Afghanistan fight boosts role for tanks in 21st century (Feature)

By Nick Allen Aug 1, 2008, 2:08 GMT

Kandahar province, Afghanistan - A German-made Leopard-2 tank spits 120 mm shells from a distant hilltop at Taliban insurgents attacking a patrol of Canadian and Afghan government troops.

Watched from afar, the explosions are hard to distinguish from the overall barrage of artillery and aerial bombing that erupts in the Zhari district of Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province.

But you can count on the shots being 'scarily accurate,' says Canadian Army Major Chris Adams, commander of 20 Leopards deployed here that the insurgents have dubbed 'the new evil' and 'the magic gun' - 'because it makes people disappear.'

Although the conflict in Afghanistan is a counter-insurgency rather than a conventional war between two sides, Canada brought in tanks during Operation Medusa in 2006 to break the deadlock in the trench-like expanses of farmland the Taliban were holding.

They quickly reaffirmed their place in a modern army, smashing through enemy defensive positions in places where lighter vehicles got stuck in the rough terrain.

'The introduction of tanks into this fight eliminated one of the advantages the insurgents had, hiding in the grape fields, which are very easy to defend and very difficult to attack,' Leopard commander Captain Eghtedar Manouchehri said. 'Suddenly tanks had their place in the world again.'

Plans to disband Canada's tank corps in favour of wheeled armoured vehicles were scotched, 120 new Leopards were acquired from German and Dutch surplus, and defence chiefs in other countries will have noted the latest demonstration of the weapon's potency.

'Of course there is a place for main battle tanks in the all-arms battle group and it would be foolish to ditch them all just because we happen to be in a counter-insurgency battle in Afghanistan just now - the two Gulf Wars showed that in recent times,' said Lt. Col. George Forty, a former tanker in the British Army and an expert on armoured warfare.

'However, money rules and tanks are expensive bits of machinery to keep unused 'just in case',' he added.

Complicating Ottawa's decision to deploy tanks against the Taliban, the move is said to have met resistance from elements in the US military who feared an escalation of the conflict.

To some extent they were right. While the Taliban now avoid head-on clashes, the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) or roadside bombs they plant are so powerful that they could potentially destroy one of the 70-ton Leopards, not to mention the lighter trucks and jeeps used by international and Afghan government forces.

'IEDs have grown dramatically, they are going for a catastrophic kill,' said Adams, whose tanks are from the Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians), a regiment that was raised at the turn of the 20th century from cowboys and mounted police.

So prevalent is the IED threat that a column of vehicles may be led by a tank fitted with heavy steel rollers that grind the road to detonate or disable some types of bombs before the vehicle passes.

The idea dates back to WWII, as do the scrim-covered parasols the crews keep over the turret hatch as the mercury rises to 50 degrees Celsius.

The threat is not limited to IEDs. The insurgents have rockets that could disable the tracks of the tanks, rendering them vulnerable despite their fearsome reputation. None of the Leopard 2 tanks have been destroyed but some have been damaged by enemy action.

'They are all vulnerable to some weapon or another,' noted David Fletcher, curator of Britain's Bovington Tank Museum.

Now that the pitched battles in Afghanistan are over, the tanks operated today by the Canadians in Kandahar and the Danes in neighbouring Helmand province have more of a fire-support role, or give a show of force to deter aggressors from taking them on.

'One of the great paradoxes of having tanks is that although they are one of the most formidable fighting machines out here, they tend to have a calming effect, as soon as we turn up the fight tends to end without us firing a shot,' Manouchehri said.

Moreover, their freedom to operate is shrinking: No longer do the tanks have the luxury of rolling across farmers' fields during combat missions, regardless of the damage caused to crops.

'A year ago we could drive where we wanted, we'd go bombing across the fields because it was safer that going on the roads,' said a Leopard gunner who also served in the country in 2007. 'But now we have to worry about public relations.'

Meanwhile, the Canadian public is divided over the U-turn in its military's procurement plans and subsequent mass purchase of Leopards.

'This tank is a waste of taxpayer dollars that will not help us in Afghanistan and once we're out of Afghanistan will only become a 650- million-dollar rusted monument to the outdated Cold War thinking that still holds sway over our military,' reads an entry on an internet discussion forum.