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Comment by dforrestwilson | Hacker News Reader

I hypothesize that the Taliban had it right all along.

4x4 Toyota Hilux trucks with some sort of heavy gun + a fireteam of infantry kitted out with 1x drone, 1x manpad, 1x atgm.

Far cheaper than a modern tank and far more mobile.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_War

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Taliban technicals were failures when engaging NATO forces with air support. Larger tactical aircraft can remain at medium altitude (out of MANPAD range) and smash anything that moves with precision munitions.

What does a tank do better than a technical in that situation? AFAIK they don't generally carry better-than-MANPAD AA, they're not heavily armoured enough to resist precision munitions, and they're vastly more expensive.

Which is why tanks don't operate independently. They need air support, plus mobile medium range air defense systems.

The same could be said of technicals - with air support they would be more effective.

Taliban operated in deserts and open terrain.

The situation is a bit different in forested areas. Maybe modern aircraft have thermal imaging good enough to detect heat signatures from out of MANPAD range, dunno.

Technicals can't move through heavily forested areas. Can't drive through a tree. In more lightly forested areas, aircraft targeting pods and radars can pick them up just fine.

Fun fact: Ukrainian anarchist general Nestor Makhno is credited with the invention of the technical during the Russian Civil War, in the form of a machine gun mounted on a horse-drawn wagon.

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