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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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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.