The Comeback of Armor in the US Military

M1 Abrahams photo US Army

04 February 2015 Pacific Sentinel

Armored forces still have a role to play in future conflicts.

Time and again, obituaries on the world’s tank forces have been composed by analysts, who cite shifting priorities in acquisitions, shrinking defense budgets, and the obsoleteness of heavy armor in the age of cyberwar, drone strikes, and “light footprint” (PDF) operations. The United States Army, while still fielding one of the largest tank forces in the world – the number of main battle tanks alone is around 6000 – cancelled its most prominent replacement for armored fighting vehicles, the Ground Combat Vehicle, at the beginning of 2014.

Yet, as Breaking Defense reports, this trend could now partially  be reversed. The 2016 budget request contains a substantial increase in funding for various tracked vehicle programs, which according to Breaking Defense have a good chance to exit the contentious budget debates unscathed due to overall strong congressional backings of the programs and the relative small amount of money asked for. Breaking Defense lists the following programs: 

Read the full story at The Diplomat