Re:Does the Tank Have a Future?
by bpodgursky on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @03:14PM
(#31757927)
I think there's a meaningful difference here, and it's very incorrect to consider it an incremental change.
An infantry squad dug into foxholes in some forest in WWII was really quite safe against artillery. A forward observer can maybe spot a tank or artillery battery (sometimes). A drone can scan an entire battlefield and identify infantry 10 miles behind a line of trenches, and coordinated artillery strikes can wipe them out.
That's hugely difference! It vastly changes the lethality per unit of artillery, and the relative risk for infantry units who aren't in obviously-fortified positions.
The underlying tactic of someone, or something, out in the field, issuing radio messages back to home-base to coordinate artillery has been around since WW2, maybe earlier. Drones represent an evolution to the forward-observer paradigm, not a revolution.
In WW2, those were paratroopers, commandos, or other scouts who were performing those forward-observer duties while hiding inside of a treeline.
Sure, they were Morse code messages over a radio powered by a 20lb lead-acid battery pack with terrible encryption, but the fundamental tactic hasn't changed (especially because said forward-observer team would rarely be spotted... since they aren't firing their guns they're really hard to find)