Forum Overview :: Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball :: I am to tanks as Barbie is to small arms.

[quote name="Chairman Mao"][quote name="E. L. Koba"] [quote name="Bitter"]To address another point made later, Javelin is fire and forget. In the real world, you probably wouldn't just stand around and watch it fly, unless your opponents are Iraqis and you can you pretty much idle your ass at will. Note that the motor is essentially smokeless, so it's not like a guy in the tank would see jack shit. Also, there's not much backblast, so Javelin can be fired out of windows, from under overhangs, etc.[/quote] I'm not saying it's not a good weapon. It's great from everything I've heard. Actually, anything that gets rid of the Dragon is good idea. Just that one good anti-tank weapon does not put the tank of of business. People have been saying the age of the tank is over ever since they discovered the Monroe Effect.[/quote] Also: Most modern tanks, even Chinese, Indian and Russian ones, to say nothing of supurb tanks like the Abrams, Leopard, or Challenger II, have infrared or milimeter band threat warning sensors that would most certainly see the missile, smokeless or not. Poeple have been saying the age of artillery is over as well, but after the tremendous amount of use the Paladin's saw in Iraq, hopefully there will be life left in the Crusader after all. Supposedly they have renewed the project, with a hull redesign to slim it to 40 tonnes. We'll see. As for the death of the tank; Its often likened to the battleship, even though the analogy is largely inapplicable. Every time the "transformational warfare" people start to chatter about how everything needs to be light, another war rolls around and heavy armour proves itself yet again. Indeed, its seems that Vietnam was the exception, and not the rule, as the light-mobile people seem to think. I didn't have a whole lot of faith in the notion that the M1's eventual successor will weigh no more than 40 tons and offer similar armoured protection, until I heard about EM armour (intense EM lines of force form inside the plate as a penetrator strikes, energies similar to a rail gun's propulsion charge). Pretty slick. I think the tank is here to stay, as one component of a tightly-knit combined-arms force. [/quote]