Tanks will win you battles. Just don’t leave them alone like Russians did in Ukraine

The obituary of the tank has been written many a time. But it has bounced back and continued to dominate the modern battlefield.

LT GEN. A.K. SINGH (RETD)
28 May, 2022 

A file photo of the Indian Army's T-72 Ajeya MK2 tanks.

The tank has maintained its place as the centrepiece of the 20th-century battlefield ever since its introduction to overcome the trench warfare in World War I. They came into their own during World War II, mainly as part of manoeuvre warfare and the deep battle, symbolised by the Blitzkrieg and the vast enveloping manoeuvres in Operation Barbarossa. But the tank also proved its mettle in the attrition-oriented warfare as witnessed at Stalingrad and Berlin.

The armour’s effectiveness was greatly enhanced when used as part of a combined arms team comprising mounted infantry, self-propelled artillery, air defence and engineers supported by requisite logistics. Air and helicopter support always proved crucial on the modern battlefield.

Post-World War II, mechanised battles were mainly fought between unequal adversaries, be it Korea, Vietnam, Arab-Israeli or the Gulf wars. Only in the India-Pakistan conflicts were the adversaries evenly matched, with Indians proving their superiority in hard–fought battles at the tactical level.

Threats to the tank have kept pace, especially after the introduction of shoulder-fired guided missiles in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. As the tank advanced technologically, so did these missiles, reaching their peak in recent years with the tandem warhead fire and forget anti-tank missiles, fired from multiple platforms, including helicopters and armed drones. As for tanks, they too have been upgraded and mounted with many countermeasures, including active protection systems, both for soft and hard-kill of incoming missiles.

The inter se battle between the tank and the anti-tank missile continues, one getting the better of the other. Multiple factors such as battlefield environment and training of the crew influence the outcome. However, on the 21st-century battlefield, as seen in recent conflicts in Syria, Armenia-Azerbaijan and now Russia-Ukraine, the tank has taken some knocking, and this has raised questions on its preeminent role on the modern battlefield.

These are the emerging facts from the Russia-Ukraine conflict:

With massive superiority, especially in tanks, Russia launched a four-pronged offensive with the main focus on Kyiv, both from the north and northeast.

After making swift progress over hundreds of kilometres on a very vast front, and reaching the outskirts of Kyiv, the offensive stalled.

Largely confined to the roads, the sight of long Russian armour columns stalled and ambushed was indeed a disturbing sight.

Ukraine’s success in stalling the Russian offensive was largely based on small teams, equipped with most modern shoulder-launched missiles like the Javelin (provided by the US and other NATO countries), who skillfully used the ground and took advantage of poor Russian tactics, to inflict heavy losses and large delays on the advancing columns.The unarmed drones for scouting and the armed Bayraktar TB2 drone, which carries up to four laser-guided munitions have also played a significant role.

The use of shoulder-launched, surface to air missiles like Stinger took a toll on Russian helicopters, including attack helicopters and inhibited the Russians from using the airspace effectively.

Maintenance and logistics issues also plagued the Russian forces and contributed to their slow progress, after the initial success.

Operational and tactical lessons

It will be incorrect to take all published news reports and footage coming from the battlefields of Ukraine at face value because apart from information, they also carry a fair mix of misinformation and disinformation. A balanced analysis can be only undertaken once the Russian side is more forthcoming.

Having said that, it can be summarised that the Russians were surprised by the stiff resistance from Ukraine. The early spring thaw and resulting Rasputitsa prevented the Russian manoeuvre through the countryside and confined them to roads, where the Russian armour became vulnerable to tank ambushes and hit and run raids.

But it’s incredulous how the Russians, who are the masters of the combined arms concept, did not follow it, leaving their tanks most vulnerable. The tank is most effective when operating as part of the combined arms team, with infantry covering its vulnerable flanks, artillery providing speculative and covering fire and air defence, electronic warfare and engineers shaping the battlefield. A similar mistake was committed by the Armenians who left their tanks isolated and vulnerable to drones of Azerbaijan.

 Air cover for the stalled Russian tank column was also not very visible

The tank remains the most potent weapon on the battlefield, but is also vulnerable to multiple threats, both from the ground and air. And these threats get magnified whilst operating in close-country and built-up areas.

It should also be remembered that tanks and Infantry are the only instruments that can capture ground and hold it. Attack is the most challenging operation of war and penetration of enemy defences requires the shock and awe effect of tanks and massed artillery. Therefore, writing obituaries for the tank is rather premature, though its employment has to be part of a combined arms team to cater for the numerous threats on the modern battlefield.

Also read: Fate of Russian armour in Ukraine not encouraging but premature to write off the tank

Technology lessons for the future

The Main Battle Tank (MBT) is an appropriate mix of mobility, firepower and protection. If you enhance one, there is a corresponding dilution in the other two capabilities. The Russian tanks (which are also the mainstay of the Indian Army) are medium tanks in the category of 45-50 tons, and have effective firepower and mobility with lesser protection compared to western MBTs. The Russians have addressed this through a combination of better armour and addition of reactive and active armour protection systems. Surprisingly, whilst some ‘Shtora’ active protection systems were seen on the Russian tanks, the more advanced ‘Arena’ and the latest ‘Afghanit’ systems mounted on the latest T-14 Armata tank were not fielded. These latest systems are also designed to cater for the top-attack threat posed by missiles like Javelin.

To the trinity of mobility, firepower and protection, the tank now needs to adopt survivability and adaptability as key parameters. The survival strategy has to focus on avoiding detection/acquisition, and if hit, prevent penetration for a catastrophic (K) kill. The tank should also be capable of adapting to a varying combat environment across the spectrum of conflict.

With the complexity of the battlefield increasing by the day, an updated “Battlefield Management system (BMS)” has become an imperative for tanks and mechanised formations. What is needed is a system of systems that networks multiple weapon platforms to optimise the combined arms effect. This should include both manned and robotic platforms.

As far as the drone threat is concerned, it has to be tackled as part of the combined arms team response. Starting with an intelligence appreciation of the adversary’s drone capabilities, air and artillery strikes on likely operating bases, air defence and electronic warfare protection and finally the active protection system of the tanks. The importance of vanguard reconnaissance forces in the front and on the flanks has again become important.

In the competitive market of tanks, where the Russian tanks have earned a great reputation, one can also see a subtle effort to do down their reputation by competitors from the West. It will be wise to see through such attempts.

Properly equipped and handled by well-trained crews, the tank still remains the most potent weapon system on the battlefield, albeit as part of the combined arms team. The Russians went away from their own teachings on the deep battle and the combined arms concept and paid the price.

Also read: Russian forces’ actions in Ukraine show a dilemma like Indian Army’s in 1948 Hyderabad ops

Lessons for India

With a large tank fleet of Russian origin (T-72 and T-90), there are important lessons for India, both tactical and relating to technology. Of course, we must endeavour to harmonise these with Russia, as they would be evaluating the lessons first hand.

While a modernisation programme is already underway for the Indian armour, certain aspects may be reviewed in light of the lessons from the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

An active protection system needs to be acquired on priority. In fact, during the induction of the T-90 tanks in 2000-01, we in the trial team had strongly recommended the then available active protection system ‘Shtora’ be included. It was, however, dropped due to cost considerations. We now have a chance to acquire one of the latest available systems, but this has to be undertaken on priority. In addition, a BMS system for the tanks is becoming imperative. This should be taken up on priority for the Strike Corps. Empowerment of the upcoming Integrated Battle Groups (IBGs) with both the scout and armed drones should be a priority. The air defence needs to be modernised and restructured to cater for the very potent drone threat our mechanised forces are likely to face on the future battlefield.

Tank’s here to stay

The obituary of the tank has been written many a time. But it has bounced back and continued to dominate the modern battlefield. Recent conflicts, especially the ongoing Russia–Ukraine war, have highlighted many lessons for the future operational employment and effectiveness of the tank. These include technological modernisation to cater to the more potent and aggressive threats that have emerged, particularly the armed drones and fire-and-forget top attack missiles. Equally important is the training of crews and dynamic operational and tactical concepts.

Apart from its devastating physical capabilities, the shock and awe effect that can be produced by tanks is yet to be replicated by any other weapon system. The tank is here to stay. The onus remains on the Indian Army to provide the mechanised forces with the wherewithal needed for the 21st-century battlefield.

The author is a former Army commander and lieutenant-governor. With over 40 years on tanks, the author is one of the few who has trained with both the Warsaw Pact and NATO at the height of the Cold War. Views are personal.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for TANK WARFARE  

Ukraine captures one of Russia's most advanced electronic warfare systems, which could reveal military secrets, reports say

Alia Shoaib
Sat, March 26, 2022

A Russian Krasukha-4 electronic warfare system.Mil.ru/Wikimedia Commons/Attribution

Ukraine has seized the command module of a Krasukha-4, one of Russia's most advanced electronic warfare systems.

The hi-tech unit was found abandoned on the outskirts of Kyiv.

Western spy agencies will examine it, say reports.

Ukrainian forces have seized part of one of Russia's most advanced electronic warfare systems, which could reveal its military secrets, reports say.

The Krasukha-4 command module was found abandoned on the outskirts of Kyiv partly damaged but otherwise intact, The Times of London reported.

Photos of the unit posted on social media appear to show the container containing the module covered in tree branches, possibly in a hasty camouflage attempt by retreating Russian forces.

#Ukraine: We managed to identify this bizarre "container", captured today by the UA forces near #Kyiv. It is likely to be the command post of one of the most potent Russian EW system - 1RL257 Krasukha-4, used to suppress AWACS radars & radar reconnaissance satellites.

10:28 AM · Mar 22, 2022·Twitter Web App

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—🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) March 22, 2022

The system is designed to jam low-orbit satellites, drones, and missiles, but it is also believed to be able to track NATO aircraft, The Times said.
Related video: How viral moments are shaping the war in Ukraine

A complete Krasukha-4 is a two-part system consisting of a command post module and an electronic warfare system, mounted separately on two trucks.

It is believed that a Krasukha-4 system was used against Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones in Syria, interfering with their control signal and causing them to crash, according to The Telegraph.

The highly-rated Bayraktar TB2 drones are among those used by Ukrainian forces, used to destroy Russian tanks, armor, and truck convoys.

The seized unit will be examined by Western spy agencies, The Telegraph reported, adding that it would likely be taken by road to the US Air Force's Ramstein Air Base in Germany, before being flown to the US.

Examining the unit could reveal secrets of how it works, which could help Ukraine and Western allies render it useless on the battlefield.

Justin Crump, a military veteran and CEO of risk analysis consultancy Sibylline, told The Times that the seizure was among "lots of goodies that have been recovered on the battlefield."

"It shows how scattered the fighting is and the lack of communications on the Russian side," Crump told the paper.

The US Army Feared Russia’s Cold War Tanks Could Conquer Europe

By Sandboxx News

U.S. Marines assigned to 2nd Tank Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, fire a 120mm smoothbore main gun from an M1A1 Abrams main battle tank during a course of fire at Camp Lejeune, N.C., Jan. 30, 2019. The unit conducted marksmanship qualifications as a part of a biannual training exercise to certify tank crews on the M1A1 Abrams main battle tank. 

(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Abrey Liggins)


The US Military feated Russia’s tanks. Here’s why: In 1980, the U.S. Army had a terrifying vision: an armada of Soviet tanks sweeping across Western Europe, all the way to the English Channel. And the U.S. Army feared it had no weapons that could stop this vision from becoming a reality.

“In the arms likely to dominate the outcome of a future battle for Central Europe — armored fighting vehicles and counterweapons — the U.S. Army, then, probably will remain qualitatively and quantitatively inferior,” wrote U.S. Army Major General Paul Gorman in a secret 1980 study that wasn’t declassified until 2014.

The situation sounds eerily familiar to today, where critics question whether Russia’s next-generation T-14 Armata tank is superior to Western models. Or, whether U.S. and British anti-tank weapons will be effective against a Russian invasion of Ukraine that will rely on tanks for maneuver and firepower.

Throughout the Cold War, the United States accepted that its forces in Europe would be outnumbered by a massive Soviet war machine that by 1980 comprised 50,000 tanks — or five times the American tank arsenal. But U.S. leaders had always comforted themselves with the thought that Soviet numbers could be offset by superior American technology, training and tactics.

But by the end of the 1970s, when American military power had ebbed to its post-Vietnam low, Pentagon planners worried that the Soviet Union had achieved superiority in tank quality as well as quantity. In particular, they warned that the new T-72 outclassed the M60A1 and M60A3 — essentially upgrades of the 1950s M48 Patton — that were the backbone of the American tank arsenal at the time.

Even the first M1 Abrams tanks entering service — armed with the 105-millimeter cannon instead of the later 120-millimeter cannon — would have difficulty knocking out the more heavily armed T-72.

“The U.S. Army rates the best current Soviet tank clearly superior to its main battle tank,” the Army report warned.

It assessed the T-72 as superior to the M60A1 by virtue of superior firepower and armor protection. The T-72 was also believed to have numerous advanced features that the M60 lacked, including an “automatic electronic rangefinder, possibly laser rangefinder,” an autoloader to increase rate of fire, a snorkel to cross rivers without needing bridging equipment, and an anti-radiation liner to protect the crew from nuclear weapons. The Army did at least credit the M60 with carrying 60 rounds of main gun ammunition versus 40 for the T-72.

Nor could salvation be found in the anti-tank guided missiles that had begun entering service in the 1970s. Tests and mathematical modeling by the Army’s Ballistic Research Laboratory estimated that U.S. TOW and Dragon anti-tank missiles and the M-735 tungsten core round for the 105-millimeter cannon had a probability of kill (pK) as high as 77 percent against the front armor of a Soviet T-62 tank. But against the T-72, that probability dropped to as low as 22 percent, with even the upcoming M-774 depleted uranium round only having a 50 percent chance to kill a T-72 according to the worst-case models.

That meant defense against a tank-centric Soviet invasion of Europe would be difficult until the 120-millimeter-armed M1 arrived in the mid-1980s.

“Whether one uses informed U.S. or Soviet calculations, the conclusion is that NATO can expect, through 1984, no advantage over the Soviets in quality of armor or antiarmor weapons, and only a modest redressing of its present quantitative disadvantage,” the study concluded.

But were these dire predictions justified? It’s hard to be sure. While U.S.- and Soviet-made armor did clash in the 1973 and 1982 Arab-Israeli wars, a climactic — and perhaps apocalyptic — battle between American and Soviet armies never happened. Still, the much-vaunted T-72 seemed more of a paper tiger in the 1982 Lebanon War, when Israeli Merkava tanks armed with 105-millimeter guns disposed of them. And pitted against the Abrams in the First Gulf War, Iraqi T-72s seemed almost pitiful.

While Moscow could try to blame these debacles on the incompetency of their allies, or the fact that they were using inferior export models of Soviet equipment, that 1970s generation of T-72 tanks and MiG-23 fighters was not impressive in action. Even Syrian-manned T-90s may have been knocked out by U.S-made TOW anti-tank missiles supplied to Syrian rebels in 2016 and 2017.

As the Nazis with their Tiger and Panther tanks could attest, merely having the most powerful tanks doesn’t guarantee victory. Well-trained crews, flexible command and control, reliable logistics, and plentiful airpower are more important than the thickness of a tank’s armor.

In the end, that 1980 U.S. Army study seems less about the superiority of Soviet tanks, and more about the fact that U.S. tank design atrophied between 1945 and 1980. With defense dollars and priorities focused on nuclear weapons and chasing guerrillas through Asian jungles, tanks had become far from the most vital component of U.S. military power. It wasn’t until the M1 Abrams arrived in the 1980s that the U.S. could claim to have a cutting-edge tank, and arguably the best in the world. On the other hand, many Soviet tanks tended to resemble the 1950s T-55 (itself descended from the World War II T-34), which suggests that changes in tank design tend to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

Nonetheless, compare a Little Willie tank from World War I to an Abrams, and it’s obvious that tanks do change as technology progresses. Tanks inevitably change just as warfare does, and just as inevitable are the cries that the enemy’s tanks are superior. Fears that the Soviets had better tanks in 1980 are echoed today by warnings that the M1 and other Western tanks are inferior to the T-14 Armata, with its active protection system to shoot down anti-tank rockets, sophisticated sensors and data networking, and powerful 125-mm cannon housed in an unmanned turret while the crew remains safely cocooned inside the thickly armored hull.

For its part, the U.S. and other nations are developing new designs as well. The U.S. Army, for example, wants a family of armored vehicles that will include robot tanks. France and Germany are exploring a joint European tank that might feature a 140-millimeter cannon.

No doubt there will be Russian experts that will claim their tanks are inferior with these platforms enter service — and demand that the Kremlin fund the design of newer, better models (regardless of whether the T-14 has even entered production yet).

Michael Peck is a contributing writer for Forbes. His work has appeared in The National Interest, 1945, Foreign Policy Magazine, Defense News and other publications. He can be found on Twitter and Linkedin. This first appeared in Sandboxx News.

Why French Leclerc Tanks Have Been Seen Fighting in Yemen

UAE tankers have conveyed to their French counterparts their satisfaction with the Leclerc. The armies of the coalition are reportedly “strongly impressed” by its performance.

In January 2016, the Saudi government approached the Leclerc’s manufacturer, Nexter, to express interest in purchasing a few hundred of the French tanks.

The Emirati Leclercs are split in two armored battalions, one of which remains stationed around Aden, while the other patrols Yemen’s mountainous central region.

by Sebastien Roblin
February 9, 2021 

Here's What You Need to Remember: UAE tankers have conveyed to their French counterparts their satisfaction with the Leclerc. The armies of the coalition are reportedly “strongly impressed” by its performance.

“So what do you think of France’s new super tank, the Leclerc?” a retired colonel in the French army’s logistical brigade jokingly asked me in 2002. “You know, the one we paid a fortune for and that we’ll never use in battle.”

So far his prediction has proved true. The French military has deployed light armored vehicles and air power in its combat missions in Afghanistan, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Central African Republic and Mali.

But the French army’s main battle tanks haven’t fired in anger since the Gulf War.

But in the summer of 2015, the United Arab Emirates threw two battalions of Leclercs into the civil war in Yemen — and from the few sketchy reports, it seems the tank has fared better than the American-made M-1 Abrams has done in the same conflict

France, along with England, has been a pioneer of armored warfare since World War I. At the beginning of World War II, it actually fielded more tanks — and better-armed and -armored ones — than the Germans did, but the French army’s poor doctrine and organization doomed the vehicles.

During the Cold War, France produced two major tank designs — the AMX-13 and AMX-30. The AMX-13 was a light tank. Debuting in 1953, it weighed a mere 13 tons and boasted a long-barrel 75-millimeter gun.

Israel and India both deployed the AMX-13 in heavy fighting against Arab and Pakistani opponents, respectively — and the consensus was that the AMX-13’s mobility was useful, but it was too lightly armored for pitched battles against other tanks.

The French army, however, was convinced that anti-armor weapons were becoming so effective that adding thicker armor was pointless. It preferred to emphasize speed and firepower. Thus, when the AMX-30 tank arrived in 1966, it had only 80 millimeters of armor, compared to the 243 millimeters of armor that protected the United States’ contemporary M-47 Patton tank.

But the AMX-30 still had a decent 105-millimeter gun and, despite its light armor, managed to attract significant foreign orders. It also proved readily adaptable into various support vehicles.

By the early 1980s, a new generation of Western tanks emerged, typified by the American M-1 Abrams. These sported composite armor that was highly resistant to the shaped charges on modern anti-tank missiles. During the 1991 Gulf War, the M-1’s armor proved almost completely immune not only to anti-tank missiles but also to the 125-millimeter armor-piercing shells fired by Russian-made T-72 tanks.

Qatar and France deployed AMX-30s in the same conflict. The Qatari tanks saw action at the Battle at Khafji, where they destroyed three 1950s-vintage T-55 tanks. The Iraqis destroyed two AMX-30s.

Fretting over the AMX-30’s thin armor, coalition commanders all but sidelined the French 6th Light Armor Division, deploying it as a rearguard along the flank of the U.S. Army’s XVIII Airborne Corps.

In the mission, the French armor performed well, ultimately destroying 10 Iraqi tanks. But the French tankers probably wished they’d been able to go to war in the new tank that, at the time, was just a year away from entering service. The Leclerc.

By the 1970s, the French army knew its AMX-30s could not reliably defeat the latest Soviet tanks such as the T-72. The independent-minded French didn’t want to simply buy new tanks from the United States or Germany — they wanted a tank as hard-hitting as the Abrams was, but also lighter and better protected than the American vehicle.

The resulting AMX-56 Leclerc — pronounced “le-claire” — took its name from the French general whose armored division liberated Paris in 1944. It was, at the time, the most expensive tank in the world, costing $9.3 million per vehicle in 2011 dollars. By comparison, a new M-1A2 cost $7.56 million and the Russian T-90 carried a price tag of just $4 million.

The French army fields 406 Leclercs, 240 of which are in its four active tank regiments. There are also 20 recovery-vehicle variants in service.

The three principal Western main battle tanks — the Abrams, the German Leopard 2 and the British Challenger 2 — share many design elements such as 120-millimeter guns, four-person crews and composite armor. While similar in its major performance parameters, the Leclerc exhibits a lot of French quirks.

In place of a human loader, it features an auto-loader system with a rate of fire of 12 shells per minute. The auto-loader reduces the crew to just three — a commander, gunner and driver. The Leclerc has a .50-caliber machine gun in the coaxial position next to the main gun, rather than next to the commander’s hatch.

Its 120-millimeter smoothbore main gun is slightly longer than the Abrams’ is, meaning it can, in theory, penetrate more armor. It’s also capable of firing programmable air-burst high-explosive shells. But the Leclerc’s principal advantages lie in its defensive properties and mobility.

The comparative effectiveness of modern tank armor is difficult to calculate, but the Leclerc and the M-1 appear to have similar frontal armor, though some critics argue the Leclerc’s frontal plate has more weak points around its sensors. In place of the M-1’s Chobham composite armor, the Leclerc boasts an unusual mix of composite, traditional and reactive armor that is slightly more effective against kinetic penetrators fired by other tanks.

The Leclerc’s side armor, however, is clearly superior to the M-1’s. Newer models also feature titanium armor inserts and explosive-reactive armor bricks on the side — belts of explosives that prematurely detonate incoming missiles and shells.

Finally, a Galix grenade launcher in the turret can discharge a variety of munitions including flashbang grenades, high explosives, multi-spectral screening smoke and infrared decoys that can confuse missiles.

The Leclerc also has a smaller turret profile than the Abrams does— making it harder to hit. However, critics argue the smaller turret affords less space for internal upgrades.

At 60 tons, the Leclerc is 10 tons lighter than most Western main battle tanks are. There are many benefits — a good power-to-weight ratio, lower ground pressure, superb acceleration and a comparatively high maximum speed of 45 miles per hour. The Leclerc is a lot more fuel efficient than many other tanks. It can travel 340 miles before refueling, compared to 260 for the Abrams. This reduces the tank’s logistical burden.

Critics claim the Leclercs are difficult to maintain. Defenders of the French vehicle insist this reflects the teething problems of early production models.

Though they haven’t seen combat, French Leclercs have deployed…on peacekeeping missions in Kosovo and Lebanon, where they performed well. In one dramatic incident in Lebanon in 2006, a platoon of four Leclercs confronted between two and five Israeli Merkava tanks attempting to enter the Lebanese village of Marwahin. After a 20-minute standoff, the two sides disengaged.

The French unveiled a new upgrade, the Leclerc XLR, in June 2016, with the goal of keeping Leclercs relevant until 2040. In addition to new sensors and electronics, the XLR would have modular armor kits, including one kit protecting against IEDs by jamming cellular signals and another optimized for defeating rocket-propelled grenades.

The United Arab Emirates was the only other army to purchase Leclercs. The UAE acquired 390 “tropicalized” versions with V12 engines plus 46 armored recovery vehicles. The UAE Leclercs also deployed on the Kosovo peacekeeping mission, where a contrast was stark. The Emirati Leclercs boasted superior sensors and systems compared to the French tanks.

The Emirati army bought 13 Azure armor kits with slatted bar armor designed to detonate the warheads of rocket-propelled grenades before they impact the hull. The U.S. Army fielded a similar urban-combat upgrade in Iraq. Azure also includes a remotely-operated machine gun.

While the French Leclercs remain unblooded, the Emirati tanks have actually seen combat — in Yemen, where the UAE has deployed between 70 and 80 Leclercs.

When Yemen’s president Ali Abdullah Saleh was deposed in 2011, Houthi tribes felt squeezed out of the new government and launched a full-scale rebellion in 2015.

Complicating matters was that Yemen’s military was already engaged in intense counterinsurgency campaign against Al-Qaeda militants who had carved out footholds in the countryside.

By the end of March 2015, the Houthis were close to triumphing, having captured the capital of Sana’a and seized territory in the port city of Aden. Perceiving the Houthis to be Iranian proxies, Saudi Arabia intervened at the head of a coalition of Arab states.

The Saudi-led coalition, benefiting from U.S. logistical and technical support, succeeded in recapturing Aden, but has sustained heavy casualties from the Houthi fighters. The coalition stands accused of indiscriminately bombing civilians.

By July 2015, Saudi ground forces were bogged down attempting to capture the Al Anad air base near Aden. An Emirati armor brigade conducted an amphibious landing — most likely via tank landing craft — at an oil refinery terminal, a major logistical feat for the small country. The armored brigade rolled down the N-1 highway and captured the air base on Aug. 3, allowing coalition forces to break out of Aden.

The Emirati Leclercs are split in two armored battalions, one of which remains stationed around Aden, while the other patrols Yemen’s mountainous central region. The armored brigade also includes a mechanized battalion of Russian BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles equipped with 100-millimeter guns, plus a battery of G6 155-millimeter self-propelled howitzers.

In videos, Leclercs can be seen racing down roads and firing their main guns in urban skirmishes. But how effective are they? It’s unclear whether the Emirati tanks have directly clashed with the Houthis’ own small number of captured tanks. But there is some information to work with.

So far there aren’t videos of Leclercs being destroyed — which can’t be said for the other vehicles of the coalition. Houthi rebels have filmed their destruction, by way of long-range anti-tank missiles, of at least nine Saudi M-1A2S tanks. At least five M-60 Pattons and two AMX-30s have also been destroyed. Additionally, the Houthis devastated a column of Emirati M-ATV mine-resistant vehicles in an ambush.

Sources in the UAE state that Leclercs have been damaged four times by anti-tank weapons. It appears two incidents involved IEDs, a third involved a rocket-propelled grenade that deflected off the target tank’s Azure slat armor and the fourth involved an anti-tank missile.

In all cases, the Leclercs survived, although a missile did kill a tank commander when it struck the commander’s hatch.

One Leclerc may have been knocked out while not in use. On Sept. 4, 2015, an SS-21 Tochka ballistic missile fired by a Yemen army unit allied with the Houthis slammed into an arms depot at Marib Airfield. The ensuing detonation killed 45 people and reportedly damaged a parked Leclerc.

To be clear, other factors may explain the lack of combat losses. To begin with, there are far more Saudi tanks of all varieties in Yemen than there are Emirati Leclercs. Furthermore, the Saudis may be operating in sectors where the Houthi have concentrated more of their anti-tank weapons.

Finally, some of the videos suggest the Saudi tank losses reflect poor tactics and a lack of combined-arms coordination. It’s possible the UAE tanks have deployed more carefully and in coordination with supporting arms.

Nonetheless, there are a few other signs that suggest the Leclerc is performing well.

This first appeared in WarIsBoring here.

Why French Leclerc Tanks Have Been Seen Fighting in Yemen | The National Interest

J.F.C. "Boney" Fuller - Wacko Genius of Armored Warfare

https://www.historynet.com/jfc-boney-fuller-wacko-genius-of-armored...

Major General John Frederick Charles Fuller was, during World War I and through the early 1930s, the British army’s tank warfare go-to guy. He was the man who taught the Wehrmacht how to blitzkrieg, George Patton how to rumble and the Israelis how to kill Syrians.

Machine Warfare: An Enquiry into the Influences of ...

https://archive.org/details/dli.granth.106025

An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine. An illustration of an open book. Books An illustration of two cells of a film strip. ... Machine Warfare: An Enquiry into the Influences of Mechanics on the Art of War Item Preview

J.F.C. “Boney” Fuller – Wacko Genius of Armored Warfare


Stephan Wilkinson

An upended Allied Renault FT-17 tank rises from a muddy frontline trench near Saint-Mihiel, France, in July 1918. (Library of Congress)

Irascible, overbearing, argumentative, condescending, a fan of woo-woo occultism and, ultimately, a Nazi sympathizer, J.F.C. Fuller was nevertheless a foresighted tactician

Major General John Frederick Charles Fuller was, during World War I and through the early 1930s, the British army’s tank warfare go-to guy. He was the man who taught the Wehrmacht how to blitzkrieg, George Patton how to rumble and the Israelis how to kill Syrians. Yet he was an absolute un-Pattonlike, don’t-mistake-me-for-Bernard Montgomery, I’m-no-Heinz-Guderian staff officer. The quintessential egghead, “Boney” Fuller was a tiny man with a modicum of actual combat experience whose bearing, manner and attitude were fully represented by his nerdy nickname.

Irascible, overbearing, argumentative, condescending, a fan of woo-woo occultism and, ultimately, a Nazi sympathizer, J.F.C. Fuller was nevertheless a foresighted tactician and imaginative military theorist. He would have been hard-pressed to take a rifle squad into action, yet he did something few other professional officers at the time bothered with: He thought about how battles should be fought. Thought so long and hard, in fact, that he became what the Brits love to call “too clever by half.”

Fuller failed to get into Sandhurst on his first try because he was too short (5-foot-4), too wispy (117 pounds at age 18) and had too small a chest (boney, presumably) to meet the British military academy’s standards. Second time around he got in, though he later admitted, “I took no interest whatever in things military.” Fuller preferred to read classics and write letters to his mother, yet he eventually secured a commission in the Oxfordshire Light Infantry.

About his first action, in the Boer War, Fuller observed: “We knew nothing about war, about South Africa, about our eventual enemy, about anything at all which mattered and upon which our lives might depend. Nine officers out of 10—I might say 99 out of every 100—knew no more of military affairs than the man on the moon and do not intend or want to know more.” Fuller was so contemptuous of his fellow officers that, he wrote his mother, he even loathed playing cards with them during the voyage to South Africa. “That biped is a great deal too uninteresting for me,” he sniffed, adding, “The army…needs primitive men who enjoy the heirlooms of prehistoric times such as hunting, shooting, etc.”

Fuller saw his first real fighting in the Transvaal. He wrote his mother about a friendly fire incident in which a native trooper was wounded in the forehead. Fuller fed the man whiskey while trying to stuff his brains back in with the handle of a mess kit fork. His words reveal his lifelong racism: “Any ordinary civilized individual would have fallen down dead at once, but I suppose these semi-savages use their brain so little that it doesn’t matter much if they lose a part of it.”

The best months of Fuller’s Boer War came when he was put in charge of 70 black scouts and given a 4,000-square-mile area of only partially pacified countryside to patrol. His recon platoon engaged in casual firefights, took and interrogated prisoners, raided, scouted for regular army units and generally operated independently. It was dangerous work, for the Boers particularly hated Brits who led the despised “kaffirs,” and captured officers could expect to die in unpleasant ways.

The experience was for Fuller an on-the-job tactical education. It taught him about field operations—particularly frontal and flank attacks and whether to envelop or penetrate an opposing force—in a way Sandhurst never could. His South African foray instilled in Fuller two ideas that would become cornerstones of his tactical thinking: 1) mobility is all-important, and 2) a rapid, deep, penetrating attack is far more effective than the traditional slow-paced, beat-your-head-against-a-wall frontal assault.

When Fuller returned to England after a brief posting to India (where he stoked his fascination with Eastern religion and mysticism), he resolved that the sweatier side of army life—drilling, marching, maneuvering—held no appeal for him and decided to escape into staff work. In 1913 he was accepted into the Staff College at Camberley, again on his second try. Fuller almost immediately got into trouble for trying to amend the army’s sacrosanct operating handbook, the Field Service Regulations. The FSR basically stated that war was simple, fighting principles were not particularly numerous or abstruse, and Napoléon pretty much knew everything that needed to be known.

Perhaps due to his reputation as a prima donna and troublemaker, at the 1914 outbreak of war Fuller was assigned as a minor General Staff officer, while his schoolmates were sent to the front (where many were killed). Among Boney’s crucial tasks, he reorganized the filing system at his base, developed a sheep-evacuation plan in the event of a German invasion, and determined whether and how to deprive such invaders of alcohol in the area’s pubs. In March 1915, he finally managed to get into the action by insulting his commanding officer so thoroughly that the man shipped him out in retribution.

What Fuller found in France was the stalemate that would persist for most of the war. Frontal attacks were useless, as both sides fielded machine guns. Flanking attacks were impossible, as frontline trenches extended across the Continent from the Atlantic to Switzerland.

Fuller advocated a style of warfare based on mobility and penetration—that is, breakthrough on a limited front. (Twenty years later, Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht would use those principles to develop its blitzkrieg concepts.) Another elementary principle on which Fuller predicated his style of war was mass: If you don’t outnumber your enemy, you probably can’t outfight him. “Do not let my opponents castigate me with the blather that Waterloo was won on the playfields of Eton,” he later wrote, “for the fact remains, geographically, historically and tactically, whether the Great Duke [of Wellington] uttered such undiluted nonsense or not, that it was won on fields in Belgium by carrying out a fundamental principle of war, the principle of mass; in other words by marching onto those fields three Englishmen, Germans or Belgians for every two Frenchmen.”

It was the tank, however, that would establish Fuller’s reputation as a tactician. So much so that some think he invented the modern armored vehicle, though in fact he became “an armor guy” well after Sir Ernest Swinton conceived the vehicle, after its first combat test at the September 1916 Battle of the Somme, and after Swinton and others had already developed and written about tank tactics.

Fuller later recalled his own epiphany. He’d gone to Yvranch, France, home of the army’s Heavy Section, as Tank Corps was then called, to watch the demonstration of a remarkable new weapon. (In fact, about all the Heavy Section was doing in those days was putting on daily maintenance-intensive dog-and-pony shows for visiting officers, sending its crude tanks to trundle over berms, cross trenches and, of course, crush trees like matchsticks.) “Everyone was talking and chatting,” Fuller wrote, “when slowly came into sight the first tank I ever saw. Not a monster but a very graceful machine with beautiful lines.…Here was the missing tool of penetration, the answer to the dominance on the battlefield of small-arms fire.” Fuller had found the antidote to the all-powerful machine gun.

Fuller’s first actual tank operation was the April 1917 Battle of Arras. As a demonstration of the tank’s capability the operation was a failure, at least in part because tankers ignored Fuller’s advice to deploy en masse and instead fed the tanks—mostly clapped-out training vehicles shipped from England—into battle a few at a time. Nor did it help that the army insisted on a traditional pre-attack artillery bombardment, a tactic anathema to Fuller, as it both eliminated any element of surprise and so thoroughly chewed up the ground that many of the tanks were immobilized.

The Battle of Cambrai in November and December 1917 was the Tank Corps’ greatest wartime success, as it punched a horde of tanks through the Hindenburg Line in a stunning example of Fuller’s penetration tactics. Fuller had wanted to lead the central charge, but his commander, Lt. Col. Hugh Elles, turned him down and directed the battle himself from his tank “Hilda,” becoming a fleeting national hero as a result.

Still, Cambrai wasn’t a clear-cut enough victory to establish Tank Corps as part of the varsity. Field Marshal Douglas Haig instead relegated tanks to a defensive role, much to Fuller’s chagrin. The iron monsters were strung out along a 65-mile front, either dug into pits or otherwise fortified—parked pillboxes, in effect—where “this beast would squat and slumber until the enemy advanced,” Fuller later mocked, “when it would make warlike noises and pounce upon him.”

Fuller’s finest wartime moment was the promulgation of his Plan 1919. Believing World War I would continue into 1919, he suggested victory with a single penetrating, surprise, mass tank attack aimed not at killing lots of German soldiers but at reaching and killing the enemy “brain”—the rear-area command-and-communications infrastructure—and thus paralyzing the body. But Fuller’s most meaningful tactical concept came to naught, as the war ended in November 1918. Had it continued, Fuller today might be as widely known as Guderian, Montgomery and Patton.

Britain’s hidebound high command seemed to learn little from World War I, their American counterparts perhaps only a bit more. The military remained convinced that wars were won by men clad in woolen uniforms hiding behind rocks and shooting bullets at one another and that despite the growing civilian predilection for cross-country travel in gasoline-powered automobiles, mobility of armies was still best provided by horses. Few seemed to realize that armor trumped wool and machinery was stronger than muscle. Part of the problem was that professional officers liked horses and loathed greasy, smelly machinery. Even airplanes met with their disdain.

Through the 1920s, as Fuller grew increasingly disenchanted with the military and his inability to bring about real tactical reforms, the military became equally disenchanted with Fuller. The final straw was the “Tidworth Affair,” which began when the British army gave Fuller the plum command of an experimental tank force at Tidworth, on the Salisbury Plain. The posting, which marked the tactician’s last chance to champion his armored doctrine, turned sour when he voiced a variety of small-minded ultimatums, such as demanding a full-time secretary and refusing to “waste his time” commanding an infantry unit attached to the tank force. To top things off, he petulantly threatened to resign, which would have been a PR disaster for the army, as Fuller had far stronger support among the popular press than he did among the officer corps. The army managed to talk him out of quitting.

But instead of taking in Tidworth, Fuller was again sent to India on a minor fact-finding mission and was never again offered a command. In 1933, at the age of 55, Fuller retired as a major general. Biographer Anthony John Trythall summed up his turbulent career: “And so ended, a few years before what will almost certainly prove to have been the largest and longest mechanized war of all time, the military career of Britain’s most experienced and able tank officer, the victim of his own brilliance and energy, and of his own inability to trim his words and actions to the winds of political reality and human frailty.…He was…too clever, too rigid, too intellectually arrogant and self-reliant to be highly successful in a military career.”

Following his army retirement, Fuller became deeply involved with Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (not a completely unexpected development, given that Fuller was a Germanophile, a racist and an anti-Semite whose preferred boyhood nickname was “Fritz”). He visited Germany frequently and spent time with Hitler, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Rudolf Hess, all of whom he found “charming.” Fuller was one of only two British guests at Hitler’s 50th birthday party, in April 1939, and it was at that event he apparently spoke some of the most notorious words ever attributed too him.

After a three-hour parade of the thoroughly motorized, armored Wehrmacht, Hitler greeted Fuller on the receiving line and said, “I hope you were pleased with your children.” Fuller is said to have replied, “Your Excellency, they have grown up so quickly that I no longer recognize them.” The Germans—particularly panzer commander Guderian—would later largely credit Fuller’s writings with their development of blitzkrieg tactics, though historians debate whether the defeated Guderian meant this more as postwar politeness than praise.

While Fuller realized that war with Germany would almost certainly erupt again, he deluded himself into thinking that white brothers under the skin would wage chivalrous battles, eventually settle on a winner and shake on it, “for chivalry was born in Europe,” he naively wrote.

While the government interned most members of the British Union of Fascists upon the 1939 outbreak of war, Fuller was left alone, probably because Winston Churchill intervened on his behalf. Yet Fuller loathed Churchill, of whom he once wrote to his friend Basil Liddell Hart, “The war as it is being run is just a vast Bedlam with WC as its glamour boy; a kind of mad hatter who one day appears as a cowpuncher and the next as an air commodore—the man is an enormous mountebank.”

In the 1930s Fuller had embarked upon a second career as a writer, ultimately penning some 45 authoritative books and hundreds of popular-press articles and scholarly papers. He wrote about everything from war to yoga (the latter extremely avant-garde at the time) and became a precursor of today’s retired generals anxious to freelance as media talking heads. Indeed, Fuller was Newsweek’s “military analyst” during much of World War II.

For all his foibles and failings, Fuller was a visionary. In the early 1930s he predicted, as Anthony Trythall wrote, “future armies would be surrounded by swarms of motorized guerillas, irregulars or regular troops making use of the multitude of civilian motorcars that would be available.” Fuller also mused that one day “a manless flying machine” would change the face of war. Early on he was intrigued by the development of radio, not only for communication but also as a way to control robot weapons. He also thought then-primitive rocket technology would one day lead to the development of superb anti-aircraft weapons.

And as early as the 1920s, Fuller was a proponent of amphibious warfare. He envisioned a naval fleet “which belches forth war on every strand, which vomits forth armies as never did the horse of Troy.” Indeed, he foresaw future navies as being entirely submersible. On the negative side of the balance sheet, Fuller also championed the military use of poison gas, particularly when spread by airplanes. Even as late as 1961, with the publication of his book The Conduct of War, he blamed resistance to chemical warfare on “popular emotionalism.”

If Fuller had a fatal flaw as a tactician, it was that he derided the importance of putting infantry “boots on the ground.” To him, combat was simply a matter of wool uniforms versus steel armor—and that seemed to him a no-brainer. Of course, Fuller had failed to consider the development of portable, shoulder-fired and helicopter-borne antitank weaponry.

Maj. Gen. J.F.C. Fuller, CB, CBE, DSO (Ret.) died on Feb. 10, 1966. Had he lived another 16 months, he’d doubtless have gained considerable satisfaction from Israel’s total rout of the Egyptians, Syrians and Jordanians in the June 1967 Six-Day War, using Fuller-doctrine tank tactics in what was later dubbed “the Jewish blitzkrieg.”

“Boney” Fuller was indeed a prophet—albeit a cantankerous, irritating and bigoted one—in his own time.

For further reading, Stephan Wilkinson recommends: “Boney” Fuller: Soldier, Strategist and Writer, 1878–1966, by Anthony John Trythall, and Fuller’s own The Conduct of War, 1789–1961.

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Fuller believed he would be unable to devote himself to the Experimental Mechanized Force and the development of mechanized warfare techniques without extra ...

‎Early life · ‎Career · ‎Retirement and fascism · ‎Military theories

The foundations of the science of war

by Fuller, J. F. C. (John Frederick Charles),

 1878-1966

Publication date 1926

Topics War, Military art and science

Publisher London : Hutchinson & Co

Collection libraryofthemarinecorps; fedlink; americana

Digitizing sponsor Library of the Marine Corps

Contributor Library of the Marine Corps

Language English

Includes bibliographical notes

The alchemy of war -- The method of science -- The threefold order -- The object of war -- The instrument of war -- The mental sphere of war -- The moral sphere of war -- The physical sphere of war -- The conditions of war -- The law of economy of force -- The principles of war -- The principles of control -- The principles of pressure -- The principles of resistance -- The application of the science of war

The Foundations of the Science of War is a compilation of material presented by Fuller when he was chief instructor, Staff College, Camberley. Dating from 1926, it is the culmination of his theoretical writings and an early attempt to fit mechanization into the fabric of European warfare. In this work, Fuller presents a comprehensive theory of war

One copy presented by Colonel Brooke Nihart Collection, Studies of a Marine, 1930's - 1940's

The star in the West; a critical essay upon the works of Aleister Crowley

by Fuller, J. F. C. (John Frederick Charles), 1878-1966

Publication date 1907

Topics Crowley, Aleister, 1875-1947

Publisher London, New York, W. Scott Pub. Co.

Collection cornell; americana

Digitizing sponsor MSN

Contributor Cornell University Library

Language English

Aleister Crowley & the Treasure House of Images

Aleister Crowley, J. F. C. Fuller

New Falcon Publications, 2010 - Body, Mind & Spirit - 143 pages

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The Treasure House of Images was composed by Captain, later Major General J. F. C. Fuller, one of Aleister Crowley's most important disciples and a leading military theorist of the twentieth century. Fuller was the author of The Star in the West and a principal editor of The Equinox. The Treasure House of Images is an exquisite work containing hymns to the signs of the Zodiac and the Sun. In Crowley's Confessions, he described it as some of the most remarkable prose ever written and an astonishing achievement in symbolism.

This edition is enhanced by contributions from a number of modern magical writers including David Cherubim, whose introduction places the work in its historical context and discusses its symbolism and use as a manual of Pathworking. Nancy Wasserman offers expanded practical instructions for Astral Travel, and provides an example for designing an actual Pathworking. Lon Milo DuQuette's foreword to this new edition places all this in context. We have also included Crowley's masterpiece, Liber O vel Manus et Sagittae, in which specifics for developing the Body of Light are detailed.

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J. F. C. Fuller




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About A∴A∴

John Frederick Charles Fuller (1st September 1878 – 10th February 1966):

J.F.C. Fuller, also known as Boney to his mates, was born in West Sussex, United Kingdom. He was a highly decorated military man, veteran of the second Boer War and the first World War ultimately receiving the rank of Major General. Fuller was a leading expert in the field of tank warfare and is considered by some to be the Grandfather of Blitzkrieg tactics. He was also a prolific writer who published books and essays on various topics, especially on the strategies of war. Many of these works are still considered viable and studied by students of mechanized warfare. Fuller emphasized the potential of exploiting new weapons in the field, especially tanks and aircraft, to stun and overwhelm the enemy psychologically.

Fuller later became controversial in British politics because of his support for the organized fascist movement. The Germans took interest in Fuller’s ideas on mechanized warfare and out of respect for his work, invited Fuller to Nazi Germany’s first armed maneuvers in 1935. Fuller was the only foreigner present which only escalated the controversy surrounding his name. When Fuller returned home to England, he began frequently and publically praising Adolf Hitler and was later invited, as an honored guest, to Hitler’s 50th birthday parade. Once World War II broke out Fuller was under immediate suspicion as a Nazi sympathizer, though never prosecuted of any crimes.

Fuller was also a Thelemite who wrote a number of works on esotericism and mysticism. In particular, his book on Yoga is of high interest to Students of Thelema. Fuller met Crowley after entering a competition to write a review on one of Crowley’s poetic works. He won the competition and his essay was later published as The Star in the West (1907). Fuller, now an adherent of Thelema, joined the A∴A∴ and became an editor and contributor to ‘The Equinox’ series. Though his association with Crowley lasted but a few years, Fuller has one rather astounding distinction among Aspirants of the A∴A∴ – that is, he is the author of the only Class A document, officially adopted by Crowley, that was entirely penned by another; that is Liber 963, The Treasure-House of Images. This work was published in Equinox Volume I number 3 in 1910. And, though listed as Frater N.S.F. (Non Sine Fulmine) 5=6 and Cancellarius in the imprimatur, Fuller was just a Probationer at the time.

A selection of Fuller’s writings can be found in the Library.