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drones

>>65163757
Drones are heavily disruptive now because there is no real counter to them. Having mature C-UAS capabilities won't make drones disappear but it will heavily degrade their effect that they currently have on the battlefield.

>>65163756
MBTs will go extinct, just like battleships and armored naval vessels. Medium tanks up to 30 tons will take their place with thin armor and emphasis on sensors, networking, stealth and speed. The main gun will shrink down to 35 mm autocannons at most and only as a self defence weapon of last resort. The main weapon would be missiles and or armed drones. The crew would be 3 or even 1 guy in "fighter" tanks. The latter basically being wheeled or tracked 2-10 tons tankettes that function as ultra heavy infantry more than a tank. Battles would be in two phases: an armed drone duel to acquire/deny targets followed by missille spam to whomever won the aerial duel. Tanks on both sides wouldn't even see each other. Everything would be "BVR".

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>>65163756
T-62s and T-55s alongside M48s and M60s

>>65163771
>hard counters to drones get developed
>replacing what is essentially an armored high velocity direct fire artillery gun on tracks that can obliterate any fortification and groups of infantry with super expensive tankettes firing missiles that can be spoofed or shot down
>Not realizing drones purpose built to detect and kill enemy drones can be done cheaply to further limit enemy drone capability

I don't think banking on drones being some wunderwaffe is the smartest move. This is like when the recoilless rifle or ATGM became widespread and everybody though all armored vehicles would be obsolete because of them.

>>65163771
this just the feminized man since ww2 meme.
The correct answer is that simple machines like T-55s with even shittier components will take over the breakthrough role and the mobile role will be a suicide mission

I think the future will see far heavier combined arms and support then what is typical in the past. Maneuver units will have C-UAS along with support from their battalion. Those maneuver battalions will have support from brigade and division for elimination of cruise missiles and long range artillery/rocket fires, and a reliance on AI for assistance with battle tracking and C2 to coordinate the whole effort. Things like drone swarms not just for offensive action but to target enemy drones - Essentially having a concept of having protected bubbles maneuver units operate in. If the protective bubbles erode then those units get slammed. But if they stay up, then the primary means of engaging said maneuver units would be via close combat. The overall goal being to counter as much assets as possible so that the main way of fighting would be to close in with them. The difference being that it just takes a lot more systems and integration from higher echelons.

Kind of similar to how breaching operations will have a battalion as the main effort but you have the entirety of a divisions assets plus corps level assets assisting said battalion, but for general combat operations as a whole.

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>>65163768
On the contrary, they seem to suck when it comes to storming fortifications. A top of the line drone is beaten by a 60 dollar door.

>>65163756
MBTs - obsolete
Main combat AFV becomes SHORAD tank. Call it land cruiser . Heavy armoured AFV armed with AAA gun (for example 35mm Gepard AAA has) plus fiber optic ATGMs like Spike. Medium caliber automatic cannon can also been used against ground targets.

Main support AFV - land aircraft carrier. Basically APC with drone control station and filled with FPV and other types of drones. Drone Launch and control on the move capabilities. That becomes main strike force like aircraft carriers of the Navy, it's vehicle current military lack the most.

Conventional APC. Same chassis as land aircraft carrier but carries infantry.

155mm SPG. Like those that exist.

Possibly laser AAA AFV. Prism tank. If real deal laser (100+ kW) can be integrated in a single vehicle.

All AFVs need to have anti drone capable protection. Minimum is 7.62mm caliber Bullfrog RWS. On top of that Advanced AAA systems are welcomed, like 35 mm mm gun for q land cruiser and laser for a prism tank.

>>65163912
>drone with 1 kg thermobaric charge hits you door
>no more door

>>65163988
>oh look, another door
>and gypsy beads on every bulkhead entrance

>>65163771
Neglecting armor is a big mistake.
With growing capabilities of active self defense counters from drones/missiles will appear. One of them obvious is increasing speed and/or stand off warheads like EFP charges. But it's much easier to defeat 20 mm armor with stand off charge than 200mm armor. Sure 155m tandem shaped charge will penetrate any practical armor but it can be shoot down.
Active protection systems are good, but combined with heavy armor it's whole new level of difficulty for attacker.

>>65163990
Same counters infantry assaulters btw.

>>65163756
Why would you waste a shit ton of internal volume and armor protecting a 4th crewman who isn't needed? Honestly, tanks should just be UGVs at this point. Any tank with an autoloader can be readily converted, and you don't risk the lives of the crew.

Why are tanks so troublesome they need a million babysitters all the time and if one is missing a drone just blows it up. Sounds like too much of a hassle.

>>65163756
What is the purpose of burdening tanks with drones? I could see a recon drone available to the commander or something, but it seems unnecessary and inefficient to merge long-range support with your close fire gun.
>>Artillery liaison for immediate fire missions on EM hotspots
Is this even possible? How do you know where it is? Are you just going to blanket kilometers of zone in the vague hopes of landing a hit?

>>65163756
All of what you said and also eventual mass conversion toward UGVs or optionally manned vehicles. FPVs and other aerial drones can easily be countered by existing and emerging C-UAS technologies so cheaply and easily that the FPV meta might actually disappear completely within the next decade. However, none of the vulnerabilities or compromises to performance would affect UGVs, which are really no more vulnerable than ground forces already are while potentially being substantially cheaper on account of not needing to be designed with crew accommodations and protection.
>20mm autocannon
Might be 30mm considering they way things are going. Programmable airburst warheads might be easier and cheaper to build at that scale (and are also proven for that matter), plus bumping it up to 30mm would give a non-negligible increase in anti-light armor and barrier performance.

>>65164136
If you want to do maneuver warfare and bypass the trench and drone CBT, then tanks are worth the trouble because every other alternative requires even more babysitting.

>>65163756
I think tanks will move to fire support and infantry support missions, massed armor assaults are obsolete at least until a solid counter to drones are invented, the US is moving their IBCTs to MBCTs so they may be onto something

>MBT's
Three guy configuration where one handles driving and is trained for field repairs and maintenance, second guy handles communications and integrated drones, and third guy who is both tank commander and a fire command for automated tank turret and guns.
Tank itself is smaller, and almost egg-shaped with armor protecting equally from all sides due prevalence of drones.
>IFV's
Either fully automated, or the same configuration as MBT with turret swapped to different weapon (possibly mortar type weaponry)
>APC
Likely also a bit more egg-shaped and even armored, but otherwise configuration remains relativey same as the current day ones.

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>>65164190

>>65163756
Honestly, I think you're pretty much on the money.

Alternatively we might see MBTs merging with artie. With the battlefield proving more lethal even for heavily armoured vehicles then it may become necessary for them to rely on earlier layers of the survivability onion. One way to go about this is to become capable of indirect fire. Sure, they'll necessarily become less effective at their current direct fire role -due to the need for a larger turret to accommodate higher elevation if nothing else - but if they're spending 80% of their time tucked behind a building or a hill striking targets from BVR then thats a trade-off that may be worthwhile.

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>>65163756
Drone carriers
>technicals, SMET robots and golf carts
>a machinegun and about 20 quadcopters on vertical launch rails
>close range combat and EW

Artillery
>mostly guided rockets in disposable pods GMLRS style
>mounted on trucks (can be robotic or human driven)
>long range combat aimed by satellites and fixedwing scout drones

IFV-SHORADS
>next gen IFVs with composite rubber tracks, ATGMs, and autocannons
>APS and anti-drone AA based on 360 hemispheres of cameras and radars
>carry humans to do all the little things the drones and artillery can't do, from headquarters to infantry to drone swarm pilots

Modular 8x8 trucks
>carry pods/racks/isocons of fuel, ammunition, medium-size AA/defense missiles, bridge parts, repair shops, etc

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This is my concept for the future. Feel free to hit me up,General Dynamics or Rheinmetall.

>>65163756
Hatches shouldnt swing open, they should elevate on three or four lift suspentions like the lifting SUV trunks.

have they tried shooting the drones

>>65164136
>Why are tanks so troublesome
Because having a tracked heavily armored vehicle that requires dedicated weaponry to counter that can one shot anything on the battlefield will never not be useful.

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>>65164157
>UGV's
I feel like EW will continue becoming more and more impactful to the point where I feel like in the not too distant future, warfare will be a mix of the most cutting edge technology combined with old school tactics and certain assets that would be a downgrade even to late cold war standards. And I'm not bought on the counter argument of AI being able to handle autonomous vehicles at all. AI cannot perform great at all even with slight variance conditions, let alone highly chaotic conditions with extreme variance and unknown factors at play.
>FPV meta might actually disappear completely within the next decade
I agree somewhat with this. They will still be there or at least be a threat that needs to be countered for the off chance that if they find a gap they can immediately exploit it.
>20 vs. 30mm
I can't remember which company is doing it. But one of the big MIC companies have already been developing a 20mm autocannon I believe based off of the autocannon from the AH64 gunship with a brand new air bursting munition. With the system being split between two trucks. One truck being the radar and the other mounting the gun, although I'm sure it can be developed to where one vehicle (most likely an armored vehicle for its size and powerplant) will be able to host both.

I also think people really sleep on the laser concept. Lasers have been developed largely for the C-RAM role and they haven't performed well, but shifting it for the C-UAS role can make them extremely lethal. Especially in conjunction with armored vehicles, you already have the massive powerplant so it isn't that unreasonable to integrate a laser onto it for that purpose. Managing heat could still be an issue but even then, if it's too much, you could still develop dedicated C-UAS armored vehicles that sport a laser as its primary weapon. I'm pretty sure even Turkey has already developed something along those lines basing it off of the M113.

>>65164716
>Artillery MBT merge
I see this too. There is a large gap between firing los (200m to 2km) vs firing 155 from 10+km away in prepared position. It is a much larger area with less reaction time to be covered by mines and drones. It is also a much larger area from where fire can be concentrated without vehicles being bunched up in the same grid. For artillery, it can no longer sit still as the rear is no longer safe and hiden for fixed and prepared firing position of a 20+t vehicle knowing tube artillery no longer posses range, payload and accuracy advantage against other fire support even with range boosts and guidance kit.
While drones can spot quick, it takes time for loitering munition to arrive and follow up depending on their posture. Tube artillery screaming at 800+m/s will have good accuracy and response time within 5km given low flight time prevending the open up of the grouping from machine precision and winds, also a quicker time to correct even with the dumbest shell. Also low firing shell are still not cost effective to defend against once it leaves the gun barrel.

>>65163756
It’s going to boil down to whoever gets the most effective SHORAD set-up first. Which right now can be anything from
>Radar and IRST slaved heavy machine guns/Lasers/Airburst/Prox-fuze
>Highpowered directed energy weapons like microwaves which turn on for a second and fry all your drones within sight
>Big ass powerful antennas that serve a dual purpose of detecting drones as well as jamming the fuck out of them, probably could be integrated into the microwave that fries drones platform

This drone munition technology (warhead quadcopters) has re-purposed a bunch of existing technologies all of which can be countered. US and by extension Western and perhaps Chink SIGINT units should easily be able to detect enemies emitting constantly which only leaves the fiber-optic drones with limited maneuverability. The first company to reliably use radar and camera detection for point defense nullifies the threat of these drones who fly at a fraction of the speed of an actual ATGM or rocket.
>>65166327
The laser concept is going to be extremely promising. Burning through a mortar shell or Shahed Cruise missile has a lot more moving parts than a quadcopter drone with no outer plating to speak off and where all energy gets immediately used to fry vital parts that keep it in flight (if not directly detonating the warhead).

We are also subjected to "muh drone" narrative completely by two complete meme countries that were both known for corruption and exporting hookers. Most of the footage is some dudes running away through a field or some semi-isolated unit getting attacked. Even by what both sides are saying that for every successful attack they need something like 7 attacks. Not sure what the final number is going to look like but it seems like it is mostly a symptom of the type of war they're fighting.

>>65166327
>I feel like EW will continue becoming more and more impactful to the point where I feel like in the not too distant future, warfare will be a mix of the most cutting edge technology combined with old school tactics and certain assets that would be a downgrade even to late cold war standards.
I see what you mean but this also resembles a cope of the form 'multiple big advances will cancel out perfectly so nothing changes.'

I don't think the FPV meta will disappear, because unlike traditional ATGMs or tanks or arty it combines scouting with portability and non-line-of-sight all in the same unit. If LOS combat improves that only makes NLOS combat more attractive, and it's an asymmetrical relationship. It's much easier for the FPV side to scout out the tanks than vice versa.

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Rather like the shift from battleships to aircraft carriers, we will see a shift from tanks with huge guns to tanks that carry a plethora of drones and missiles.

Like aircraft carriers their role will be in large part logistical. Namely to have enough armor to resist the lighter drones that might penetrate their screen of anti-drone and anti-missile defenses so they can move closer to enemy lines and support the drone swarm. A squadron of these armored vehicles will move quickly to an area and a dozer will dig in and erect various ADAMDs, they will bring with them a plethora of drones and missiles which they will expend in the course of the combat, trying to determine how best to use the limited resources at the front line. Another naval analogy might be submarines deciding how best to uses their limited number of torpedos.

Regular tanks may still exist, one more naval analogy might be the weeny widdle guns destroyers still have to shoot any small targets nearby so they are not completely useless in that nonzero possibility, but vestigial at this point because there is little point supporting big guns anymore.

Tanks may also act as decoys of sorts, basically heavily armoured with reactive armor, cope cages and whatever innovations help them survive. Their weapons are smaller, just enough to pose a threat and force the enemy to expend resources trying to destroy them. Some tanks may not even be manned, landbound drones that exist purely to force the enemy to expend their own limited resources, perhaps only a machine gun. These can also be used to probe defenses, the machine gun able to penetrate brick at least and drive away hidden mobiks.