FV4034 Challenger 2 Main Battle Tank (British Army)

[mr.fred]

could someone explain to me the sort of scenario in which these tanks might conceivably be used in future conflicts?

Any scenario where you need protected, mobile, firepower.

I'm just struggling totally to imagine how the something the size and weight of say 100 of these machines can be transported to some distant battlefield and all in time for tea. Maybe there is a credible answer, but I'm finding it difficult to imagine.

Rail, ship and to a lesser extent roads. in the same way you’d move 200 vehicles half the weight.

Is it possible that the role of tanks, at least in a smallish army on an offshore island, has come to an end? Or to look at it another way: Since we're always likely to enter some future war in partnership with other nations, who may well be closer to the site of the action and/or posses much greater transport resources, why not expect then to provide the tank forces and we'll focus our own limited resources on equipment and expertise that can complement those of our partner nations?

I doubt it. What if your ally has taken the same position and you end up with a gap in your force? Also “Tank” is quite a broad term. Many of the pundits who recommend the death of the tank usually end up recommending something that is also a tank, just a bit different. Some think that AFVs aren’t needed and infantry is all that’s needed; this concept will last as long as it takes for an advancing force to get fixed in place by a couple of machine guns then obliterated by artillery.

[albedo]

could someone explain to me the sort of scenario in which these tanks might conceivably be used in future conflicts?

Any scenario where you need protected, mobile, firepower.

OK, but give me a credible example please.

I'm just struggling totally to imagine how the something the size and weight of say 100 of these machines can be transported to some distant battlefield and all in time for tea. Maybe there is a credible answer, but I'm finding it difficult to imagine.

Rail, ship and to a lesser extent roads. in the same way you’d move 200 vehicles half the weight.

Can the channel tunnel be used? Are foreign railways likely to be cooperative? Maybe we do have the rail wagons? Do we have road transporters to match? If some or all were loaded on to a ship then surely that's a very juicy target?

I doubt it. What if your ally has taken the same position and you end up with a gap in your force?

Well, I was imagining some prior agreement, which I'm sure wouldn't be perfect but might be doable within NATO (and presumably already happens). For a potential Russian land incursion, wouldn't countries like Poland and Germany be much better placed to provide the tank force, while we provide something more complementary. A country like the UK which will be sinking down the prosperity league just cannot afford to cover all bases - it has to be selective. What should it choose to do and what should be put to sleep?

[mr.fred]

OK, but give me a credible example please.

Previous cases:
Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq again, Afghanistan.
Future examples:
North Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, the Balkans again?
Can you give an example where they absolutely won’t be useful?

Can the channel tunnel be used? Are foreign railways likely to be cooperative? Maybe we do have the rail wagons? Do we have road transporters to match? If some or all were loaded on to a ship then surely that's a very juicy target?

Yes.
No less or more than road networks
If we don’t we should
As above
Yes, a single ship is vulnerable, but that’s not a new thing. Supply chains strung out along unsecured road networks aren’t safe either.

With regards to prior agreement, how do you know you’ll always have that? That you’re not going to end up needing to intervene somewhere that you don’t have an agreement?

[RetroSicotte]

It is strange to question the role of tanks when there are multilpe active warzones in the world right now proving the current need for them.

There is no other ground force, none, absolutely zero, ziltch, that can withstand the impact of a contempary heavy armour brigade on any strategic level without possessing their own. Air power cannot be relied on for continuous presence (moreso for the limited UK!) and without that, you need heavy, mobile, protected anti-armour capability.

Not to mention the fact that if you're trying to advance AGAINST tanks, without tanks, then you have gone badly wrong. Take note that even when faced with only T-55s, the British Army still led the way with Challenger in Basra. And that was when the UK had far more ATGMs per deployed force than it does now.

Both the Netherlands and Canada tried to get rid of them, and then immediately realised "Oh wait, this completely cripples our army's ability to fight in a modern area" and went to great expense to re-establish them, neither as potent as they used to be because of it.

The question isn't "justify the tank". It's "can you possibly justify NOT having tanks?" Even the "we're an island" thing is a worthless argument, in my opinion. For one, the US is even more of an island from its conflicts, and they put massive emphasis on it. Japan is even more self defensive than the UK, and they've never stopped developing them. Australia retains them too. The UK is not somehow special.

[Zero Gravitas]

No idea whether this is news or not but the bbc says that only around half of the 227 are actually ready to be deployed.

Do the other half just need a lick of paint and an oil change or have they been cannibalised for years like those Merlins?

[RunningStrong]

It is strange to question the role of tanks when there are multilpe active warzones in the world right now proving the current need for them.

Out of interest, which active warzones are currently seeing active use of tanks?

[SD67]

No idea whether this is news or not but the bbc says that only around half of the 227 are actually ready to be deployed.

Do the other half just need a lick of paint and an oil change or have they been cannibalised for years like those Merlins?

Maybe cynical but I assume any equipment that's in storage and not being used regularly will cease to be usable after a while. And there's the larger question of what's the point? Why have 100 vehicles in storage so that we can pretend we have a two brigade capability, frankly I'd rather donate them to Estonia or Ukraine - at least then they're being used.

I think we need to take a hard nosed look at where we fit into the Western alliance. The Polish field 700 MBTs and they're starting alot closer to the potential enemy than ours.

[Ron5]

I think we need to take a hard nosed look at where we fit into the Western alliance. The Polish field 700 MBTs and they're starting alot closer to the potential enemy than ours.

Don't you mean "a" potential enemy not "the"?

Or are you swallowing the RAF propaganda that only NATO and Russia matters? Propaganda to justify their dreams of defunding the Navy and spending everything on preparing for Battle of Britain II?

[mr.fred]

It is strange to question the role of tanks when there are multilpe active warzones in the world right now proving the current need for them.

Out of interest, which active warzones are currently seeing active use of tanks?

Syria is the obvious one.
Yemen another.
Ukraine has quieted down a bit of late, but i’d count it.

[RetroSicotte]

I think we need to take a hard nosed look at where we fit into the Western alliance. The Polish field 700 MBTs and they're starting alot closer to the potential enemy than ours.

I want to clarify that the following post is not entirely directed at just you, but rather the greater perception of those who think they're being "innovative" by simply cutting stuff. Please bear that in mind for the below, it's not a personal reply tothe quote, it's merely one that brought me to the subject.

----

Armies don't work like a tabletop wargame where a force turns up with a tankless force and then gets slotted in with someone else's tanks because they have them and then it just "works". That's not how deployment functions at all. If the British Army don't have tanks, they don't just get given a bunch by an ally. That ally has their own formations to worry about. Wherever the British one is based will need its own, or one of two things will happen.

1) The British force must be given a supporting force by an ally, which pretty much defeats the entire purpose and results in said ally needing to damage their own plans to "cover" for the reinforcements that were supposed to be helping them, thinning out the overall force away from where they were intended to be originally.

2) The British force cannot perform in a frontline role, at which point one of the biggest allies in NATO is sitting around doing nothing of significant value on the ground relative to the UK's perceived role, as it cannot be trusted to hold a line, or advance against one.

This isn't the relatively light sandbox of Afghanistan where the Danish can roll a casual group of tanks in to cover for the politicians being too afraid to send Challenger and ISAF has such superiority and (comparitively) slow rate of action that they can just do it at a relaxed manner. When it comes to contempary, conventional, peer warfare, it's much much different.

The whole "Ah we're miles away, and we're an island..." line to me is not being "innovative", it's not being "realistic", it's not being "focused".

It's called being irresponsible, is what it is.

[RunningStrong]

It is strange to question the role of tanks when there are multilpe active warzones in the world right now proving the current need for them.

Out of interest, which active warzones are currently seeing active use of tanks?

Syria is the obvious one.
Yemen another.
Ukraine has quieted down a bit of late, but i’d count it.

So no conflicts that have actually seen in armour versus armour contacts?

[mr.fred]

So no conflicts that have actually seen in armour versus armour contacts?

Maybe not, but how is that relevant?

[RunningStrong]

So no conflicts that have actually seen in armour versus armour contacts?

Maybe not, but how is that relevant?

Then none of those are good examples of todays conflicts of either repelling a contemporary heavily armoured brigade or advancing on an opposition force with tanks.

All those conflicts are asymmetric, and all are showing the vulnerability of tanks when employed in guerilla, asymmetric warfare.

I'm not saying tanks don't have a purpose, but using today's conflicts is a terrible way to evidence it.

[SD67]

It is strange to question the role of tanks when there are multilpe active warzones in the world right now proving the current need for them.

There is no other ground force, none, absolutely zero, ziltch, that can withstand the impact of a contempary heavy armour brigade on any strategic level without possessing their own. Air power cannot be relied on for continuous presence (moreso for the limited UK!) and without that, you need heavy, mobile, protected anti-armour capability.

Not to mention the fact that if you're trying to advance AGAINST tanks, without tanks, then you have gone badly wrong. Take note that even when faced with only T-55s, the British Army still led the way with Challenger in Basra. And that was when the UK had far more ATGMs per deployed force than it does now.

Both the Netherlands and Canada tried to get rid of them, and then immediately realised "Oh wait, this completely cripples our army's ability to fight in a modern area" and went to great expense to re-establish them, neither as potent as they used to be because of it.

The question isn't "justify the tank". It's "can you possibly justify NOT having tanks?" Even the "we're an island" thing is a worthless argument, in my opinion. For one, the US is even more of an island from its conflicts, and they put massive emphasis on it. Japan is even more self defensive than the UK, and they've never stopped developing them. Australia retains them too. The UK is not somehow special.

No disagreement with the general sentiment which is that heavy MBTs are desirable. No doubt the navy thought the same about cats and traps in 1979 and the RAF thought the same about the V bomber force before it was scrapped with no replacement.

But I think the discussion needs to start from reality. And the reality is the BAOR no longer exists. We did not deploy MBTS to Astan and no one can deny we were deeply entrenched in that conflict. No money has been spent on CR2 for a long time. Half the force are either in Canada or in deep storage. We do not currently have a meaningful armoured capability that would make a great deal of difference in a near peer conflict. Those are the hard facts.

And please note nobody forced the army to spend 3.5 billion and counting on a powerpoint IFV program that has so far produced a grand total of 10 vehicles. The Australian army is buying a realistic number of M1’s off the shelf for under a billion. You make your choices

[RetroSicotte]

So no conflicts that have actually seen in armour versus armour contacts?

Both Ukraine and Syria/Iraq have seen armour conflict occurring. There was some particularly notable ones from near Donbass where people were analysing the effect of APFSDS on the T-72s being used. The point was "What wars are seeing tanks being used?" and then the point became "which ones have armour vs armour?" That's already one goalpost move. Is the next "Which ones that are today AND have armour vs armour AND have a certain arbitrary scale of how many tanks in a given radius?"

Armour is being used across the world, today, vs other armour, and is a key component of every single major military in the world's ground forces. We cannot pretend the UK is somehow just special and gets to ignore that.

[RetroSicotte]

No disagreement with the general sentiment which is that heavy MBTs are desirable. No doubt the navy thought the same about cats and traps in 1979 and the RAF thought the same about the V bomber force before it was scrapped with no replacement.

Neither of those are comparitives to this at all. Both are extreme high end luxurys that only the very top (maybe 1-3) nations in the world use if you have a massive budget or focus extremely on one of them. Tanks are a global constant. Every military in the world worth their salt has them. Every. One.

But I think the discussion needs to start from reality. And the reality is the BAOR no longer exists. We did not deploy MBTS to Astan and no one can deny we were deeply entrenched in that conflict.

Yeah, because the Danish did it for us. Every nation that took them found incredible success.

No money has been spent on CR2 for a long time. Half the force are either in Canada or in deep storage. We do not currently have a meaningful armoured capability that would make a great deal of difference in a near peer conflict. Those are the hard facts.

Which is why it needs upgraded.

And please note nobody forced the army to spend 3.5 billion and counting on a powerpoint IFV program that has so far produced a grand total of 10 vehicles. The Australian army is buying a realistic number of M1’s off the shelf for under a billion. You make your choices

[/quote][/quote]
None of that takes away from the battlefield reality that you either have them and are credible, or you don't and are not.

[RunningStrong]

So no conflicts that have actually seen in armour versus armour contacts?

Both Ukraine and Syria/Iraq have seen armour conflict occurring. There was some particularly notable ones from near Donbass where people were analysing the effect of APFSDS on the T-72s being used. The point was "What wars are seeing tanks being used?" and then the point became "which ones have armour vs armour?" That's already one goalpost move. Is the next "Which ones that are today AND have armour vs armour AND have a certain arbitrary scale of how many tanks in a given radius?"

Armour is being used across the world, today, vs other armour, and is a key component of every single major military in the world's ground forces. We cannot pretend the UK is somehow just special and gets to ignore that.

Seem a bit defensive, I'm not even putting out goalposts, simply asking questions to ascertain your view on the use of heavy armour in the present day.

You forget that the decision makers on this aren't forum users. They're not even soldiers. They're politicians and military personnel that haven't seen the sharp-end in 10 years.

So yeah, having a ropey argument that references conflicts that have sketchy details of armoured conflicts at best is an argument built on sand.

Every military has tanks, that is true. But a tank in itself is quite an easy thing to have. I could buy a tank tomorrow. It's not the same level of commitment as an aircraft carrier or a strategic bomber.

The question then should be, how many nations have 3rd gen and 4th gen tanks. That's by no means an exclusive club, but it's certainly not a global constant.

[SD67]

No disagreement with the general sentiment which is that heavy MBTs are desirable. No doubt the navy thought the same about cats and traps in 1979 and the RAF thought the same about the V bomber force before it was scrapped with no replacement.

Neither of those are comparitives to this at all. Both are extreme high end luxurys that only the very top (maybe 1-3) nations in the world use if you have a massive budget or focus extremely on one of them. Tanks are a global constant. Every military in the world worth their salt has them. Every. One.

But I think the discussion needs to start from reality. And the reality is the BAOR no longer exists. We did not deploy MBTS to Astan and no one can deny we were deeply entrenched in that conflict.

Yeah, because the Danish did it for us. Every nation that took them found incredible success.

No money has been spent on CR2 for a long time. Half the force are either in Canada or in deep storage. We do not currently have a meaningful armoured capability that would make a great deal of difference in a near peer conflict. Those are the hard facts.

Which is why it needs upgraded.

And please note nobody forced the army to spend 3.5 billion and counting on a powerpoint IFV program that has so far produced a grand total of 10 vehicles. The Australian army is buying a realistic number of M1’s off the shelf for under a billion. You make your choices

[/quote]
None of that takes away from the battlefield reality that you either have them and are credible, or you don't and are not.[/quote]

Fair points. But doesn’t take away from the basic fact that in the real world you have a budget and you have to make choices. The navy sacrificed half their fleet to get the new carriers. That’s a choice and a trade off. Airforce are likely going to cap F35 at 70 and have already given up Tornado.

The army effectively made the same choice when they poured/ allocated a fortune into medium weight armour If they didn’t know that would threaten CR3 then they weren’t thinking clearly. For less than has already been spent on Ajax - which is 3.5 £ bn - army could have purchased 100+ M1 or Leo2 supported by 300 CV90 plus change. The French army are buying their new Jaguar recce vehicle for 1 million euro per unit, fixed price incl R&D. Then there’s the Panther debacle which was pure corruption - half a billion. Warrior CSP which will never work, the base platform is too old. Bowman. SA80. I’m struggling to think of something the army have got right. Any business with this track record would be deep in litigation and maybe insolvency. Frankly I wouldn’t give the army another penny until they get their house in order and prove they can deliver something. Sorry to sound harsh but I suspect this is what the Treasury are saying right now and at the end of the day it’s their money

[mr.fred]

Then none of those are good examples of todays conflicts of either repelling a contemporary heavily armoured brigade or advancing on an opposition force with tanks.

All those conflicts are asymmetric, and all are showing the vulnerability of tanks when employed in guerilla, asymmetric warfare.

I'm not saying tanks don't have a purpose, but using today's conflicts is a terrible way to evidence

Tank vs tank or not is not a relevant discriminator for the use of tanks.
Vulnerability of tanks in guerrilla warfare is not especially a thing and consequently not relevant either.
There are ongoing conflicts where tanks are being used. The forces involved don’t care about your prejudices.

[mr.fred]

Frankly I wouldn’t give the army another penny until they get their house in order and prove they can deliver something.

Does cutting your nose off to spite your face work?
How can the Army deliver anything with their funding cut?

Would you care to consider how well the Army does compared to other Government departments?
HS2, Crossrail, and NHS IT projects spring to mind.

ETA:
I was just watching the CDS answering questions on defence. Annualisation of budget and consistency of people in posts were two points he was most interested in.

[RetroSicotte]

Fair points. But doesn’t take away from the basic fact that in the real world you have a budget and you have to make choices. The navy sacrificed half their fleet to get the new carriers. That’s a choice and a trade off. Airforce are likely going to cap F35 at 70 and have already given up Tornado.

This is an incorrect comparison. For one, the RAF is getting their fast jets, they're not giving them up. The Navy's carriers did not sacrifice "half the fleet", because the plan for the UK always relied on having carriers in some form or another. Whereas this argument many are taking of "you don't NEED tanks" would be asking to completely remove a core, essential capability that no other military of note in the world seems to think the same for

The army effectively made the same choice when they poured/ allocated a fortune into medium weight armour If they didn’t know that would threaten CR3 then they weren’t thinking clearly. For less than has already been spent on Ajax - which is 3.5 £ bn - army could have purchased 100+ M1 or Leo2 supported by 300 CV90 plus change. The French army are buying their new Jaguar recce vehicle for 1 million euro per unit, fixed price incl R&D. Then there’s the Panther debacle which was pure corruption - half a billion. Warrior CSP which will never work, the base platform is too old. Bowman. SA80. I’m struggling to think of something the army have got right. Any business with this track record would be deep in litigation and maybe insolvency. Frankly I wouldn’t give the army another penny until they get their house in order and prove they can deliver something. Sorry to sound harsh but I suspect this is what the Treasury are saying right now and at the end of the day it’s their money

So rather than fixing the problems the only solution is to spitefully ruin the army and cause lives to be lost when they need to deploy because they don't have the kit they need?

[Lord Jim]

The main issue as I see it is that the Defence Budget is insufficient to meet all the request being made of it now let alone when additional requirements are placed on it such as Cyber and "Space". The Defence budget should not be greatly affected by cyber unless the Government decide that defence is where the money will come from to fund and expansion of GCHQ, who are the main organisation responsible for dealing with cyber. Yes the MoD needs a certain level of capability but this is linked mainly to the battle field, not even asymmetric warfare.

Looking at whether we need to retain Main Battle Tanks I think there are two sides to this, operations within NATO on its eastern border and out of area operations. With the first the argument has been made that other nations have far more MBTs than we do, are nearer where they could be needed and so we should provide other capabilities that compliment these. This is not a ridiculous idea as some have stated. At present most NATO ready formations are a conglomeration of units from many members, varying in size from a Brigade to as small as a company. They train to operate together both at Divisional level down to multinational Battalion sized Battle Groups. Moving forward there is a strong chance that the British Army may not operate as a unified formation, but contribute numerous formations to larger multinational ones, each nation bring what it is most capable of where possible.

Then there is the issue that the Army need to actually replace nearly its entire AFV fleet over the next ten years yet has not the funding to do so. With additional capabilities already being sought and more likely to appear over the next decade something has to give, as there is not going to be some magical pot of gold suddenly appearing. If we try to retain all the existing conventional capabilities and carry out the essential modernisation the result is going to be the Army shrinking to a level that would make deploying either an Armoured Infantry or Strike Brigade difficult, though still possible with a lot of bodging here and there. The alternative is to reduce the number of capabilities available, and here the choice at present is unfortunately going either down the Heavy or Medium routes. AS I said something has to give.

The growing issue of UK contributions to any NATO theatre operation is actually getting our forces where they will be needed fast enough and with enough resources to actually matter. By sea will only probably get them to ports like Hamburg at best which is still along way from their destination. By rail will also be difficult. We do not have the railway stock to move large numbers of ARVs, we haven't for decades as our forces were in Germany and since they majority have returned home no one has made an effort to rectify this. This leave by road, and our fleet of HETs and METs can only transport a single Strike Brigades planned allocation of tracked platforms let alone an Armoured Infantry Brigade. But at least the Boxer Battalions could get their under their own power, at least in theory. Even with the Strike Brigades though, the majority of our Engineering equipment is also both tracked and heavy placing more strain on our transportation assets. Than again does REME have enough assets to ensure the vehicles we send actually arrive rather than breaking down on route having been pushed too hard?

Turning to out of area operations, besides the middle east on a couple of occasions, how often has the UK deployed large amounts of heavy armour outside of NATO/Europe in the last four or five decades? Do people still think it is viable for the UK to ship an Armoured Infantry Brigade to Malaysia or some other country in Africa or the Far East? Could we even support such a formation once it actually got there? And the Middle East, in GWII we sent a single Armoured Regiment plus a Squadron as part of a Heavy Brigade and how long did it take us to get it and its associated logistics and support units into position? Just the effort required to do so would probably make our politicians shy away from doing such deployments again.

So yes we can retain our Main Battle Tanks and the associated fleets of other AFVs, but if we do the planned Strike Brigades will be starved of funds, number of equipment and personnel will likely be reduced significantly and we will end up with a force that is difficult to move to where it might be needed in a rapid fashion, expensive to maintain and train, and less likely to be needed. They will become our conventional deterrent, which many will pray we never have to use, not because of any end of the world event (hopefully), but because the cost to do so will be immense and the size deployed will be more a show of being there and showing our faces than delivery an effective and decisive formation.

As for the alternatives, well that is for another thread so I will put my fingers in my ears and wait for the explosion!

[Ron5]

The Australian army is buying a realistic number of M1’s off the shelf for under a billion. You make your choices

I'll let the more expert reply to your other objections to tanks but you really need to stop spouting this nonsense that buying M1's or Leopards are cheaper than upgrading Challenger.

Firstly, check how much the Australians are having to spend to upgrade their M1's to a point they can actually be deployed. As many countries have found to the cost, buying cheapo used tanks isn't the greatest of bargains when you add in all the necessary expensive refurbishing & upgrades.

Secondly, the Treasury has exercised the question of new tank vs upgraded CH2's extensively & repeatedly. Each time the upgraded program comes out to be a lot cheaper.

So please drop it, the cheaper option is upgrade. Period.

[Ron5]

The question then should be, how many nations have 3rd gen and 4th gen tanks. That's by no means an exclusive club, but it's certainly not a global constant.

Please help me out, why is this the question, I don't get it?

[RunningStrong]

The question then should be, how many nations have 3rd gen and 4th gen tanks. That's by no means an exclusive club, but it's certainly not a global constant.

Please help me out, why is this the question, I don't get it?

Because a country's tank count/credibility can be grossly inflated by 2nd gen tanks. So the original claim that any army worth it's salt has tanks is a very broad church definition.