AHC: Tanks perceived as Obsolete by the 1970s

have a POD(s) so that Tanks perceived as Obsolete by the 1970s.

Remember, no matter the good or bad points of tanks, this is about perception only, not actual utility.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
IIRC, several newspaper accounts of the opening battles in the Yom Kippur War of 1973, in which the Egyptian army used Sagger anti-tank missiles to inflict heavy losses on Israeli armored units, described the anti-tank missile as a "wonder weapon" that had rendered the tank obsolete overnight. Perhaps having the Egyptians and Syrians end the war on better-than-even terms with the Israelis might allow this (completely mistaken) public perception to sink in a bit more.
 
There's also a book that explains, in quite a lot of detail, how recent advances in anti-tank weaponry make tanks obsolete. I can't remember the name, but I know it was published in France in the 1930's.
 
The demise of the tank as a modern weapon has been predicted before, but it hasn't happened yet. However, anti-tank missiles have proven deadly, on occasions when opposing commanders have failed to anticipate and guard against their use. The effective use of fast-moving BRDM and GAZ truck-mounted Sagger missiles by the Arab armies against Israel is well documented. Another such case was the otherwise well-planned North Vietnamese 1975 Ho Chi Minh Campaign, when PAVN generals made good use of Shilka air defense vehicles to repel VNAF air attacks, but often neglected to provide their tanks with infantry support. Many of their T-54/T-55s fell victim to mobile and stealthy ARVN anti-tank teams, especially in the cities.
You'd think the PAVN's Soviet advisors would have taught them to always screen an armor advance with infantry, since the Red Army's own failure to do so had cost them so dearly during the Battle of Berlin just thirty years before.
 
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