The close anti-armour battle in the Australian Defence Force (ADF) is not a dark art. Understanding the capability, tactical application, and planning considerations of anti-armour is an essential part of all levels of training, regardless of the branch of service.
This article discusses the modern use of anti-armour capabilities and contends that in future land wars, the highest priority for joint planners is likely to be strengthening anti-armour capability.
US Marines and the use of anti-armour – case study
The United States Marines Corps (USMC) have gone through a significant restructuring in recent years and will be returning to what they do best, amphibious operations in the littoral operating environment.
In doing so, the Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) has replaced tanks and some artillery for more space on board amphibious vessels for stores and ammunition, focusing on light expeditionary infantry and long-range missiles. In doing so, there is now a reduction in the freedom of action when operating in the littoral if faced with the threat of armour. A possible solution for this issue is the implementation of anti-armour weapons systems coupled with anti-armour tactics and procedures.
By replacing tanks and heavily armoured capability with dismounted ammunition, rations and other specialist equipment, the expeditionary force can have more effective projection and greater lasting power. This also needs to happen for the ADF as we recapitalise and restructure the way we operate.
There needs to be consideration into the use of anti-armour capabilities in the joint operating environment, with Fleet and Land working together in Joint combined activities to integrate successfully. Fire multiplication through new technologies to allow a smaller combined force to accomplish tactical tasks would require a much larger supporting force of a joint nature. This improves the ability to identify armoured threats and targets and then engage the threat armour with the most accurate and reliable weapon system.
Providing a new way of thinking, the Integrated Force can manoeuvre, target, engage, and sustain itself for a prolonged period in the littoral theatre of operation. Shaping and deterrence comes from effective use of multiple combined arms sensors in a peer to near-peer conflict.
Training of small, combined arms teams
To be proficient in anti-armour tactics, considerable training time must be focused on small combined arms teams. Integrating and training in combined arms teams improves the ability to identify and target armoured threats. If we look at the anti-armour platoon, it is a small element and – when broken down in support of the manoeuvre elements – it has a highly effective asymmetric capability.
While an anti-armour platoon would be able to provide an effect of massed fires on a range of targets, if broken into small teams, engagements over small, medium, and long distances become more effective over a greater area. The latest anti-tank weapons will enable targets to be engaged at distances up to 4000 meters. This, coupled with increased situational awareness through various means, will allow standoff engagements of targets.
Individuals at all levels must understand the application of the seven elements to increase the standoff and survivability of systems. These seven elements are mutual support, security, flank engagement, standoff, employment by depth, employment as a combined arms team (scalable), and cover and concealment. With an approach to applying principles to the analysis of defeating armoured threats, manoeuvre commanders have a chance for decisive tactical action. Training at a joint level to establish the effective treatment of individual and armoured threats is essential to the integration of combined arms effects.
Armour in the future battlespace
We must understand the importance of tanks and armoured vehicles in the battlespace and how to defeat them. There are many theories and continued discussions on the relevance of tanks and armour in a future battlespace; however, for the purposes of this discussion, we must assume that they will continue to proliferate. Anti-armour should therefore be considered a full battlespace effect rather than a small capability being launched from any aspect of the operational environment. The requirement to stop mass armour advances at ranges of artillery distances with precision strikes provides an important use case.
This concept also parallels the need for better sensors integration into command-and-control networks to coordinate effects. The standout feature here is the vulnerability of armour to detection and targeting by emerging battlefield sensors such as those provided by drones.
Drones provide an advantage primarily because they operate in a different domain. The drone, as a sensor, is typically not defeating armour alone. The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict of 2020 demonstrated the use of these systems in a peer-on-peer battle where both sides employed UAS. During the conflict, UAS platforms provided surveillance and target acquisition, including tracking targets for subsequent engagement.
One side utilised drones in identifying, targeting, queuing, and monitoring. This provided a tactical advantage in targeting different types of armoured vehicles with the most suitable platform and munition. UAS during the conflict varied from mini precision munitions fired from drones to tracking and engaging armour with non-line-of-sight SPIKE missiles. Armoured vehicles are equipped well to fight kinetic battles, but how they engage and interact with the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) has yet to be developed.
It is likely that the next evolution of armour is not in bigger guns or better armour against kinetic threats, but rather defence from electronic attack, detection, and interdiction.
A capability such as drones has little trouble detecting armour on the battlefield. Once the armoured threat is located, specialist munitions can target it. Reynolds and Walting (2020) go on to discuss their rethink of camouflage. While concealment is a crucial concept in warfare, effort must be placed into avoiding EMS detection, possibly using dummy targets.
An excellent example of the evolution of armoured vehicles is the Merkava Tank that was redesigned four times to get a platform suitable for urban operations. Armour redesign is something other near-peer nations have made a conscious effort of to reduce the detection signature by modifying engines to be cooler, thereby reducing infrared signature, as well as developing infrared camouflage for armoured vehicles to evade threat sensors.
Along with the reinvention of armoured platforms, the masking of armoured vehicles from being detected also plays a crucial role in avoiding threat sensors from different operating domains; however, they cannot be relied upon to reduce electromagnetic output from vehicles. Suppose the concept of achieving EMS standoff was applied to heavy armour. In that case, once again, you have an asset that has speed, firepower, and protection – potentially achieving enhanced relevance on the modern-day battlefield.
New and emerging technologies are at the forefront of developing a suite of anti-armour capabilities that may be introduced into western militaries in the next decade. Militaries such as those in the UK focus on the commonality between effectors, with a smaller strike force with dispersion to achieve overmatch and standoff against peer threats.
The future of anti-armour in the Australian Defence Force
As an Integrated Force, the ADF has reached a crossroad in anti-armour capability. There is now a requirement to design training to reduce the risk of armoured threats through detection and weapon systems to achieve standoff, which is required to operate in the littoral and provide forces with the appropriate targeting sensors required to defeat threat armour while minimising linear and easily predictable courses of action.
For a solution to be reached, multiple command engagements need to occur, all the way down to the individual observing the target and deciding how to treat the threat. Individuals bring with them their single service expertise and experience that:
- Is reimagining the joint operating environment to a smaller, more specialised level.
- Remembers armour will remain lethal.
- Invests in greater anti-armour capability to achieve better integration and delivers a more precise and lethal response.
There is no doctrinal solution to how anti-armour as a capability fits into the future operating environment. A key aspect of effective force modernisation is the need to develop common tactics, techniques, and procedures that promote effective integration of all force units, and the agility to defeat threat armour.
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