Could MBT get better at “helicopter hunting” than helicopter at “tank hunting”?

[Ronny]

Tank have always got much better armor compared to any helicopters, they can also be equipped with active hard kill protection system that can destroy missiles physically. Tanks can hide much better because both their radar signature and infrared signature can blend better into the background. And even tank weapons such as Sabot rounds are 4-5 times faster than helicopters anti tanks missiles. Missiles launched from tank cannon such as 9K119 Refleks or Lahat can also reach similar range as helicopter launched ATGM like 9M120 Ataka or AGM-114 In the past, helicopters are so good at hunting tanks, it normal to see them totally destroy a whole armor column. Could it be that the situation will be reversed?. Main battle tank will get better at killing helicopter than vice versa?

 

[shin_getter]

A "tank" that is good at anti-air would be categorized as air defense, not as a MBT since effective air defense is a more expensive and difficult capability than what tanks normally do. ADATS gets the MIM designation for example, and no one considers RIM-67 an anti-ship missile.

Instead of technical problems, the issue is semantic

 

[Avimimus]

One issue exists in the limitations of a gun launched missile. It is likely that a larger helicopter launched missile could always be designed to fly faster. The helicopter has less cover, but could evade more quickly. A lot might depend on who detects who first (and whether laser designation or radar emissions warn the target).

That said, a tank with an AESA and a guided round could be a serious threat to helicopters at normal engagement ranges (and moving from 120mm to 152mm would further increase lethality). It is definitely a possibility, and I suspect that the classified missile load for the new Russian gun might be such a weapon.

Overall, I suspect engagement ranges will increase to 15km-20km, with more powerful radars being part of the process. It will be difficult to reliably identify targets at such ranges (as visual confirmation is increasingly unlikely without sending a drone ahead) and the cost per shot should increase. At that point tank guns (even at 140mm-152mm) would be unlikely to be able to fit a round that could be a threat (unless one moves to something like using an air-breathing engine for the missile).

 

[shin_getter]

Categorization aside, specialization is another issue.

Consider Otomatic. That is an Air defense specialized "tank", and it has APFSDS rounds too. However it is not a tank because it doesn't have penetration or armor to match a "MBT" of the same generation. Now it is easily imaginable that such a vehicle can get other MBT characteristics, but cost and weight goes through the roof.

Attack helicopters are specialized in anti-armor and anti-vehicle in general. Racks of ATGMs that evolve to have increasing standoff against air defense vehicles is the standard.

If you have anti-air specialized land vehicle fighting, say anti-infantry specialized helicopter, the land vehicle would win out.

The normal situation is you have anti-land specialized land ground vehicle fighting anti-vehicle specialized helicopters. The logic behind this is simple, ground targets are far, far more common than helicopters and it doesn't make much sense to not specialized against ground targets to gain anti-air capability.
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Now with technological advancements tanks even without specialization can get better at anti-helicopter, with improved shell and FCS, but attack helicopters of the same generation would evolve beyond the capability of such tanks. As such one can see that more advanced tanks defeating obsolete helicopters, but helicopters winning out if the vehicles are of the same generation.

If tanks in general dominates helicopters, than attack helicopters as we know it would cease to exist.

 

[Vanessa1402]

Helicopters are better at hunting tank than the other way around because of the following reasons:
1- Helicopters can fly, that mean gravity helping heli missiles get more range, while gravity will reduce the range of tank round. Even if two side use the same weapons then the helicopter still have bigger engagement range. For example: if the tank round have maximum range of 5 km, the helicopter can fly at 5.5 km height and become immune to the tank weapons
2- Helicopters can carry bigger missiles because it doesn't need to keep its weapons since thick armor. By contrast, tank round need to be small enough to be fired by 120-125 mm cannon. That another reason that give helicopter much bigger engagement range and great destructive power that easily nullify the tank armor.
3- Tank need to protect their optics from even small arms fires, so the aperture size of those optics are limited, whereas helicopter can just fly higher to avoid small arms fire, so they generally have bigger optics which offer better detection range. Some helicopters also have big radar that allow them to find target at much faster rate and in all weather. So helicopter can have advantage in detection as well.
4- Helicopter move much faster than a tank, and in 3 dimension. That mean the effective range of anti air weapons from the tank are shorter than the maximum kinematic range. By contrast, because a tank is very slow, and only move in 2D. The effective range of air to ground missiles from the helicopter is similar to the maximum kinematic range. That mean helicopter often have the option to engage from outside the retaliation distance of the tank.

 

[Kat Tsun]

If you replace the turret of the tank with a turret carrying long range missiles, sure. The Abrams ADATS thing probably would be fine-ish.

Maybe something like the HERO-120 could have marginal anti-helicopter capacity, but not anything serious, because it's too slow.