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Italy puts $5.9 billion toward a new main battle tank
(defence-blog.com)
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this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2026
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In this world of drones
Yes and no.
While tanks as classic MBTs have likely become less relevant (at least in their current form) there are various scenarios in which tanks could adapt to modern battlefields.
As long as the reason for the tank’s existence (operating on the battlefield under armored protection and providing heavy, direct fire support for the infantry) remains, the weapon system will likely not become completely obsolete. In my opinion, this is also evident from the fact that tanks (some with improvised modifications) are still being used by both sides in the war in Ukraine. If tanks were obsolete, they’d be rusting away in some storage yard by now.
On top of that, the tank as a concept has been declared dead time and time again (after World War I, after World War II, after the end of the Cold War), and so on. I think the current “tank crisis” should also be viewed in this context.
Did somebody actually say tanks were dead after WWI? Tanks were brand new!
Yes, in fact, some people at the time declared the tank dead for the first time. Trench warfare was a thing of the past, and so the question arose as to why we would still need a vehicle that had only proven its worth through trench warfare (the first tanks were designed to break through heavy defenses and, in particular, to eliminate machine-gun nests).
These commentators were even correct in that the subsequent wars were no longer trench wars, and the tank diversified beyond its role as a breakthrough vehicle, evolving (among other things) into a system of one-on-one combat over the course of the next major war.
Wow, so I guess they were picturing everything reverting back to 19th-century warfare? Or maybe, they were picturing what actually happened, but they didn't know what to call the heavy, but still fast and maneuverable, gun platforms we now call "tanks".
I guess it goes to show that you have to consider what a new military technology adds, as well as what it subtracts.
"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.
Drones can destroy tanks, but not that easily. In most cases they actually shrug off drone hits pretty well. Even old weak armoured tanks like the Leopard1 are reported to have survived over 50 drone hits. Modern systems even more. The main thing basically everybody is researching right now is a light weight anti drone gun system. This is also useful as a machine gun for a tank, which basically all tanks have anyway. If that can be added and made to work, then fewer drones would hit them, which with added armour makes the cost usefulness balance much better. Other ways of dealing with that problem are AA platforms like Gepard or the new Skyranger.
As soon as you have that, you have a platform, which can do breakthroughs on the front line and is mobile enough to exploit them. They also will work together with drones to provide indirect fire. It is much much cheaper to fire a shell on something then to use a drone. Especially for a similar sized warhead. That will be aided but larger calibers. Most modern tank designs go for 130mm or so, which gives additional range and is useful against a lot of different targets. That indirect fire role somewhat close to the front line, is how Ukraine and Russia use tanks today.
I wonder how that's being measured. Obviously, fairly modern Russian armour has been destroyed quickly in Ukraine. Turtle tanks can survive well over a hundred FPV hits - at which point, the drone operators must be wishing they had basic artillery, instead - but they're designed for that to the detriment of other capabilities.
They seem to have gotten modifications similar to turtle tanks, but less radical.
https://united24media.com/latest-news/52-drone-hits-fail-to-destroy-ukrainian-leopard-tank-during-daylong-assault-17654
Yeah, not quite an assault shed, but still pretty substantially covered, going by the picture.
The way you put it, I was expecting an unmodified tank capable of normal tank operations, in, like, a Western test.
If the war in Ukraine is any indication, drones don't move the frontline much, tanks still do.
That said, developing a new tank now seems like a high risk to me. Developing a tank that will do well in the current environment is likely doable. However, drone warfare is evolving so much faster than tank development will or can, because tanks are simply too expensive and complicated to iterate quickly (among other reasons).
While I'm by no means an expert on the matter, as I understand it there is some solid reasoning here: whatever the best solution to fighting drones turns out to be, it's probably going to require you to bring some heavy equipment and power generation to the frontline. We've got various directed-energy systems, guns similar to the CIWS on ships but scaled down, interceptor drones, jammers... But at the end of the day, all of them require you to be able to carry a bunch of heavy shit to the frontline and for it to be durable enough to survive there. At that point you've got something a lot like a tank again
Well, no. Not every armoured vehicle is a tank.
The engineering logic for large, probably armoured vehicles checks out, though.
Well, tanks haven't either. They just aren't survivable enough, in that war, to get through. How much that generalises to the next one, is the question.
Tesla tank incoming!
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