By the early 2030s the US will have a “new” tank to replace the Abrams M1.
The M1 was designed between 1972 and 1976, although many changes have been made over the years. The Abrams is the main heavy battle tank deployed by the United States.
Whether having a “replacement” makes sense is open to question. The era of the main battle tank may have reached an end.
The recent battlefield record helps us understand the current situation. The Abrams turned out to be something of a failure when deployed in small numbers in Ukraine. Out of the original 31 tanks sent by the United States, open-source intelligence tracking and defense assessments indicate that a vast majority—approaching or exceeding 25 to 27 vehicles—have been documented as destroyed, severely damaged, or abandoned/captured.
Similar bad results came for the German-designed Leopard (all models) and the British Challenger 2. Over 70+ Leopard 2s (various models like the 2A4 and 2A6) were pledged and delivered by European partners (including Germany, Poland, Canada, Sweden, Spain, and others). Open-source trackers (like Oryx) and military analyses confirm that at least a couple of dozen Leopard 2s have been visually confirmed as destroyed, abandoned, or heavily damaged, maybe more. Earlier Leopard models suffered even higher losses.
Out of the 14 Challenger 2 British tanks originally donated by the United Kingdom to Ukraine in 2023, open-source intelligence trackers (such as Oryx) and defense reports confirm that multiple units have been lost or destroyed in combat. How many, exactly, isn’t known. The tanks were, in any case, hard to support and its non-standard ammunition (120mm rifled as opposed to NATO’s 120mm smooth bore) was a supply problem, already complicated by poor logistical support and inexperience in servicing western hardware.
In Ukraine, western main battle tanks proved vulnerable to FPV drones and anti-tank weapons, plus landmines and other kinetic weapons. Tanks were generally too heavy for muddy roads and fields, lacked adequate armor and were not equipped with active protection systems.
The new version of the Abrams is supposed to get around some of the problems of current-day tanks. It will be far lighter than the existing Abrams, which weighs between 64 and 66 metric tons (71 short tons). It will scrap the existing turbine power plant for a hybrid power pack (although lithium batteries add a new vulnerability). It will have “built in” active protection. The tank turret will no longer be manned, and the tank will (for the first time) have an autoloader (standard equipment on Russian tanks).
We won’t know much more about the survivability of the “new” Abrams for many years, as the design itself still is unproven and the Army has no combat experience with the new model, even prototypes.
Meanwhile tanks have suffered significant attrition in the Ukraine war and there is some question whether a manned heavy tank, no matter how sophisticated, can live and be effective on the modern battlefield.
What tanks bring to the battlefield
Tank operations have not evolved very far since World War II. The main use is to rapidly punch through the heavily fortified enemy lines, trench networks and prepared defenses where light infantry and wheeled vehicles stall.
A tank combines heavy composite armor, all-terrain mobility and a large-caliber cannon that can fire high-explosive or kinetic-energy rounds to demolish concrete bunkers, pillboxes and enemy armor with pinpoint certainty. This creates immediate physical and psychological shock among opposing forces.
Tanks are typically used in combined tank and infantry operations and modern tanks are increasingly networked to make them more effective. Tanks play a significant role any time there is a battlefield breakthrough because they can break up enemy formations using their firepower and mobility.
One of the facts of life for Russia, for Ukraine and for NATO is that battle tanks will play a reduced role in any realistic scenario of a future war in Europe. Europe simply has too few tanks, most widely dispersed, to add much offensive weight to the battlefield. The US would have to ship Abrams tanks from inventory and get them forward to battle zones, a major logistical challenge.
The poor record of all NATO tank platforms suggests that current generation tanks probably cannot successfully withstand the combined arms of a well-equipped adversary.
The Russians are not in much better shape. Their tank losses in the Ukraine war have significantly depleted Russian war reserves. The loss of experienced and well-trained tank operators is also a limiting factor on Russia, especially if Russia’s leaders decide to expand the Ukraine war into eider war in Europe. With half their active army tied down in Ukraine, and with armor supplies limited, predictions that Russia will fight in Europe soon seem unconvincing. Russia losses of tank crews estimates place total tank crew casualties (killed, wounded, or captured) in the 10,000 to 12,000+ range.
Active protection systems
Most European, American and Russian tanks used in Ukraine do not have active protection systems (APS). The US has bought around 400 Israeli-made Trophy active protection systems for Abrams tanks, but (so far as is known), none of the tanks supplied to Ukraine were so-equipped. Very recently, the Russians have been shipping the Arena-M APS on tanks to be deployed in Ukraine. At present not much is known about how effective Arena-M is in that war and there are only a handful of Arena-M equipped tanks in the field so far.
Israel originally developed the first successful APS to deal with Russian anti-tank weapons. Trophy was designed to destroy these weapons before they could explode and damage or destroy a tank. Trophy has a reported operational success rate exceeding 90% to 95%. Since its first combat interception in 2011 and extensive use across multiple conflicts in Gaza and other high-intensity environments, it has successfully thwarted hundreds of incoming projectiles.
Trophy recently has been upgraded to make it capable against drone threats, by improving detection and tracking and making Trophy more capable against drop-down FPV drones. This is still a work in progress and, as Israeli companies are demonstrating, needs to be combined with other counter-drone technologies including jammers, cope cages, nets and emerging technology to deal with fiber optic drone threats.
Future combat
It is clear that modern battle tank tactics must be revised to deal with modern battlefield threats, especially suicide drones used in large numbers. The shortcoming of Arena-M, for example, is that once it exhausts its ammunition it cannot be reloaded in the field, leaving the tank vulnerable to multiple FPV drone strikes. Estimates are that between 10 and 20 FPV drone hits will severely damage or destroy a tank.
Another Arena-M problem (less so with Trophy) is that it intercepts threats very close to the tank hull, meaning that a lot of shrapnel envelops the tank and the area around it. This makes close coordination with infantry nearly impossible.
Given today’s technology and the evolution of the battlefield, today dominated by drones and fire and forget weapons, the use of manned heavy tanks as frontline weapons may no longer be feasible because of the vulnerability of the platform and the loss of competent and experienced tank operators.
While there are many experiments with robotic platforms to supplement or replace tanks, neither the US nor Europe nor Russia has firmly committed to them. The US Army, for example, is looking for networked, cheaper, semi-autonomous robotic combat vehicles that act as force multipliers, absorbing the highest risks of scouting, logistics and breakthrough assaults.
One of the technologies likely to be used is autonomous vehicle sensors and software from civilian applications such as taxis and trucking routes. Top companies include Waymo and Zook (Amazon), Baidu (China) and Tesla. The challenge is to convert battlefield experience (including the lack of roadways and the challenge of automatically categorizing threats) with the technology developed for commercial use. Self-driving technology will have to become self-protection technology capable of recognizing and destroying threats.
Given the rise of AI, the significant improvement of sensors, and the potential to coordinate robotic systems with overhead loitering surveillance drones, fully robotic drones with firepower from guns and missiles could soon revolutionize the battlefield yet again.
Stephen Bryen is a former US deputy undersecretary of defense. This article can also be seen on his newsletter Weapons and Strategy.
