Please actually quote my words instead of twisting it around. I stated "has no experience at operating tanks in high-intensity combat" which is a whole world of difference to "know nothing about what tanks would face in a high-intensity combat". If you think generals reading powerpoint reports can amount to any sort of tangible improvement in existing doctrine I'd suppose you tell that to Russia who had 8 years to prepare.
It's reality that the PLA still hasnt operated MBTs in combat. It's literally just that. They trained under controlled environment. The Soviets had 30 years to train their troops, and they still got squashed in Afghanistan, because instead of NATO artillery dumping DPICMs which would be countered by barrages of TBMs they faced a determined resistance force employing assymetrical warfare tactics. And also learned thay their logistics are shit, and logistics dictate war.
Look, I'm not disparaging the PLA in any way. I'm just stating facts, facts that had significant historical value. The PLA has no, zero, nil or whatever synonym you can find in 100+ languages on actually conducting centralized armour warfare. The only nation to have ever done so is the US in 1991, and they lost whatever knowledge they obtained then after 20 years of buying SOF toys. The PLAGF modernization has improved their artillery, operational fires, combined arms coordinations, battle engineering et al to world class, they are theoretically better than practically every other army bar America's BUT they, recognizable, haven't put a major focus on improving their MBTs and their employment of said assets.
If you disagree with what I said. Please, point out the following:
- The PLAGF has improve individual MBT sensing, endurance and decision making ability in complex urban terrains under bombardment/EW and platoon coordination/manuevering to the level of US tankers in 1991/ second Fallujah.
- The PLAGF has improve vehicle engineering ability to retrieve and repair MBTs during combat with pace.
- The PLAGF has demonstrated the ability to secure supply routes, provide reliable SHORAD cover, rapid removal of complex minefields/obstacles and deliver appropriate logistical support within schedule against stealth standoff PGMs.
- The PLAGF has demonstrated the ability to correctly employ armour forces to thrust, defend, scatter and escort while mantaining acceptable attritional ratio.
- The PLAGF MBT forces have demonstrated the ability to create/emply complex terrains and engineering to provide tactical advantages in battle.
Modern combat is far more complex than " I read today's sitrep dayum" and suddenly realizing which are you are deficient in and then suddenly improving that area. It take experience, literally, to do that.
Yea, and the PLA can do
A LOT of that in exercises.
EW, Jamming, artillery strikes (well simulated, or artillery doing the motions, but not actually firing, and with computers calculating where things will hit, and then just tell units in area of fire to have XX% of being hit or w/e), fortifications, river crossings etc. etc.
We just don't have nearly nothing reported to us (not to mention what we often see, ends up basically being photoshoots).
And you can question the PLAGF in those areas, because we can't be sure that they get enough 'real exercise' in those areas you mentioned, and that's fine.
I don't.
I do believe that they aren't doing many 'scripted' exercises here in the 2020s, but rather exercises where they do cut off or jams comms, exercises where they do have simulated artillery strikes or other attacks from the air, exercises where they do make attempts at recovering damaged vehicles and so on.
You know what is realistic exercise?
USAF officials turning off jammers because they were literally killing radio stations thousands of kilometres away.
No exercise are remotely close to reality. No exercise could and have simulated troops morales, faulty comms, airburst TBMs, constant artillery barrages. trench warfare, Soviet-style DIY, lack of force concentration, fog of war, low supply, wrong range extrapolation or just plain simple jammed rifles because the enemy missed your chest but hit your gun instead.
We litterally got articles about how an unmanned ground drone got thrown into an exercise, and didn't work due to getting jammed.
And yes, I know exercises can't 100% reach real conditions, but they can get close, and in fact, even more intense when it comes to specific conditions (while disregarding other conditions).
It's more like you, that underestimates how much one can prepare for, with exercises.
Yet Ukraine is infested with all of these problems.
You literally just restated what I said in that quoted section lmao.
No I didn't, or well the last part about making a decision, right now today, one can give an AI autonomy to make decisions (such as actual shooting), but as it stands, I don't think any military would trust such an AI here in 2023.
So in that regard, you're right, and yet, this is gonna be a tank for the 2030s and 2040s.
Not to mention, the commander already has to make a lot of decisions (possible location of an enemy/something, is it an enemy, should it be shoot etc.) anyways, and by 2030s having an AI that can supply him with lots of suggestions, as well as executing commands such as fire or w/e is really not unrealistic.
In fact, it's unrealistic to expect that such an AI can't be made.
