but old.reddit.com/r/warCollege is fantastic. It's not as strict as /r/askHistorians (for better or for worse) but there are lots of active military officers on there who know their stuff