Further highlighting the trans-Atlantic gaze, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General David Berger was recently in the UK meeting with leaders in the Royal Marines. Commentators in the Wavell Room, for example, have noted that defence leaders in the UK should be paying attention to what is happening in the Marine Corps if they are not already. Today, both forces are planning for the future and considering significant reforms. Yet, both the US Marine Corps and the British Army have used tanks effectively in combat in recent history. Likewise, the US Marine Corps is an expeditionary force not intended to fight protracted ground campaigns.

A key similarity is that all of the UK’s land forces are inherently expeditionary. The UK spends significantly more on defence than the US Marine Corps spends but that makes sense when taking the Royal Navy and nuclear deterrence into account. About half of the UK’s active-duty strength is in the Army. The United Kingdom’s military, which includes the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy, the Royal Marines and the Army, is similar in size to the active-duty United States Marine Corps. This article explores the similarities and differences in US Marine Corps and British Army thinking regarding tanks and possible options. Rather, we need to ask how arguments for keeping armour in the US Marine Corps or the British Army weigh the resources necessary to train, maintain and sustain armoured units against other capabilities such as uncrewed systems, cyber, and air defence which achieve similar effects. The key question is not “are tanks valuable on the battlefield?” Because they are. There is agreement that shock and mobile, protected, firepower are likely to remain valuable on future battlefields. Removing heavy armour is not a repudiation of the value of heavy armour on the battlefield. ĭespite this criticism, almost all of the naysayers have missed the critical point of the debate. Both announcements garnered a flurry of criticism.

In August 2020, news broke the British Army was considering a similar move to scrap all of it’s 227 Challenger 2 main battle tanks. The news was formally announced in the Force Design 2030 Report, but word of the move came out a few days prior in the press. At the time the US Marines fielded three active-duty tank battalions and one reserve tank battalion. In March 2020 the United States Marine Corps announced that it would be disbanding its tank units.

Modern british battle tanks