yes, missile spam is always a threat. sometimes two is enough (see RPG-30). sensors need to be outside, so if you can destroy them, things get easier. same goes with ERA, but the first hit tends to alert crew pretty reliably
do you want to put VLS on IFV? this gets expensive really quickly, and you don’t always need this capability. sometimes you need to clear a trench, or a bunker, or level a building, or something like mortar site, you can do it all with a big gun and it’s cheap, easy and fast. tank vs tank fights do seem to be pretty rare in current war, but happened in ie desert storm. TOW can do some of these things you’re thinking of, and it seems that few people considered these corner cases
Yeah I am not talking replacing a tank as a mobile machine gun nest/cannon used for creating and exploiting holes in a defensive line during an assault, a normal direct fire tank is as you say better suited for that. I am talking about normal tanks having an armored mobile close range vertical missile launch system that also manages unmanned surveillance vehicles as a compliment for extremely high threat situations as well as edgecases where cannon isn’t ideal.
When people say the tank isn’t going to die anytime soon I get what they are saying it is easy to sit in an armchair and speculate but I just don’t see how direct fire tanks make sense operating without a vehicle nearby with the capacity to hit non-LOS targets with guided missiles.
yes, missile spam is always a threat. sometimes two is enough (see RPG-30). sensors need to be outside, so if you can destroy them, things get easier. same goes with ERA, but the first hit tends to alert crew pretty reliably
do you want to put VLS on IFV? this gets expensive really quickly, and you don’t always need this capability. sometimes you need to clear a trench, or a bunker, or level a building, or something like mortar site, you can do it all with a big gun and it’s cheap, easy and fast. tank vs tank fights do seem to be pretty rare in current war, but happened in ie desert storm. TOW can do some of these things you’re thinking of, and it seems that few people considered these corner cases
Yeah I am not talking replacing a tank as a mobile machine gun nest/cannon used for creating and exploiting holes in a defensive line during an assault, a normal direct fire tank is as you say better suited for that. I am talking about normal tanks having an armored mobile close range vertical missile launch system that also manages unmanned surveillance vehicles as a compliment for extremely high threat situations as well as edgecases where cannon isn’t ideal.
When people say the tank isn’t going to die anytime soon I get what they are saying it is easy to sit in an armchair and speculate but I just don’t see how direct fire tanks make sense operating without a vehicle nearby with the capacity to hit non-LOS targets with guided missiles.