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While the cost of precision guided munitions is indeed going down (wittness the
the USN’s new “Tactical Tomahawk” with a price tag of around $575,000, about
half the cost of current Toms) using cost efficiency to justify the use of PGM
as a tank killer/replacement fails to take into account several other factors.
Firstly, any missile needs a firing platform (be it aircraft, ship or ground
vehicle) that needs to be factored into the equation. Secondly, if a truely
long range weapon is to be used it will most likely require additional targeting
information from local ground troops, a foreward air controller or a man in the
loop directly controlling the weapon. Botton line is that a $28 million
aircraft (F/A-18 as per USN Fact Files) firing a $180,000 missile (AGM-65
Maverick as per USN Fact File) will always be more costly than a $4.3 million
dollar M1A1 (USMC fact file) firing a APFSDS round (which the US army spent $5.3
million in 2004 for a year’s supply for a per unit cost of a coupla hundred
dollars).
The Pentagon is not planning a replacement for the Abrams because the current
design, with upgrades of course, will foreseeably be able to meet the current
and future threat levels for some time to come. Additionally, the Abrams set
the standard for tank mobility, and most modern tanks can hardly be described as
barely mobile massive targets.
Your sword and armor analogy is a valid one but it would apply to missile
technology as well. In the Yom Kippur war the Israeli Air Force suffered heavy
losses from SAMs until proper electronic jamming equipment became available.
While Air superiority is the mastercard of modern combat (“don’t leave home
without it”), one Iraqi commander after Desert Storm said something to the
effect that after 4 weeks of bombing he had lost 1/5th of his tanks and that he
lost the rest after 15 minutes of tank to tank fighting with M1A1s.
Still you hit the nail on the head by saying that mechs have a greater cool
factor than regular armored vehicles
Bryce Rollins
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Tanks or Power Armor
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| I'm surprised no one so far has answered the "tanks or power armor" question by saying, "missiles!" As information, positioning, sensor, and guidance technology continues to improve, it gets easier and easier to hit a ground-based target from long (...) (20 years ago, 27-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.geek, lugnet.build.mecha, lugnet.space, FTX)
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