The Future of Armored Warfare

We miss our animals.Since history closed the mounted arm's stables, soldiers have compensated by naming their units after dragons, lions, panthers and their great lost love, the horse.Tankers, especially, like to associate themselves with the sleek and ferocious.Unfortunately, the armored vehicles of the next century are apt to resemble hedgehogs, snakes, and caterpillars.Perhaps, someday, a hard-bitten NCO will slam down his beer mug, stand up and declare, "I'm from the Woolly-Bears, mister, and we don't like that kind of talk . . .."Armored vehicles will be around for a long time to come.But their shapes, sizes, weights, armor, armaments, propulsion, connectivity, battlefield awareness, and crewing will change profoundly.The continuity will be in the mission: to deliver local killing power and allow protected maneuver.The evolution of armored vehicles will be driven by technology and strategic requirements, but, above all, by the changing environment of combat: the increasing urbanization of warfare, and the growing transparency of traditional non-urban operations--in which we will be able to monitor the activities of enemy forces in real time.Far from being the twilight of the tank, the new era could become a great age of armor, but only if proponents and practitioners of mounted combat are willing to engage the future in a spirit of honest inquiry

Aeronautics · Biological warfare · Political science · Defense, Military, and Policy Studies · Engineering · Law · Military and Defense Studies

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