Military Review English Edition November-December 2014 | Page 16

A Merkava IIID Baz tank fires a round during a training day held in the Golan Heights for the 188th Armored Brigade, Israel Defense
Forces, 20 March 2008. The goal of the day was to test the level of the brigade’s combat fitness.
(Photo by Israeli Defense Forces film unit)

Armor versus Air Power
However, irrespective of its effectiveness in such
collateral roles, countering enemy armor formations
remains the key role of the Abrams for several reasons.
Though air power has made great gains in its lethality versus armor, as shown in both Gulf Wars, it has
clear limits. Consequently, any future overreliance on
airpower alone to counter enemy armor will create a
perilous single point of failure in U.S. military capabilities. Although there certainly will be cases when airpower is the best option for dealing with enemy armor,
there are too many variables to rely on airpower as the
only option available. For example, what if some future
opponent were able to challenge U.S. control of the air
for just a few critical days at the beginning of a conflict?
Such occurred when the Israelis paid a heavy cost
for their dependency on air power in the early stages of
the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when the effectiveness of
Egypt’s air defenses came as a surprise and temporarily neutralized Israeli air superiority.10 Elsewhere, the
forests and weather of Kosovo, along with strict rules
of engagement, made allied targeting of Serbian armor
from the air ineffective. NATO estimated that in three
weeks of airstrikes, only about a dozen tanks had been
destroyed.11
While many of the air-delivered precision weapons available today are billed as all-weather, adverse
weather still causes problems with their employment,
which requires greater understanding and anticipation
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of collateral damage risks associated with targeting.
Additionally, attacking armor dispersed in an urban
environment often involves highly restrictive rules of
engagement and other targeting challenges to preclude unnecessary civilian casualties and damage to
infrastructure.
Add to the equation the impact of advanced
man-portable air defenses, such as the SA-24 that
confronted NATO aircraft in Libya in 2011, and we
then have a situation where manned aircraft are forced
to fly higher while lower-flying armed drones are more
vulnerable—all of which degrades the ability to target
and deliver payloads accurately against not only armor
but other targets. Consequently, an air-only threat to
an enemy will not always be a viable option.
In contrast, the availability of heavy armor capable
of counter-armor operations provides to friendly planners much greater flexibility and a wide span of options
for tailoring operations—simultaneously confronting
adversaries with the problem of trying to react speedily
and effectively to whatever course of action we might
choose.

Historical Examples
The high-speed nature of mechanized combat operations leaves little time for defenders to adapt to the
unexpected.12 In 1940, the French were well behind the
Germans in recognizing or preparing for the potential
of mechanized forces. One consequence was that it
November-December 2014  MILITARY REVIEW