military technology
Kills and no breakthroughs – Ukraine marks the end of the main battle tank
The most modern operational Russian tank type – T-90M Proryv-3 – has already been destroyed in Ukraine.
© Gavriil Grigorov/ / Picture Alliance
Portable cheap weapons like drones and anti-missiles rob the tank of its crucial impact on the battlefield. The armor no longer offers protection. The technological turnaround not only threatens Russian tanks, Western models would have the same problems.
Battle tanks and armored vehicles are being shot down in droves in Ukraine. Russia is said to have lost a total of over 2,000 armored vehicles of all types. The armored units, on the other hand, were unable to make any bold breakthroughs or deep cuts. It seems the age of tanks is coming to an end. It began towards the end of World War I and lasted for over a hundred years. What’s new today in the war against Ukraine? Two things bothered the steel monsters. One is infantry anti-tank weapons of all kinds, including state-of-the-art guided missiles. And the other moment is drones. Drones that fight tanks directly or that can only pinpoint their exact position. Both “enemies” are not completely new – but the way they appear has never been seen before in a war.
Anti-tank defense in World War II
At the beginning of the Second World War, main battle tanks could only be shot down by other main battle tanks and special cannons. With the increase in armor, the defensive cannons became larger and larger, “the” classic is the German “Acht-Acht”. Infantrymen could hardly defend themselves against the tank. Only in suicidal attacks could they attempt to plant mines on the vehicle or blow off the tracks with a bunch of hand grenades or set the vehicle on fire with the Molotov cocktail – an oil mixture. That changed during the course of the World War. This was made possible by a different form of ammunition. The armor wasn’t destroyed by the force of a hard bullet core, but welded on by some sort of directed hot plasma jet. Most anti-tank weapons are still based on this principle today. But in World War II, these weapons had limited range and limited effectiveness. If the tanks were accompanied by infantrymen in battle, it was difficult to get a kill with a Panzerfaust – effective range between 50 and maximum 100 meters.
Turning point with the Yom Kippur War
Only with the advent of small long-range guided missiles at the time of the Yom Kippur War did this change dramatically. The German Milan from the 1970s has a range of 3000 meters. Today, the range of many portable, small anti-tank missiles exceeds that of a tank gun weighing several tons. To do this, the guided missile now searches for its own target and does not even have to fly directly to it. The most modern types like the Javelin from the USA fly over the tank and attack the poorly protected upper side. There was a foretaste of the reality of the Ukraine war in Syria. There, the USA indirectly supplied the insurgents with TOW anti-tank missiles, which then fired on the tanks of Assad’s troops. But the flow of the unwieldy TOW was always limited, which means that the insurgents did not have these guided missiles in every position. It’s completely different in Ukraine. The Kiev soldiers have a wide range of anti-tank weapons in large numbers. In the relatively confusing terrain and especially in built-up areas, appropriate fighter commands are repeatedly shot down. They are almost always deadly. The defensive techniques of the Russian tanks do not help in practice.
Air supremacy beats ground supremacy
The second effect is drones. Again, it’s not new that the lumbering tanks can be fought from the air. The dominant effect of the tank on the battlefield ended as early as 1944. German tanks, although well equipped, could not survive under Allied air supremacy in France. Tanks could very well be knocked out with bombs, rockets and on-board cannons. They themselves could not effectively combat air targets. They had to camouflage themselves, hide and could no longer move openly – offensive operations of large formations were out of the question. Even the propaganda photos showed the Germans covered in branches and nets in trenches looking up worriedly.
Air supremacy dominated the ground war, but that lesson had little impact. Simply because the great powers in the wars after World War II also controlled the airspace. Whoever moved tanks on the ground also had airplanes in the air. The own ground forces were never fought from the air. It’s different in Ukraine now, because Russia hasn’t been able to achieve real air supremacy. The anti-aircraft defenses of the Kiev Armed Forces inflict continuous casualties on the Russian Air Force.
“Democratization” of airspace
In addition to the large and expensive jets and combat helicopters, drones are bustling about over Ukraine. And that changes everything. Combat aircraft and helicopters are expensive and complex to purchase and maintain. Only the major military powers can afford larger numbers of modern systems. All other states only have a few copies and older models are used instead. In the event of war, the number of operational aircraft would quickly dwindle.
This is very different with drones. Even larger combat drones are cheap and easy to maintain compared to combat aircraft. Disposable kamikaze drones and basic flying drones can be obtained by the hundreds. Especially since it is relatively easy to use civilian drones, such as those used in agriculture, for military purposes. The consequence for this war and probably also for the next conflicts: The airspace is used everywhere and always for military purposes. Any company of infantrymen can carry drones. Every movement on the ground can be noticed. The target is then attacked directly by the drone or it just observes it and directs a fire attack at it. For large and conspicuous systems like tanks, this means they will be detected and targeted long before they can intervene themselves. The Russian tanks may be misused, they may be outdated and their crews unwilling to fight – but the basic problem faces all armed forces: Very cheap drones can occupy the airspace and thus disable not only infantrymen, but also very expensive systems such as main battle tanks.
Mate for now
In its more than hundred-year history, the main battle tank has often been declared dead and has then been able to assert itself. That can also happen again, but today the battle tank is mated for the time being. For that to change, two things would have to happen. Armor and defense systems of armored vehicles should be able to counter “small” armor-piercing weapons much more effectively than they are today. And it should be possible to detect and combat even small drones in a cost-effective and simple manner. But even if this were to happen, there would no longer be “safe” airspace, because one could never rule out that the enemy might not be able to launch a few more drones after all. The wars over Nagorno-Karabakh and Ukraine will lead to armies around the world massively increasing their arsenal of drones. Technologically backward armed forces in particular can make it very difficult for an otherwise superior opponent to conquer and hold terrain.