Title; I am using AAI vehicles but I don't want to use the tank platoons, it says the mod is required but is it alright to use without?
One reason is I just want to use the AAI vehicles, but also you cannot craft the basic "tank mk1" when using tank platoon with bobs mods, and therefore cannot ever craft the laser tanks which require it.

There is a "Keep vanilla Tank recipe" under options "Startup" tab, which keeps the recipe under Tanks tech.
If the tank recipe is hidden by any means, there is a "Force enable vanilla Tank recipe" under options "Map" tab.
This should solve your problem.

But for the dependency. No, sorry. Half of the contents of this mod is related to Tank Platoon. Too much work to make it independent.
And that's why I created the whole bunch of checkboxes in mod options, allow players to select only what they need/like.