A little personal history about tanks...
In late 1990 my MEU(SOC) was deploying to the Med. We were feeling a bit left out, with Desert Shield gearing up (and about to become Desert Storm). Back then, a MEU(SOC) normally deployed with a 5 ship MARG. One LKA, a couple LST's, and LPH and an LPD. But with Desert Shield building up, the Navy found itself short of ships capable of delivering men and material...and so we found ourselves deploying with just 3 ships. Guess what got left behind? All our armor, and all but 6 (IIRC) Arty batteries (of which only 2 tubes worked).
We knew this well in advance of our deployment. My Battalion commander was an older LtCol. Old enough that his first deployment as a 2nd Lt was to Vietnam in Nov of '67 (Merry Christmas <sarcasm>), and to a place called Khe Sanh. Experience two months later, was a painful teacher...and it showed. He obviously survived that engagement, but after his tour he transferred out of the infantry.
All of this is to say, when we found out we'd have no armor, Col. Kohl immediately reorganized our group (Service & Support) and stripped about 1/3-1/2 of the Marines from their Plts and formed a "provisional" Rifle Company (that was heavily armed in comparison to a normal rifle company's TO&E). Comms, MotorT, Combat Engineers, LSB/Shore Party, Supply...we all became grunts, because we knew if something happened, the BLT (Bn Landing Team) wouldn't be able to cover everything, and sans Armor, it was going to get bad if we had to mix it up in a furball.
After the airwar kicked off (we were in Toulon, France actually), we continued our cop-on-a-beat deployment, heading to Sardinia for Operation Dragon Hammer. Halfway through the beach landing, we get a flash message. War was over, but Iraqi Republican Guard were wiping out the ethnic Kurds, using helicopters, sarin nerve agent, and pushing them into the mountains, and then gunning them down in groups. So, we get orders to "proceed with best speed" to stop the shitstorm that was developing (even though most of the free world was still high on the stunning speed and success of Desert Storm). 12hrs after the message was received, we had re-embarked all gear (which is fucking mind boggling to understand or appreciate) an we were underway at a pretty good speed. As troops they told us nothing, other than it was real world, and they tell us when we got there, what exactly was going on. Three days later we arrived off the coast of somewhere, soon to be told we were in Iskenderun, Turkey.
Anyways, we roll in to Turkey; dis-embark all gear, distribute live ammunition, and take a 12+hr ride from Iskenderun, Turkey, transiting the Carpathian mountains, and down into the pocket of Turkey that interjects into Northern Iraq; Silopi, Turkey. We then rolled across the border (after removing the PE-4 demolition charges they had placed under the bridge for us; me and an Intel guy found them, but that's another story altogether).
The Iraqis were not happy to see us, and threatened to restart the war, since we were technically in a cease fire.
Now the Iraqis had moved many of their modern tanks up North to avoid some of the shit storm that happened down south. So as we rolled across the border into the town of Zakhu, Iraq, intent to set up an initial security perimeter in mountain pass (which ironically was very similar to the Delta T in 29 Palms), low and behold, we roll up on a T-72. Initially we thought it was a dummy, like the dummy inflatable BMP's we had seen spread out in the various minefields along the main roads leading in from the border. ...Until the turret started turning to track on us. Everyone bailed the vehicles and started forming a perimeter with AT-4's being brought to bear. Suddenly that tank hatch pops, and an IRG commander starts waving a handkerchief. Long story short, he wanted nothing to do with us, or our anti-tank rockets (we may have had a few TOW vehicles, but I don't recall them being around at the time). We find out he was ordered to hold the main city circle, and we explain we can't let him, and so he leaves down the mountain pass.
That night, the IRG were out probing lines, and getting into fire fights with the Kurds, since the word had spread, and every Kurd north of the 34th parallel was making a beeline for the 36th (line of demarcation for the DMZ, just north of Dihok, Iraq). We had no armor, and knew there were at least 3 Bn's of IRG in the area. HUssein was threatening to attack with his troops, and the State Department was in the process of negotiating a resolution. The BLT and the provisional rifle company filled the lines. Even so, there was about 75-100yds between each hole. We had aircraft from the USS Roosevelt flying CAP and providing illumination on-call drops the whole night. Surreal doesn't begin to explain the feeling of being up on a ridgeline, no armor, no significant Arty (only two guns working), and too steep for 81's to realistically support, with no back up beyond the remaining 100 people or so, back in Silopi (25-35mins away). Suffice it to say, the next few days were...stressful, but we prepared as best we could, laid out mines (as if there weren't enough already spread out in that shithole), and waited.
That's what Marines do. Is armor wanted? Hell yes. Is it really needed? No, not always (and it comes with a very long logistical tail/cost). You adapt, you improvise, and you fall back on your training. All those sand table exercises that the Col required, all paid off. Terrain was used to our advantage, and appropriate weapons were distributed to deal with the threat. Choke points were used (and manned) very effectively, much like they're doing in Ukraine today.
So all of this is to say, no I don't think you need to be concerned about tanks for the Marines. In the coming peer adversary conflict, it'll be more important that the Corps go back to it's mantra of being shock troops, capable of breaking opposing forces through maneuver and violence of action. Marine Tanks will just bog that down. Better to spend those dollars that were spent on tanks, to better arm and train Marines in how to quickly, and violently neutralize armor threats, and then close in and crush the supporting infantry. Back when I deployed we had waaaayyyy more training than what I see in today's Corps. Hopefully that changes as well, now that the armor has been removed from the equation.
Anyways, sorry for the long post, but just wanted to give a different (and personal) perspective. Tanks are nice, but they're not required most times, especially in high relief terrain.
with roughly 72 tons of love, more if they have the reactive armor on it.
