doctrine, medium-weight formations in a high-intensity conflict function as a reconnaissance force. And the combination, while not a tank, could give the Strike brigades the direct firepower to fight a reasonably well-equipped foe with some hope of success.īut deploying a missile-armed medium brigade to greatest possible effect could require changes to the British Army’s thinking and training.
The British Army equips dismounted infantry with Spike launchers but, so far, has not announced its intention to integrate the missile onto its Boxers. The Lithuanian army, which lacks tanks, arms its own Boxers with Spikes-as do the German and Australian armies, which do have tanks. The Boxer is compatible with the Spike missile. While it has failed to buy tanks in the past two decades, the British Army has managed to cut a $4-billion contract for more than 500 Boxer wheeled armored vehicles that will equip two new medium “Strike” brigades which, in the near future, could deploy alongside two armored brigades retaining old Challenger 2s. Israel’s Spike missile is similar in capability but travels even farther.Ī medium brigade equipped with wheeled armored vehicles, themselves armed with anti-tank missiles in the class of the TOW or Spike, packs firepower similar to what a heavy brigade possesses, although there are important differences in firing rate, magazine depth, targeting and logistics. Military Academy’s Modern War Institute.Īn American Tube-Launched Optically-Tracked Wire-Guided, or TOW, missile can deliver a downward-blasting warhead as far as 2.8 miles-roughly matching the effective range of a tank cannon. But anti-tank guided missiles are lighter than a gun is-and they don’t lack for lethality.Ī modern anti-tank missile “allows a single soldier to target and destroy even the most heavily-armored main battle tank with an almost guaranteed kill-rate, at great range and with minimal risk,” Vincent Delany wrote for the U.S. The Italian Centauro is one rare example. “An all-wheeled formation would seem, based on current evidence, to be a viable concept though not one yet subject to investigation,” William Owen noted in a study for the Royal United Services Institute in London.įew wheeled vehicles can support a cannon as powerful as a tank’s main gun.
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