Nicolas Drummond clarifies the discussion he started on MBTs & Mobile Gun Systems/Light Tanks...

Yesterday’s thread on MBTs versus MGS / Medium Tanks generated much discussion. For the record, I don’t think  Medium Tanks can replace MBTs, but they can augment them. Either way, it’s an important discussion to have. The real issue here is weight vs deployability vs protection

— Nicholas Drummond (@nicholadrummond) August 15, 2018

Well Nicolas certainly stirred stuff up with what I thought was a very necessary discussion on the role of MGS/Light tanks etc..on future battlefields.

Whether many want to admit it or not, ISR (sensors) are going to be the cat's meow.  Oh and I'm talking beyond line of sight too.  I don't like it but UAVs that operate on behalf of the ground force, maybe on behalf of individual vehicles is just the way its going to be.

You can't stop the future.

Another sad reality?

We're to the point where lethality has (at least according to open source info) outstripped armor.  The iron triangle is out of whack because we're almost to the point where anything on the battlefield can KILL the most heavily armored vehicles ANYONE has.

Which brings us back to the idea that if you can see first, maneuver properly, engage first and KILL, that you'll win every fight.

It's nothing stunning but for some reason traditionalist are fighting the idea of properly equipping our vehicles and ignoring the fact that MOBILITY is a type of armor that could be exploited by MGS/Light tanks and yield the same effects as their more heavily armored brothers.

But back on task.

I read the comments and I can understand a bit more why some become bitter, other decide to leave the field and many more simply stick their fingers in the wind and go with the flow.

Any move against conventional wisdom will get you smacked.  Unfortunately and to my shame, Nicolas got smacked on these pages simply because he raised points that no one wanted to acknowledge.

I mean seriously!  How radical was the thinking!  Why did we make cavalry?  So we could see first!  Recon in the Marine Corps?  So we could see first!  LRRPs in Vietnam?  So we could see first!  Why did we have pilots with big watches, fast airplanes go out alone to do recon!

Nothing strange was proposed...people were just tripping!