--- title: Tanks are Not Dead. They Do Need to Change description: "Based on the lessons of recent wars, especially the war in Ukraine, many people have begun calling tanks and other armored combat vehicles (ACVs) obsolete and irrelevant. However, this shows a profound misunderstanding of the modern battlefield. These combat platforms are still necessary, unless you like the idea of sending infantry alone to infiltrate or assault enemy positions, as the Russian military is currently doing in Ukraine. Yet it is equally true that the current and legacy designs of tanks and other combat vehicles no longer appear to be survivable on the modern battlefield - and upgrades can only help so much." url: https://fronts.co/article/tanks-are-not-dead-they-do-need-to-change.md canonical: https://fronts.co/article/tanks-are-not-dead-they-do-need-to-change/ datePublished: 2026-09-14T16:00:25.000Z dateModified: 2026-09-14T16:00:34.000Z author: - name: Jakub Janovsky url: https://fronts.co/authors/jakub-janovsky/ publisher: Fronts image: "https://media.fronts.co/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,height=630,fit=cover,gravity=auto,quality=80,format=auto/images/articles/tanks-are-not-dead-they-do-need-to-change-e9fc77c2.jpg" type: NewsArticle language: en tokens: 3879 --- Based on the lessons of recent wars, especially the war in Ukraine, many people have begun calling tanks and other armored combat vehicles (ACVs) obsolete and irrelevant. However, this shows a profound misunderstanding of the modern battlefield. These combat platforms are still necessary, unless you like the idea of sending infantry alone to infiltrate or assault enemy positions, as the Russian military is currently doing in Ukraine. Yet it is equally true that the current and legacy designs of tanks and other combat vehicles no longer appear to be survivable on the modern battlefield - and upgrades can only help so much.  In short, it is high time to take a fresh look at the design principles of armored combat vehicles, recent technological changes, and threats they need to account for, and figure out how these expensive military vehicles should be redesigned to stay effective on the 21st-century battlefield. ![](https://media.fronts.co/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,quality=80,format=auto/images/articles/tanks-are-not-dead-they-do-need-to-change-006d7845.png) (source: wiki) **Design Classic** To start with, we need to look at current tank and ACV designs - as well as the modern threats that make them so vulnerable - before we can start working out how their designs need to change. After all, this isn't the first time tanks have been declared dead, and yet they have always somehow conspired to rise back up from the grave. Pretty much all current tank and other ACV designs originate from the times of the Cold War, when the main concerns were head-on engagements within the line of sight and ideas like the transparent battlefield or cheap, mass-produced precision-guided munitions would be considered science fiction. As a result, the protection is heavily biased towards highly-sloped frontal armor, with the side armor being relatively weak and the top and rear armor being practically nonexistent. Propulsion is based on large, powerful internal combustion engines, with a massive heat signature. And electrical systems are designed to handle only a small amount of electronics and sensors, without having to constantly run the engine. ![](https://media.fronts.co/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,quality=80,format=auto/images/articles/tanks-are-not-dead-they-do-need-to-change-dc48b596.png) (source: Reddit) While this design approach made perfect sense in the era of John Le Carre, the weapons designed to destroy these behemoths have, over the decades, become extremely skilled at hitting their weak points.  Since a major part of the armor scheme was its heavy sloping, the first relatively simple solution was for anti-tank missiles and other munitions to fly high and dive onto the target - this could, depending on the final angle towards the armor, reduce the armor's effective thickness several times, making even frontal armor vulnerable to penetration.  Later, modern missile guidance systems allowed missiles and rockets like the American Javelin and British NLAW to just ignore the frontal armor, fly over the target vehicle, and detonate a shaped charge warhead downwards against the pathetically thin turret armor or engine cover - practically ensuring that they penetrate deep inside the most vulnerable parts and cause secondary fires or explosions that completely destroy the vehicle. ![](https://media.fronts.co/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,quality=80,format=auto/images/articles/tanks-are-not-dead-they-do-need-to-change-04643db2.png) (source: Oryx blog) The drone evolution we’ve seen in the Ukraine War has made everything even worse for these legacy armored vehicles. Real-time drone footage made artillery even more dangerous to armored vehicles than it was before. And while direct hits by artillery are still relatively rare, a near miss from a 152/155mm artillery shell is often enough to damage sensors or even completely disable the armored vehicles… after which, unless they are quickly recovered, other weapons can finish them off. Nor are drones any longer simply relegated to the spotter role. Direct attacks by so-called bomber drones and FPV drones over time have become the primary threat to all vehicles that are operating anywhere near the frontline. These days, groups of armored vehicles assaulting enemy positions usually ended up disabled or destroyed even before reaching the enemy. The problem with drone attacks is that while most of their munitions are relatively weak - often using a PG-7 warhead for an RPG-7 rocket launcher - pilots can fly them into the most vulnerable parts of the enemy combat vehicles, and angle their strikes to make sloped armor practically irrelevant. This combination of factors, as well as the overall increased availability of anti-tank weapons, has made recent wars incredibly destructive for legacy fleets of armored vehicles. This was especially the case in the Syrian Civil War, where one of the biggest tank armies in the world was largely destroyed, as well as in Ukraine, where the combined losses of tanks and mechanized units between the two sides exceed the armored combat vehicle losses of any war since WWII. And while Russia was [able to rebuild its fleet of tanks](https://fronts.co/article/deconstructing-the-myth-that-russia-is-running-out-of-armour/) and other armored combat vehicles, it was only at the cost of practically exhausting its inherited stockpiled strategic reserve. As a result, both sides of that conflict have drastically reduced all use of armored combat vehicles near the frontline.  ![](https://media.fronts.co/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,quality=80,format=auto/images/articles/tanks-are-not-dead-they-do-need-to-change-dce7872f.png) (source: wiki) **A Redesign for the Future** At the end of the day, tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and so on will always be designed around the classic need to balance firepower, survivability, and mobility. As such, new models suitable for the drone age likely won't look drastically different from the outside. But for those crew members sat deep within the machine’s guts, the differences will be drastic. Let’s start with vehicle protection. Given that modern weapons make hits against the vehicle's other sides very likely, the frontal armor protection will be significantly reduced in order to improve protection elsewhere. This will be done without adding more weight - and maybe even reducing it slightly, since current 70-ton tanks already come with real problems regarding where they can go. And as always, modern materials will continue improving the performance of armor. Armor sloping will stay wherever practical, but since it can't be relied on against most modern weapons, it will be reduced in places where it is detrimental to other design aspects. Turrets will continue shifting towards uncrewed designs, which are inherently smaller, and due to the absence of crews, their frontal armor protection against high-caliber munitions can be reduced. Between the ever-increasing number of external sensors and the shift towards uncrewed turrets, combat vehicles are likely to reduce or completely eliminate hull periscopes and hatches for crew entry/exit, which currently create significant points of vulnerability in vehicles' armor. Instead, they’re likely to be replaced with rear hull exits, such as we can currently see on Israeli Merkava tanks, as well as on most current IFVs and APCs.  ![](https://media.fronts.co/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,quality=80,format=auto/images/articles/tanks-are-not-dead-they-do-need-to-change-cd2c7eff.png) (source: Oryx blog) While historically less used on Western designs, ERA (Explosive Reactive Armor) bricks have proven themselves to be effective against the most common shaped charge warheads, plus they are relatively light considering the protection they provide. So, we can expect future combat vehicles to extensively use their modern iterations. One relevant lesson about ERA is that smaller standardized ERA bricks are better, because each hit leaves only a small area unprotected. When it comes to protective jammers, while there are already drones that are immune to it, they are still a minority, and jammers can at least prevent opponents from using the cheapest available drones, so they will likely become part of the standard self-protection package mounted on combat vehicles. C-UAS guns mounted just like current Remote Weapons Stations will become absolutely necessary as a hard-kill counter to drones, since jammers can't be expected to do more than reduce their numbers. And when they are not needed against drones, they can serve as normal support weapons.  Classic hard-kill APS are an interesting use case - they were developed against antitank rockets and missiles, and they have been quite effective in that task, plus, they can also be reconfigured to work against drones, but they tend to have only a relatively small number of interceptor munitions. As a result, they are absolutely mandatory equipment for future combat vehicles, since they can intercept high-end munitions and serve as a backstop against drones that get past both jammers and C-UAS guns. ![](https://media.fronts.co/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,quality=80,format=auto/images/articles/tanks-are-not-dead-they-do-need-to-change-b91f6a6e.png) (source: wiki) This way, vehicles would have multi-layer defenses covering first the active protection against the whole spectrum of threats from basic drones to high-end anti-tank missiles, followed by extensive ERA coverage, which would negate non-repeated hits, and behind that still a decent omnidirectional armor coverage that would stop or reduce the severity of hits by smaller munitions. Pretty much the only thing such defensive architecture *wouldn’t* protect against would be high-caliber (120+mm) kinetic rounds, which is arguably a reasonable sacrifice, given how uncommon tank duels are on the modern battlefield. **Electric Dreams** Of course, a tank design for the future wouldn’t only focus on armor. Firepower of each type of combat vehicle would likely largely end up unaffected, because there is already a trend to mount larger autocannons on infantry fighting vehicles, and destroying enemy combat vehicles isn't currently seen as a problem. What might change is the ratio of tanks to other combat vehicles - based on the tanks' much higher cost and reduced effectiveness in their support role, it is likely that future heavy units will replace some of their tanks with heavy IFVs and APCs. Mobility is an interesting area, since recent technological advances have allowed making some fundamental changes. Traditional massive diesel engines or gas turbines can be replaced by a Plug-In Hybrid Vehicle (PHEV) powertrain that combines the ability to drive some distance on battery power, with a highly-optimized small engine that just runs at the most effective RPM to generate electricity.  ![](https://media.fronts.co/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,quality=80,format=auto/images/articles/tanks-are-not-dead-they-do-need-to-change-ef8a048c.png) (source: wiki) Partially, this is already becoming a necessity because all the sensors, electronics, and electrically powered mechanisms on modern combat vehicles together require far more electrical power than legacy platforms are able to provide. Even modern vehicles that have a small auxiliary power unit to avoid having to constantly run the main engine are not entirely solving the problem, and they have some of the same downsides as the engines of legacy combat vehicles. The ability to drive on electric power has multiple advantages that make it very attractive for future designs. Operating purely on electric power eliminates all engine noise and low-frequency hull vibrations, as well as drastically reducing the vehicle's thermal signature. This massively reduces the chance of being detected before opening fire from the main armament, and cuts the range at which detection would happen - which is critical for survival on the modern transparent battlefield. Electric motors deliver maximum torque instantly from a dead stop without the lag of turbochargers or multi-gear transmissions, which gives even a heavy combat vehicle the ability to rapidly accelerate - either exploiting a weakness in enemy positions, or evading threats. Using distributed electric hub motors eliminates the single point of failure found in a conventional drive central drive shaft and even allows splitting the normal track into 2 separate sections. So, if a mine or other munition destroys part of a track or some wheels, the vehicle would not be completely disabled and could, depending on circumstances and mission priority, either retreat to safety on its own or continue with its mission with reduced mobility. The massive hybrid battery pack and high-output generator turn the vehicle into a mobile power station. This would allow it to provide (again, without creating a significant thermal signature) electrical supply to anything from a nearby drone unit or a mobile radar to a bunker with unit headquarters. ![](https://media.fronts.co/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,quality=80,format=auto/images/articles/tanks-are-not-dead-they-do-need-to-change-81fb56da.png) (source: Oryx blog) In a design like this, the internal combustion engine acts solely as a generator running at a fixed, efficient RPM island, and electric drive components are much more compact than ICE equivalents. This eliminates the massive fuel waste caused by traditional tank engines constantly shifting gears and idling in combat zones, as well as some of the trucks needed to haul spare parts - it is estimated that a mechanized brigade fully transitioned to PHEV powertrains would be using only around half of the "normal" fuel consumption, and would thus need around 40 fewer trucks and fuel tankers, which in turn would mean fewer maintenance teams and truck crews were required. The fuel (and so money) savings would likely be even more significant in peacetime. PHEV powertrain, with its highly-reliable electric motors and the engine optimized to run at optimal RPM and just running to recharge batteries, would also have lower maintenance requirements. In other words, it would be a marked improvement by most metrics.  **Conclusion** It is clear that legacy combat vehicles are struggling to survive on the modern battlefield, but that isn't a good-enough reason to call tanks and other combat vehicle platforms “dead”. It is simply a consequence of those designs standing still for far too long, something which can be fixed, especially given that there have been numerous advances in modern technology and vehicle architecture.  If you combine the changes discussed above, you can build new combat vehicle designs that, while not perfect, would be able to not just survive much better on the modern battlefield, but continue to effectively perform their combat missions. Legacy combat vehicles are able to absorb some of these improvements, but only to a limited extent and often at a high cost and with problematic integration. So, some legacy combat vehicles can still provide value, but armies that are now rearming would be wise to do so with new combat vehicle designs that are optimized for the unforgiving reality of the modern transparent battlefield. The future, in other words, is already here. It is now up to the world’s armies to adapt to it.