Saturday, August 08, 2009
The Balance of Power
There has been a constant evolution in tanks, since 1916, regarding the effectiveness of their armor versus the effectiveness of anti-tank weapons. For a while the tank is ascendant, then new technology is developed which gives the edge to the anti-tank weapons. Since the Germans developed the shaped charge on an RPG during WWII, the edge has been creeping towards anti-tank weapons. I recall hearing from an Israeli tanker at Stanford the horror stories from the 1973 Yom Kippur war, where tank after tank was knocked out by Soviet weapons using the Nazi technology. Although Israel has endeavored to improve their tanks, the Merkava I through Merkava IV, the re-invasion of southern Lebanon in 2006 went somewhat poorly because the crew fired anti-tank weapons (like the MILAN, the TOW and Kornet) were knocking out the Merkavas and slowing the IDF advance to a grueling, bloody crawl.
Times have changed. The Israelis have developed, in Trophy and Iron Fist systems, effective anti-anti-tank weapons, which brings the tank (and the APC) back to ascendancy. The systems see anti-tank weapons coming and either shoot them down or otherwise deflect them, making the tank relatively impervious to formerly effective counter-measures.
Real bad news for Hamas and Hezbollah--so real good news for the rest of the world.
Labels: IDF; Merkava Tank; Trophy and Iron Fist anti-anti-tank weapons
