Italy's Defense Ministry has opened a €5.14 billion ($5.86 billion) procurement for a new main battle tank and vehicles built on it, according to a record published Sept. 21 in the database of Italy's National Anti-Corruption Authority (ANAC). The entry,
“In this world of trenches and tank traps”
“In this world of mines”
“In this would of RPGs”
“In this world of ATGMs”
…
We have heard the same song again and again. Tanks will not become obsolete because counter-measures are developed. They will just adapt to new threats unless there is an actual replacement that can fullfil their role on the battle field. Which drones don’t.
Alas… the next iteration is coming with more active defenses as well as a remote-weapon station able to work against drones. And with their own set of missiles and/or loitering munitions.
Also, quite contrary to the “tanks are dead” narrative, the less talked about class of IFVs is actually getting much more tank-like with similiar levels of armor and active defense as tanks, just another specialisation
The Russia-Ukraine war is specific to the capabilities of the two parties, and to the nature of the battlefield (big and flat). The next war will be different in many important ways. So yes, one shouldn’t overlearn.
That being said:
What fulfills the role of a castle on an ancient battlefield, in a modern one? Nothing, really. That whole method of warfare become obsolete.
Ditto for the musket formation. Tactical infantry formations obviously exist, but they’re dispersed, because the problem tight lines solved are gone, and the weaknesses they had are much more important.
The Ukrainians themselves hate the whole “we added a remote 50-cal station to the truck so we’re good” argument. Drones can do a lot of different things, and don’t necessarily come one-by-one. If there’s any actual replies back to that argument, they seem few and far between.
It’s going to change tactics, not just technology. The West can’t procure our way out of having to adapt.
Yeah, but that’s not an MBT! Armour is almost certainly not dead. A vehicle built around a big gun firing mostly horizontally, and surviving assault by other armour, on the other hand…
A bunker. 😜
Mainly the lacking anti-air. Ukraine had barely anything and is often relying on Western high tech in very small numbers or rather primitve measures of manual guns against slow flying mopeds, Russian ones constantly fail to meet the performance they should have on paper.
But a lot of the tactics already exist and adaption is procurement. See for example the mobile anti-air guns most NATO countries lacked or had phased out as too unimportant, so ancient Gepards were bought back from 3rd world countries. That problem was entirely self-created. The tactics and tech to defend mobile units against air threats (including drones) existed for many decades and were just neglected in years where asymmetric warfare was more relevant.