Tanks, but no tanks

With a budget looming and no more money incoming for defence, The Telegraph reports that soldiers and officers at the 3rd (UK) Division who were due to qualify later this year as tank commanders on a Cyclone exercise have had their training slashed.

The decision was made to save money and left the Army without a full complement of Challenger 2 tank commanders. Senior commanders are said to be “tearing their hair out”. Despite this, No 10 waiting until next autumn to say how and when it will adequately fund defence.

Meanwhile, it has not gone unnoticed that the UK has committed more than £88 million in humanitarian and early recovery support for Palestinians in the current financial year.

All the same, I really don’t know why we are wasting our time with main battle tanks. The likes of Tom Tugendhat would gladly see Britain joining the fight in Ukraine, but that isn’t going to happen so there is no point in equipping for such a fight. Since we have too few tanks to mount a major armoured offensive, with overall numbers due to decline after the Challenger 3 upgrade, we might as well just give the remaining Challengers to Ukraine and let them get on with it.

Essentially, there is no point going to the enormous expense of operating main battle tanks unless we’re procuring them in serious numbers. Armoured assaults are all about mass, assuming you can still make the case that large armoured formations are still relevant on the modern battlefield.

There are plenty of people lining up to tell me that tanks are still relevant, not least because counter drone technologies are improving all the time, but it’s still the case that the modern battlefield is monitored by an elaborate grid of sensors and cameras, meaning that no major movement goes undetected. It becomes impossible to assemble any kind of force mass for a major breakthrough. This is why we haven’t seen a repeat attempt as a Summer offensive in Ukraine.

Either way, I think it’s a redundant argument as far as British procurement is concerned. If the land war in Ukraine escalates into a wider war (which seems unlikely) it is more Germany and Poland’s problem than ours, and a smaller British force would probably be the backstop, at which point we need something fast with a big gun. We are now back to tank destroyer doctrine, which points to something wheeled akin with the Centauro 2 or the French EBRC Jaguar.

My thinking on this is that we probably aren’t going to get sucked into Ukraine and by the time Britain does equip and train for such a deployment, the war will be over, or in a frozen state. If we are going to spend money on toys for the army then we are as well having something air deployable, preferably two at a time, on an A400M. Instability in Africa could end up being the more serious threat to Europe, especially in terms of displaced peoples.

As much as anything, I just don’t think Challenger 3 is going to be up to much. I watch a lot of defence and geopolitics YouTube, lately not least because it's the closest thing there is to a cure for insomnia. Most of the defence equipment analysis is geeky Top Trumps kit-stroking, that actually tells us nothing useful.

What I've found particularly interesting is the debate around Challenger 3. Following the deployment of Challenger 2 in Ukraine, it's consistently being rebranded as the "sniper tank" owing to the accuracy and lethality of its gun (Which Challenger 3 won’t actually have). Never mind that it's underpowered an obese.

The term "sniper tank" is derived from its usage in Ukraine, where it skirts the edge of the battlefield and picks off targets from a distance. On that basis, the battlefield asset is the gun, not the vehicle. What matters most is mobility - which it doesn't have. Its role as a sniper tank is what it's relegated to because if it does venture out into open ground, it is shat on in about nine seconds flat.

As such, the deliberate rebranding as a lethal "sniper" is to repackage expensive and heavy junk. Once facet of sniping is stealth, which it simply does not have in a battlefield dominated by sensors, cameras and satellites. It's about as stealthy as, well, a 75 tonne tank. As such, the procurement of Challenger 3 is a triumph of rebranding and advertising over military doctrine. If we insist on having that capability then Centauro 2 (pictured below) would do the job about as well.

Meanwhile, the Tories seem to think there is money in the kitty to spend £10bn on a missile defence shield - which, as yet, nobody is able to define. I would have thought, what with being an island nation, and heavily dependent on imports by sea, some sort of navy would be a good idea - as opposed to fantasy fighting armadas for a land war we are unlikely to fight.