>>65607593
>Is a light or med tank viable today?
what do you mean by light tank, what do you mean by medium tank?
a 1939 medium tank weighted 20 tons, a 1945 medium tank weighted 35-tons on the low end
the reason why they stopped labelling tanks by weight is because weight only ever went up

>Speed or armor?
armor is mobility
a vehicle that can go 100kph but has no armor might as well be going at 0kph in a combat situation because theres no direction it can go without getting machine gunned
this has been known for ages, lightly armored vehicles travel at the same speed as armored ones because the crew do not want go flat out and reveal themselves
stealth can only get you so far, being spotted is a matter of when and not if, if you are doing anything other than recon

>Are drones too good now?
drones can do recon and surveillance, but they cant actually move and take ground

>>65607627
FPBP

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>>65607627
Two distinct classes of tank have risen in the 21st century thoughbeit: dedicated 70+ ton MBTs that are starting to suffer from all the same problems as historical heavy tanks in both tactical and strategic mobility, and 40~ ton auxiliary battle tanks like the Type 10/Type 15/Stingray/Leopard 1 that exist to exploit terrain types their larger counterparts cannot.
>>65607593
And to answer OP's question, Leopard 1s in Ukraine don't suffer appreciably higher casualties in their specialized role versus their heavier counterparts; when you're the heaviest armor that can be brought to bear in a given theater, you don't even need to think about tanks outside of your weight class - think Shermans in the Pacific versus Shermans in the Western front.
Furthermore, a Leopard 2 doesn't have appreciably heavier roof armor when struck by an FPV, so one isn't appreciably less "drone proof" than lighter vehicles without active defenses.

>>65607627
>drones can do recon and surveillance, but they cant actually move and take ground
tanks cant take ground either. we ve already seen that in the syrian civil war. a tank that just sits there, not moving is just hours away of getting an atgm shot at it. and nowadays it will have 30 drones crash into it the moment it shows up at the frontline. thats not taking ground. tanks are more like mobile field guns right now. they sneak up, take some shots and then fuck off again before the enemy overwhelms them with drones.

>>65607754
>we ve already seen that in the syrian civil war. a tank that just sits there, not moving is just hours away of getting an atgm shot at it
the obvious criticism at the time and now was that they should not just sit alone on a hillside. a big part of taking ground is fortifying and reinforcing it, digging in with infantry etc.

>>65607775
and what does the tank do, while infantry is digging a trench?

>>65607861
Make use of existing cover and watch for movement until its own fortifications are complete, or make its own if it has a dozer blade fitted. it should go without saying that there is a wide continuum of possible actions in between sitting on an open hillside with your hatches open just waiting to be shot at (like the syrians and saudis have done) and just not being deployed at all.

>>65607593
It depends on what kind of fight you're preparing for.

In the end, a 'light' or 'medium' tanks is a mobile gun on tracks.
Why do you need it to be light? To pass certain bridges? To fit two or three on a certain type of landing craft?
The tradeoff is no real protection.

>>65607745
>dedicated 70+ ton MBTs that are starting to suffer from all the same problems as historical heavy tanks in both tactical and strategic mobility
MBTs are faster than most light tanks
MBTs have taken the role of cavalry action from 4x4 vehicles like the humvee, so they are more tactically mobile than even wheeled vehicles, with the humvee being pulled out and replaced by the M1 in cav units

>>65607754
>tanks cant take ground either.
taking ground requires resistance to artillery fire and machine gun rounds, which requires heavy armor

>tanks are more like mobile field guns right now. they sneak up, take some shots and then fuck off again before the enemy overwhelms them with drones.
tanks have been used as maneuver units exactly as they are supposed to, almost all the major operations in ukraine on both sides have utilized tanks as the primary maneuver unit
taking ground is still done primarily on the backs of armored units

>>65607593
Light/Med tanks are only for shitholes who haven't discovered 21st century infrastructure and for natural impassable geography like mountain ranges, thick forests/jungles and swampy marshlands.

>>65607745
>thoughbeit
Well, if we confine the discussion to Ukraine, FPV drone surveilance and precision strike completely shut off cold war style concentrated armored push.
Now they are used as armored assualt guns flinging HE on fortified positions from afar while infantries storm the meat grinder.
Other wise they are used to counter attack these kinds of assault because the only thing that makes "storm trooper" viable in this case scenario is armored superiority on open field.
Older generation tanks like Leopard and T-55 technically works because they require proper AT solution anyway.
To quote an Ukrainian veteran "a tank is a fucking tank". Both sides have thus far been using older generation tanks more as a defensive asset/tank destroyer/indirect fire support. However, newer modernized MBTs with advanced thermals are still widely desired by both sides.
I think there was an Ukrainian officer's analysis claiming they need to bring back what is essentially a cheap "throw away" max survivability infantry support tank for this very reason - essentially an armored HE lobber or an infantry tank.

>>65607593
Given drone observation, tank cannon should now provide sub 6km indirect fire stationary and sub 3km shots on the move. Gulf war era nato tanks are capable of extreme power projection in the desert because unbreaking LOS and now targets can be virtually projected to the gunner. Direct firing is now normally too risky due to the short range, long exposure time under uav and on mine field and predictable to the defender.
Similarly, tank cannon should also be able to participate in low level air defense by chugging shrapnel shell on time fuse or continuous rod on vt fuse.
Tank overall weight, armor/speed/fire power ratio are of lesser importance. There is not much variety to tank in terms of tactics. Light tanks are not any closer to being buddies to infantry.
The second real changes i can see is the revival of infantry gun. Either as fsv again, or robotized field gun/at gun capable of traveling with infantry. That means able to self propel on the ground, stair case, and ropes, fit in transports ground or air, and garrison in ditches, tunnels and buildings. It would be the heavier ugv infantry can have at all time.

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>>65607934
>they are more tactically mobile than even wheeled vehicles,
ehm... yeah about that...

>>65608161
>essentially an armored HE lobber or an infantry tank.
That's why they're putting autoloaded Cockerill turrets on their Leo 1s, those have +42° elevation, so they're useful as assault guns.

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>>65607754
>tanks cant take ground either

>>65608448
>unrelated pic
US cavalry troops pulled the humvee out of their units because they were too immobile in rough terrain and replaced them with M1 tanks
this is corroborated by the ukranians who only want tracked or 8x8 vehicles, because 4x4 and 6x6s cant handle rough terrain
the only wheeled vehicle that comes close to a tracked vehicle is the 8x8, but even then its still not as good with SBCTs being chosen for their on-road performance and ABCTs being explicitly used for their offroad performance

Fuck off, dronetard.

M1E3 needs to happen soon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFntJ_Qvvw8