Future of Main Battle Tank Looks Secure
The decision late last year by the U.S. Marine Corps to send a tank platoon to Afghanistan was criticized by some analysts, who rejected the idea that M1A1 Abrams tanks could be useful in a counterinsurgency (COIN) environment.
But for all the talk in recent years of the civilian population representing a center of gravity in COIN operations, and the corresponding need to cut back on air strikes, long-range artillery fires and other initiatives, one aspect of COIN has often been ignored—even with the outreach, local alliance-building and efforts to spare civilians from the ravages of war, the need remains to kill the enemy.
As such, what the Marines are doing in southern Afghanistan with a platoon of tanks is hardly unusual. Main battle tanks (MBT) have been used successfully by the Canadians and the Dutch in southern Afghanistan, and by the Israelis, who learned hard lessons from bitter fighting in Lebanon in 2006, and went in heavy in Gaza in 2008-09. Rand Corp.’s David Johnson, a retired U.S. Army colonel who writes about heavy armor in conventional and irregular operations, and is finishing a book about Israel’s experience in Lebanon and Gaza, says Israeli officials tell him they’ve learned that if they don’t go into urban and asymmetric combat heavy, they won’t survive. “When they came out of Lebanon they restarted the Merkava Mk4 tank line to start building the Namer,” an armored personnel carrier based on a Merkava chassis, he says.
Tanks were critical in the U.S. Army’s fight against the Shiite Mahdi army in Baghdad’s Sadr City in 2008, and against Al Qaeda-backed Sunni insurgents in Fallujah in 2004, mainly due to the threat of rocket-propelled grenades and the entrenched nature of urban combat. “If you show up with a Merkava Mk4 or, in the case of the Canadians in Afghanistan, a Leopard 2 tank, insurgents have to be pretty dedicated to shoot at something that they know they won’t kill, but will kill them,” Johnson says.
To modify the Abrams for urban areas of Iraq, the Army undertook a major refit of the vehicle in 2005, producing the Tank Urban Survivability Kit (TUSK), now installed on more than 900 tanks. The kit includes belly armor, blast-resistant seating, gun shields, tile armor, a remotely operated weapon system, countersniper capabilities, thermal imaging and a rear-view camera. Army Majs. Howard Donaldson and Michael Sansone have written that “TUSK was the most critical modification effort in the history of the Abrams program.”
In Afghanistan, the Canadians and Dutch have used tanks to great effect—even providing fire support for British troops. Canadian Army Maj. Trevor Cadieu wrote in The Canadian Army Journal that after the Canadians deployed a squadron of Leopard 2 tanks to Kandahar in December 2006, “the tank squadron and armored engineers featured prominently in all major combat operations . . . Since May 2007, the tank squadron has fought almost constantly alongside Canadian and Afghan infantry in close combat with the Taliban.”
The Canadians found so much success in Afghanistan with the German-made Leopard tank that they revised plans for the structure of their ground forces. In 2001, Canada decided not to replace its aging Leopard I tanks, but to ride them until they died and transition to a lighter force structure using the Stryker-like light armored vehicle (LAV) infantry carriers as their heaviest equipment. It wasn’t long before the powerful roadside bombs Canadian troops encountered in southern Afghanistan changed this, prompting Ottawa to start a crash program to buy surplus German and Dutch Leopard 2 tanks, which began arriving in Afghanistan in 2008.
The Dutch had much the same experience with the Leopard 2 in Afghanistan, claiming that the tank’s 120-mm. gun is so accurate it minimizes civilian casualties.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have always held MBTs as a centerpiece of tactical operations, and the Merkava Mk4, combined with the Namer armored vehicle, has a sure future in IDF doctrine.
Utilizing its adaptable, modular design and “telescopic evolution,” the Merkava is transforming from a MBT to a multipurpose fighting vehicle, characterized by a balanced blend of protection, mobility, firepower and information systems. The tank is designed as a network-centric system with four redundant networks managed by multiple servers in the turret and hull. These have been enhanced with external wireless connectivity, enabling the latest Merkava tanks to share sensor data, situational displays and other information with nearby tanks and units.
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