The mighty tank has played a decisive role in battle over the past century.
But the classic armored tank’s future as an effective battlefield weapon is once again in question amid a less-than-stellar showing so far in Russia’s nearly three-week military campaign in Ukraine, which has seen the iconic ground combat vehicles routinely reduced to rubble by anti-tank weapons, drones and other countermeasures. Viral social media videos in recent days showed Ukrainian farmers towing abandoned Russian tanks with their tractors, marking a low point for what was widely expected to be one of Moscow’s trump cards over its foe.
Exact figures are hard to determine, but the Ukrainian military claims to have destroyed hundreds of Russian tanks during the initial stage of fighting. Before the war began, Russia had more than 12,000 tanks, according to figures compiled by globalfirepower.com, an online clearinghouse of nations’ military might.
But that number is dwindling. Twitter and Facebook are now littered with clips of Ukrainian soldiers posing beside bombed out Russian vehicles. In one of the latest, a Ukrainian service member holds up an anti-tank weapon that he says was provided by the British military.
“This one was shot from this beautiful thing,” the Ukrainian says in the clip, with the remnants of a Russian tank sitting just behind him.
Russia’s tactics — and the sight of long lines of tanks and armored vehicles stretched out in exposed, single-file convoys — have been sharply questioned, but the tank’s problems may go far deeper than bad planning.
The role of the tank in 21st-century warfare was facing serious questions long before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine late last month. A host of other recent conflicts, including last year’s Armenia-Azerbaijan clash, cast a spotlight on how cheap, nimble drones are able to wreak havoc on large, vulnerable armored columns.
Armenian tank columns were decimated by Azerbaijani drones and airstrikes, while proving unable to perform the first duty of a tank on the battlefield: to break through defensive lines, occupy territory and provide covering fire in support of advancing ground forces. Their clear visibility also made tank columns a tempting and obvious target. And the tank’s supposed strengths — speed, firepower and versatility — are nowhere to be seen in the battles so far in Ukraine.
Indeed, Ukrainians appear to have used small Turkish-made drones to unexpectedly potent effect in their counterattacks on Russian troops. In particular, the Ukrainian military has made effective use of the Bayraktar TB2 drone, which is equipped with laser-guided missiles, can cost as little as $1 million and is relatively easy to operate.
NBC News reported Tuesday that the Biden administration is considering sending a shipment of so-called “Switchblade” drones that can even more accurately target tanks and artillery from miles away. Such a step by the U.S. would make life even more difficult for Russian tank operators.
Beyond drones, American-made Javelin anti-tank missiles also have had a major impact on Russian ground forces, which have resorted to installing makeshift cages atop some of their tanks to blunt the impact of Ukrainian weaponry.
Behind the times
Combat analysts say the tank will always have a role in major military operations. But they say that the Russia-Ukraine conflict is proving once again that a tank’s role on the battlefield has changed, and that some military general staffs have yet to catch on to the shift.
“Russian tanks are being obliterated throughout the country. The use of stand-off missiles and drones by the Ukrainians have introduced a new wrinkle in armored maneuver warfare — one that has changed viewpoints on what it means to have a tank in combat,” Brent M. Eastwood, a former U.S. infantry officer and now the defense and national security editor at the online publication 19FortyFive.com, wrote in an analysis this week.
Mr. Eastwood cited the U.S. Marine Corps’ decision in 2020 to largely abandon tanks in preparation for the next generation of combat.
“Perhaps the Marines are looking smart because the war in Ukraine is showing the tank and infantry fighting vehicle is becoming redundant,” he wrote. “One reason for armored vehicles’ difficulty in Ukraine has been the Bayraktar TB2 combat drone. This unmanned system is proving deadly to the tank.”
In some respects, the tank itself may not be to blame. Mr. Eastwood pointed to the Russians’ failure to effectively protect its armored convoys with surface-to-air missiles, along with the apparent inability of Russian radar to detect drones overhead and jam their signals.
It’s just one example of what military scholars say has been a broader shocking failure of Moscow’s battle plan in Ukraine. Russian tanks are encountering a host of more predictable challenges, such as mechanical failures, fuel shortages and a lack of preparation to ensure the vehicles could operate in the thick mud of the Ukrainian countryside.
“The Russians also have found it difficult to go off-road … and the Russians are just not performing sufficient preventive maintenance on their equipment,” retired U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus told CNN in an interview posted online this week.
“I’ve served in mechanized units, with a mix of tanks and armored personnel carriers. And every single time you stop, the driver and the crew members are outside checking road wheels and final drives, pumping grease, topping off fluid levels. If you don’t do preventive maintenance, then you will end up with such vehicles breaking down,” Gen. Petraeus said.
Some analysts say the fault lies not with tanks, but with the commanders who are misusing them. Other weapons and tactics have been prematurely declared obsolete when a new technology — be it radar or air power or longer-range artillery — was introduced into the battlefield equation.
“In almost every instance, clever military leaders were able to understand the strengths and limitations of each system, and how to make them work in tandem,” analyst Imran Shamsunahar wrote in the journal The National Interest in 2020. “Whether operating in conventional or counterinsurgency environments, very few other military units possess the combination of overwhelming firepower, survivability, mobility and versatility that tanks do.”
In the early days of the Ukraine invasion, Russia assembled a 40-mile vehicle convoy apparently planning a lightning strike on the capital of Kyiv. Observers feared that the massive convoy — and its contingent of tanks and other armored vehicles — would crush the Ukrainian resistance in and around Kyiv.
Instead, the convoy remained frozen in place for days, and its tanks became easy targets for Ukrainian drones and anti-tank missiles. The formation eventually dispersed.
Pentagon leaders saw the shift in warfare coming years ago. In a sweeping planning document released in March 2020, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David H. Berger laid out a plan for the service to give up its tank fleet in an acknowledgment that they would serve little purpose in future battles.
“I am convinced that the defining attributes of our current force design are no longer what the nation requires of the Marine Corps,” Gen. Berger said.
“With the shift in our primary focus to great power competition and a renewed focus on the Indo-Pacific region, the current force has shortfalls in capabilities needed to support emerging joint, naval and Marine Corps operating concepts,” he said.