News: 1598365505

Combine it with "Tank Battles" video game and we're off to the races.

I'm thinking BattleZone blip blip blip woo woo woo bushggga

https://my.ign.com/atari/battlezone

requires Flash! Hope they find a way to ditch it...

Two different issues I think:

1. Is cyber warfare a real threat? My bet is yes. And every year, it probably gets to be a bigger potential problem as more and more infrastructure becomes dependent on online communications. Is no one worried about what will happen to smart grids and such if our inspired and dedicated leaders manage to get into a serious pissing contest with clever opponents? That's a rhetorical question. The answer seems to be "No. What's to worry about? What could possibly go wrong?"

2. Can tanks be replaced with autonomous weapons? I should think so. The problem I foresee isn't capability. It's that battlespace communications have always been notoriously iffy. I don't think replacing static-laden voice links with multimegabyte per second digital links is likely to improve things any.

I think when the deployed unit is given a weapons free nod, as it would in a battle scenario, it would default to its "AI" if it lost communications with its fleshy operator, and start shooting up anything that didn't have a friendly QR code stamped all over it.

With our ability to distinguish with a high accuracy between individual humans as they saunter through shopping malls, it isn't such a great feat to have a mobile weapons unit pick with an even greater accuracy between friend and foe, tank and SUV.

Hell! I'd warrant far fewer blue on blue A10 incidents would have happened if the people doing the shooting had been replaced by a Sinclair ZX81, coded by a psycho.

Has it turned over a new leaf? Not so aggressive? Is it a kinder, gentler, machine gun hand?

I can see where this will go, the opposing armies will email lethal jokes to each other.

Spam, loverly spam....

Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!

ALLES TURISTEN UND NONTEKNISCHEN LOOKENSPEEPERS!

DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT FÜR DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN! ODERWISE IST EASY TO SCHNAPPEN DER SPRINGENWERK, BLOWENFUSEN UND POPPENCORKEN MIT SPITZENSPARKEN.

IST NICHT FÜR GEWERKEN BEI DUMMKOPFEN. DER RUBBERNECKEN SIGHTSEEREN KEEPEN DAS COTTONPICKEN HÄNDER IN DAS POCKETS MUSS.

ZO RELAXEN UND WATSCHEN DER BLINKENLICHTEN.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinkenlights)

I have that on paper, but it referred to a printer, it used to hang above the copier(about the size of a VW bus) where I worked in the 80s.

Hahahahahahahahahahaha....arrrgh....

The Wikipedia article on Battlezone goes big on the 6502 as used in the various home computers of the day, for example. "The Atari ST port contains large parts of the original 6502 code which is emulated in real time.", but a Google search accords with my recollection (as a youthful microprocessor design student in those days) of the original being a 4-bit bit-slice implementation:

https://www.osnews.com/story/131695/inside-the-am2901-amds-1970s-bit-slice-processor/"

I wonder how a cyberwarrior vs. a Russian T-14 would turn out? Oh well, at least the government won't be able to put tanks on the streets if they think they're losing control of the populace.

This reminds me of Fred Pohl's short story "The Wizards of Pungs Corners".

In this a crack US Army unit was defeated by a bunch of farmers and good ole boys armed with shotguns because their newly issued superweapons were hugely complex to operate and came with such appallingly written manuals for the wrong version of their kit, that, when the farmers appeared the troops were still trying to work out how to load their weapons..

With the way things are going, maybe Gordon R Dickson's Dorsai stories may be a good model to follow as armies get smaller and armour just gets bigger, more expensive and more specialised.

Tanks are so last century/millennium. Seems that they're of very limited use compared with other technologies, such as drones and lightly armoured vehicles. They'll never again be used in large numbers crossing a battlefield. About the only place is driving across protesters in Tiananmen Square or Red Square (look at the size of my knob)

One would expect that a Challenger 2 would be slightly more expensive than a Mastiff or Foxhound, not to mention somewhat more difficult to transport to theatre.

>They'll never again be used in large numbers crossing a battlefield.

That was largely the attitude that various Important and Clever People throughout the western/NATO countries held after the fall of the Berlin wall.

Then Iraq invaded Kuwait. And all the Important and Clever People went "Where are OUR tanks, WHERE ARE OUR TANKS?" Fortunately, we still had them.

If you have something old and unused, you invariably find you need it just after you throw it out.

The British Army has only 200 MBTs? Are they insane? What happens if, or rather, _when_ they encounter another Michael Whittmann or a Zvi Greengold or even an Abdul Hamid? (For those who don’t know, Whittmann and two other Tiger commanders shot up a British armoured brigade in Normandy; the slaughter stopped when the Tigers ran out of ammunition and went home. Greengold killed at least 40 Syrian tanks on the Golan in 1973, using borrowed tanks, and losing four of them in the process. Yes, he lost a tank, grabbed another, lost that one, grabbed one more, and lost that one too... but destroyed a Syrian tank regiment in the process. Hamid killed at least six Pakistani tanks and was working on another, using a recoilless rifle mounted on a jeep, before being killed in action. The Pakistanis were particularly pissed because he was Muslim...) Even six tanks is a serious percentage of 200... 40+ tanks would be a major defeat. There’s _always_ a Whittmann, a Greengold, a Hamid, somewhere on one or both sides in any major conflict. Having only 200 MBTs is simply begging to have your ass handed to you if you’re up against even halfway competent opponents. As Hamid proved, they don’t even have to have tanks, just balls of steel and something halfway close to an anti-tank weapon. Hellfire, at Arnhem Bridge 2 Para held off a SS Panzer Division with rifles and PIATs, so you’d think that the British Army would know this...

Well, the British Army only had around 650-700 MBTs at the height of the Cold War (well, mid 1980's), so the current fleet size is roughly proportional to the size of the army in general.

If history tells us anything its that various European powers are always crashing across the Russian border. It hapens pretty regularly and the last time it happened -- in 1941 -- the Europeans did an immense amount of damage. (...and yes, it was "Europeans", not just Germans. In addiion to Eastern European countries like Romania and Hungary Barborossa included contingents from Italy and Spain. Finland was an ally as well, contributing to the siege of Lenigrad.) The Russian military tends to end up in Western Europe only as a result of these invasions -- bits of their army turned up as far west as Paris after the Napoleonic Wars but they went home, probably leaving just the word 'bistro' behind.

Let's not bother fighting WW2 or even the Cold War again. We all know that when a department becomes redundant the leadership tends to work overtime to protect its jobs. The various Cold War defense organizations -- propaganda/VOA, civic affairs, even NATO itself -- belongs to a different time and should have been upgraded for the modern era rather than acting as a drain on the public's resources.

When will they be holding an auction? I've always wanted my own personal tank batallion.

Look no further my friend, special price for you!

https://tanks-alot.co.uk/military-vehicles-for-sale/

Presenteeism. The cyberwarriors sit in the office where MoD managers can keep their eye on them. Who knows what tank crews are doing out there? Playing cards & sleeping on the job most likely. An uneven contest.