Joe6pack wrote: "The military is all about redundancy. If one thing fails, have something else to back it up with." This is the point that the RMA proponents like Rumsfeld (and even our buddy here, Clausewitz) are missing. They propose more efficiency, more technology, less soldiers on the battlefield. You lose that redundancy. Now, start coming up with hypothetical scenarios that render your PGM armed light infantry/cavalry unable to use their weapons. For example, the heavy cavalry found your headquarters/logistics and their deep strike manuever forces are intermingled with your HQ. Now what? Or they have countermeasures that you didn't prepare for (like the Yom Kippur war and the Israeli Air Force's problems there) and your PGM's effectiveness is reduced by 50% or more. Or they manage to slip a super worm into your battle net and it's 50 or 60 percent degraded. What the heck are you going to do then? Gentlemen, war is not about efficiency, it is about applying the right amount of force to the problem at hand to provide and overwhelming solution. This is what we keep losing sight of.

Yes, joe6pack is right:Redundancy is very important. Any future force will need a backup (like the bayonet is). The future force will not be invincible. So there no ship unsinkable. But a backup is just a backup. Main operations will be run by the most modern tools. Even if mike_golfs ACR will always have a chance to smash a future force that eventualiy is not very likley. And I don't think that future wars need less boots on the ground if infantry is concerned. Maybe less supporting units because we will see less heavys on the ground we have to support. "The right amount of force to the problem at hand" will be the solution. But what will this right amount of force be made of. Thats the centerpiece of our discussion.

You know, even though no one has used manual ballistic telescopes as the primary sight for a tank for a long, long time every current main battle tank still has one. Not only that, but gunners are trained to use them to engage with. Why's that? Well, what are you going to do if your primary sight fails, or is damaged, or whatever? Sit there and be a target? Clausewitz is not one of the folks I have an issue with. He can see that technology won't stay static once his new wonder weapon is available and he sees that war is chaotic and doesn't necessarily play out the way the armchair generals think it will. But to all of you who keep harping on "the tank is done", "armies have to be efficient", "technology will change everything" just remember that every main battle tank has a manual ballistic sight for a reason. Murphy rules the battlefield. Armchair warriors who think that playing a wargame or two and reading some articles in a couple of trade journals teaches them all they need to know about the real battlefield are dangerous. There is a reason that it takes more than that to become a master gunner, or a first sergeant or a regimental commander. It's amazing to me how the armchair generals automatically discount what the warriors tell them because it contradicts their pretty picture. Then they accuse the experienced warrior of being a dinosaur who doesn't want to change. While it is certainly true that there have been, and continue to be, those who want warfare to stay static because they don't have to be innovative that is not the same as someone with real battlefield experience pointing out the flaws in your line of reasoning. There's a reason the M1 has manual sights and multiple machine guns and there's a reason why armies have multiple weapon systems and units with overlapping capabilities. Listen to experience boys. The tank is not done. It may be redesigned, it may change in the technology incorporated into it, but it's not going away. If you decide to do away with heavy cavalry in favor of light forces with high tech weapons you are ceding the battlefield to the forces of attrition and static warfare. This is the lesson of the US Civil War and WWI. Instead of saying the tank is done, figure out how to restore mobility and mass to the battlefield. That is innovative thinking. Heavy cavarly will continue to exist as it always has. It will continue to be the offensive combat arm that leads to the decision on the battlefield. And operational art will continue to be a calculus of time, space, mass, mobility and firepower. And if we forget that, then some smart fellow like Guderian will come along and remind us, painfully.

The tank will evolve like every other thing in war. Infantry went from single shot rifles to automatic weapons, aircraft went from machine gun toting dogfighters, and the tank will do the same. Electro-thermal guns, active protection systems, and more advanced armor and electronics will ensure it's survivability in a war.

i think the russian t - 90 is the best , even though chinese t-98 which is a copied model may not be that good but not to bad, i don't know which r other 9 but t -90 is the best

i think the russian t - 90 is the best , even though chinese t-98 which is a copied model may not be that good but not to bad, i don't know which r other 9 but t -90 is the best

Gypsy, the Russian T-90 is based on the T-72, infact it is a renaming of a T-72 model. Since the T-72 is far from adequate for today, I deem the T-90 not adequate for today.

Gypsy, did you happen to read the discussions on the T-90 as compared to other tanks? If you think the T-90 is the best tank in the world why don't you give some reasons please, so we can discuss whether your reasons are valid or not?

Im getting borred of people that take conclusions on what is the best tank in the world! By searching on the web you can't make the conclusion that the T-90 is the best in the world witch i doubt. Most of you people haven't even seen a tank from the inside! Several research company's have already proven that the Leopard2A6 is the best all-round tank available till now and that the M1A2 takes second place and the Type 90 (Japan) takes 3th so don't try to make your own statement about what is the best tank in the world! Top 10 tanks are: 1: Leopard2A6 (Germany)(not EX this version isn't used by any country) 2: Abrams M1A2 (USA) 3: Type 90 (Japan) 4: Leclerc (France) 5: Challenger 2 (UK) 6: T-80UM2 (Russia) 7: Type 88/120 (S-Korea)(Baby M1) 8: T-90 (Russia) (NOT THE BEST!) 9: T-72 (Russia) 10: Merkava Mark 3/4 Do not say that this isn't right because many Company's have tested this tanks in all conditions and came at the same conclusion.

>>Do not say that this isn't right because many Company's have tested this tanks in all conditions and came at the same conclusion<< So far as I know, no corporate or independent think tank has taken out a batch of tanks and blasted each one's frontal armor with a 120mm sabot round. All these top ten lists are based in large part on conjecture, "official" lists being a bit more rooted in solid facts than than ones generated here and on similar websites, but there is still a degree of conjecture. Nearly half the tanks listed on this "definitive" list have never fired a shot in anger. Nor have they taken a hit in anger. Equally important, any list that credits the T-90 and T-80 as superior to the Merkava 3 (much less the Merk 4) is suspect. Any list that puts the T-72 above the Merkava series is ludicrous -- buring Syrian T-72s in the Bekaa Valley in the early 1980s pretty solidly lit the way in understanding whether the Merkava 1 was superior or inferior to the T-72 . . .