This is an interesting discussion of the future of tanks. It is focused on Britain which doesn't seem to want to retain tanks, but has wider application.
The fact that properly handled tanks are no longer nearly invulnerable to most weapons simply returns tanks to their state of the gun-protection race that guns had won since the middle
of World War II that ended in the recent era of advanced armor dominance,
like the depleted uranium that protects the front of the Abrams. Clearly the end of that era of protection dominance is in sight.
We discovered that we can't build the wonder tank that is light, lethal, and protected, as I warned in 2002 in Military Review (starting on page 28). And exotic protection methods invite countermeasures.
But tanks were useful when battlefields were littered with them after the battle was over. As part of a combined arms team, tanks remain invaluable. The fact that they can be destroyed is irrelevant. Yes, they can die when not supported. But unarmored assets die even faster.
No system lasts forever and tanks are no exception. We seem to be reaching the limit of adding weight to increase passive protection and bigger weapons.
But the tank won't disappear until something replaces the mobile
protected firepower it provides on the battlefield. What alternative to
the tank exists or will be built?
With the return of tank vulnerability as weapons outstrip protection again, we may need to return to semi-disposable mass-produced tanks lethal to everything on the battlefield but armored only enough to survive direct fire from smaller caliber direct fire weapons found on infantry fighting vehicles. Crew survivability rather than tank survivability should be the highest protection goal.
Do read the article. It is a good discussion of tanks and combat. But most narrowly I remain worried that the willingness to abandon tanks is a sign of Britain abandoning ground combat against peers and not just a willingness to abandon a single weapon system.
UPDATE: A counter-attack questioning the urge to abandon the tank in Britain.
UPDATE: One lesson from the current Armenia-Azerbaijan war:
The war illustrates that in an offensive, or counter-offensive, the only thing worse than being in a heavily armored vehicle is being outside of one.
There you go.
UPDATE: Don't rush to assume drones made tanks obsolete. And as I argued in Army magazine, there are ways to fight fire with fire, I think.
