Powerful DEW weapon-ed vehicle is not escort, it is a main combat vehicles and the vehicles with ancient shell shooting weapons are the escorts. This is the logical case as DEW is more expensive and fragile than a big steel tube, and also more critical.
Consider a laser vehicle capable of hardkilling a significant fraction of a drone swarm. Point it on the ground and it can kill/suppress just about all EO/IR sensor out to the horizon in no time, and maintain fire for long period of time. No human with direct fire weapon is going to fight that (getting warcrimes claims aside). It can also impact the greater air war with both no fly zone and a larger zone of disruption/suppression.
A lot of effort will be spent optimize the battlefield effect of a powerful DEW vehicle, and stuff like entire formations of gun-armed tanks would be sacrificed to protect one or take down an opponent's DEW vehicle if push comes to shove.
Automated swarms might increase that by an order of magnitude. China has showcased 100 to 200 drone large attack drone swarms. Those might grow bigger in the future. And drones themselves will remain fairly cheap. Exchanging 100 or so drones for one high end vehicle with laser protection will be done regularly. Even at $5000 per drone (like 10 times more expensive than current FPV drones in Ukraine) using up 100 drones still costs half a million dollars. Still 10 to 20 times less than a high end laser protected vehicle.
Such automated swarms will face other automated swarms in attrition, and swarms will be attacking launch points if interception is not reliable.
You can bring DEW vehicles not because it can kill a drone swarm by itself, but it can protect your own drone carriers and other long range systems from low volume sneak attacks. A formation that takes hundreds of munitions to kill is superior to one that'd die to a dozen.
The "Don't be there" doesn't mean not existing. It means to not be where you are most easily observed, which coincides with where is most defended.
That is also a fundamental aspect of maneuver. You don't go head on into the most well built defenses. You either go through vulnerable areas, or you create them and then go through.
Yes, the need to find weak flanks result in the
race to the sea. The ww1 generals had military training and knows the theory of maneuver, but theory don't work in all situations, otherwise just apply the theory of victory and be done.
With long range weapons, the entire front can be covered with defensive fire. To maneuver, one need to neutralize the fire and outranging is a valid option. The tank uses the cannon and not swords like cavalry or the chariot and even the effective flamethrower is rare, as out ranging explosive charges and simple rocket projectors greatly improves tank survivability.
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Ukrainian front is low density with long boarders with limited hard terrain obstacles and low population density nations fighting it out without full mobilization and under the condition of deep equipment attrition. If vulnerable areas can't be found there, it can't be found in a lot of conflicts. (sure there is fighting in the african desert and likes, but do people really care?)
Which brings me to the question - if you have the SMART - why also put it on a tank?
In war against strong opponents, they get the initiative half the time and sometimes it is your side that is screwed up. Read about being on the defending side of a maneuver operation. Stuff like artillery parks rolled up, supply lines cut, airfield overrun with tanks, and all kinds of other FUBAR. In those situations, standard doctrine is out the window and physics is what matters as tasks needs to be done to save the situation regardless of asset available. There are cases of anti-aircraft guns blocks an armor attack and stopped a breakthrough, tank destroyers conducting indirect fire, unarmored jeeps conducting assaults, air force logistics personnel conducting rear guard action, heavy bombers conducting CAS, and everything in between. Consider all the battles fought by depleted units at 30% strength with entire category of equipment wrecked, they still need to figure something to complete basic battlefield tasks.
It is better to get every capability if it doesn't cost very much, you never know when you'd need it. Anyone in the force structure could find a use in a unplanned situation.
Why not just remove that KSTAM, take a basic APC and convert it to carry ATGMs/LMs, and pack it with 20 Spikes or Brimstones or SkyStrikers or whatever?
Ammo is cheap (especially if only distributed on a needed basis), extra vehicle with crews is expensive. Just have both.
The rationale for giving ATGMs to scout vehicles is to improve their retreat potential and survivability if they stumble on a mechanized force. They by themselves are not strike assets.
Bradleys killed a lot of Iraqi armor with low losses under aggressive deployment. Assumption about the battlefield do not hold and multi-role capability is useful when reality don't match predictions.
