Work the Problems: Tanker Thought

Work the Problems: Tanker Thought by CPT Adriano Santiago Garcia “Give us the tools and we will finish the job,” Sir Winston Churchill famous ly said during the Battle of Britain, the air conflict that saved the English is land from Adolf Hitler’s invasion. However, armies will never be battle-ready 100 percent of the time in ma teriel and training so that they can be deployed any place to face any situa tion just like magic. Some of the short fall can be attributed to voices within individual countries who contest the military budget, and this sometimes impacts the end of the acquisition line in less-effective equipment. But “it is what it is,” as the saying goes; one works the problems before one. This article’s main objective is to show the difficulties and solutions tank leaders face when they know their machines are not state-of-art. As an example, we will analyze a tank company equipped with the basic ver sion of a Leopard 1A5 tank and look at how tank leaders work to minimize their problems.

International problem Not-state-of-the-art materiel is an in ternational problem. Many times, mul tinational task forces mix different tanks, Infantry Fighting Vehicles and armored personnel carriers within the same battle group. As we know, lead ers need to make all assets work to gether to accomplish the mission. In Latin America, Eastern Europe and some Asian countries, armored forces’ reality is that Cold War-era vehicles might be upgraded in some capabili ties but still conserve their original firepower and ammunition set. Inside this reality, preparing and training in dividuals and tank crews is priority when operations require tank-forces deployment.

Observing the countries of Strong Eu ropean Tank Challenge (SETC) 2018, it is possible to illustrate the differences in equipment in basic aspects such as armored protection, command-and-control and, most importantly, fire power.

Work with what you have Some observations regarding firepow er:

• The first thing a tank leader will observe when he studies an enemy is the firepower of his weapons. Our Leopard 1A5 is equipped with a very reliable fire-control system (FCS) that has the same first-hit probabili ties that Leopard 2 tanks have. The German-built version of the British L7 A3 105mm gun, similar to the Figure 1. Different types of tanks used during SETC 2018: Germany, Leopard 2A6; France, LeClerc; United Kingdom, Challenger 2; Poland, Leopard 2A5; Romania, TR-85; Sweden, Stridsvagen (“combat carriage”) 122; Ukraine, T-84; and United States, M1 Abrams. American M-48 Patton (and its de scendent, the M-60), certainly increas es range capabilities and armor pene tration.

• In tank-against-tank combat, the larger caliber will possess the standoff, hitting our forces long before our FCS can be in active range to fight.

When a tactical leader knows that his adversary’s main battle tank has a sim ilar or inferior firepower to his tanks, the first step in defeating the enemy is to really know his gun range to cripple the enemy’s tanks and disable his FCS through our mobility.

• Employ overkill shooting. To know the damage each type of tank ammunition can create, leaders should design different types of operational scenarios where they might use more ammunition on each target than needed.

The use of overkill shooting creates the real damage so that during mis sion analysis, leaders can requisition up to twice the amount of ammunition than normal.

• The logistics process to rearm must be perfectly trained to maintain the maximum number of tanks in an engagement.

The crew’s gunners and tank com manders need to be especially sharp and ready to see first, identify first and react first (the “three Fs” pro cess). For this to happen, the pla toon’s master gunner must ob tain the maxi mum rates during training tables --especially the most elementary ones – to create the almost-in stantaneous re sponse amalgam ating the “three F” tasks.

When tank lead ers have perfect knowledge of how much blast they have and how accurate their shoots are; understand dis advantages of overloading the logistics structures; and are sure of the part they will play, they have the tools to start a real, con sistent plan.

However, despite all the information and intelligence that leaders will use to create their orders, it is important to remember the famous quote of Helmut von Moltke, the Prussian ar my’s chief of staff before World War I: “No battle plan survives contact with enemy.”

Work where you are Seize the high ground. The Yom Kip pur War is an example of when good use of terrain was the solution to fac ing a more powerful armored force. Is rael used a mix of different types of tanks when it was trying to block two invasion forces: Syria, invading Israel’s north in the Golan Heights, and Egypt, coming into the south across the Suez Canal into the Sinai Desert. Israeli tanks took the high ground in the desert to block Egyptian forces equipped with cutting-edge Soviet ma teriel. When Egyptian tanks ap proached Israeli defense positions, they were stunned to realize their gun tubes couldn’t elevate to engage the Israelis, and this advantage reversed the situation for the Israelis, allowing a free shoot on the Egyptian tanks be low.

Use camouflage. In the years follow ing the Yom Kippur War, each nation’s tanks became more heavily armed and protected, giving tankers the sense that each ton brought more force and each vehicle was its own sealed for tress. But when our enemy is more protected than we are, two basic Figure 2. The Taiwanese army has 220 M-60 tanks in service, which have the M-68 105mm gun.

New camouflage net can cover, occult or dissimulate the shape, color and heat signature of armored vehicles, so the correct camouflage discipline –that includes covering tracks visible from the air – correct use of natural and artificial covers, and discipline in communications – for example, use of wire communications in assembly ar eas instead of radio – can create a false sense of security in the enemy. Proper terrain use. Closely associated with seizing the high ground is the principle of using the terrain in two as pects: against the enemy and in your favor. The enemy will plan the same thing, of course, but the main differ ence is in how terrain will impact the tanks of each side.

As an example, Leopard 1A5 tanks weigh less than 45 tons combat-ready, so they have more effective off-road capabilities than most heavy tanks. Heavy tanks are more prone to getting stuck in mud or are denied passage through some kinds of terrain, so this works against an enemy, creating a natural death trap.

Planning to use the terrain to our ad vantage requires focus during the crew-training phase. Tank command ers must study how to maneuver their own vehicles; approach enemy posi tions while protected at points that permit shooting; and disappear with steady and synchronized maneuver to gain terrain or just create damage. Improving odds The principle to success during plan ning and training is to be a hard, true self-critic. Only then will it be possible to rank your main weak spots. After this analysis, you do hard work in training on those points while starting to think of creative solutions to solve or lessen problems.

The constant work will improve how you get the best of your equipment such as thermal-vision observations. It will also help you in searching for tar gets using tank sights and other devic es such as binoculars; to understand hotspots in the heat signature; and to improve your tank’s possibilities and tactics, techniques or combat actions. Tank leaders in the entire chain of command must conduct a regular and constant study of new technologies, ammunition types and devices to reg ularly check how effective training is and adapt to overcome the most dan gerous things – or even to suggest the modernization of components. Principles of joint operations Some principles:

• The highest tactical leaders may follow operational principles to design their orders, but if those principles are not imparted to the other side of the chain of command, the principles can kill the planning process itself.

• We explored the condition that if your tanks aren’t in state-of-the-art shape, you may need more logistics resources to sustain operations.

• There is the side that thinks the principle of economy-of-force must be supreme to all others and give the minimum resources necessary to Figure 4. Leopard 1A5 tank. Figure 5. Planning process and simulation. troops in the field.

• Further, public opinion most times will disapprove of a large, well-armed force in the field, voicing non-operational arguments.

• The raid on Mogadishu in 1993, the “Black Hawk down” event, is a strong argument that the principles of offense, mass and maneuver always go together when employing armored task forces.

Conclusion

The history of armored forces has proved more than once that those who have the strongest force may not win battles. For example, the lighter and outnumbered German forces’ raid on France in 1940 showed that tanker skills are still a success factor in oper ations.

The two invasions of Iraq proved that in open field or urban scenarios, tanks are still key in securing the ground ad vance.

There are no great secrets to achiev ing victory other than a hard, serious training plan and critical thinking, al ways trying to think how the enemy will exploit your weaknesss and over come your troops.

Besides all these aspects, the great GEN Heinz Guderian quote is still in every tanker soul: “If tanks succeed, then victory follows.”

CPT Adriano Santiago Garcia is an of ficer in the Brazilian army. Assignmen ts have included logistics-battalion of ficer, 3rd Tank Battalion, Ponta Grossa, Brazil; tank-company leader (Leopard 1A5 BR), 3rd Tank Battalion, Ponta Grossa; senior instructor, Army Evaluation Center, Rio de Janerio, Bra zil; master-gunner chief instructor, Brazilian army armor school, Santa Maria, Brazil; chief of Leopard 1A5 BR training cell, master-gunner adviser of operations officer and battalion commander, 3rd Tank Battalion, Ponta Grossa; and tank-platoon leader (Leo pard 1A1), 3rd Tank Battalion, Ponta Grossa. CPT Garcia’s military schooling includes Escola de Aperfeiçoamento de Oficiais (Brazil’s captain’s maneuver course) and Academia Militar das Agu lhas Negras (Brazil’s army military academy).

Acronym Quick-Scan FCS – fire-control system SETC – Strong European Tank Challenge