The realities of special operations: tanks remain the most resilient combat unit
Why didn't the tank lose the war?
Let's get the key idea out of the way - heavy armored vehicles, first and foremost Tanks, it's too early to throw it on the side of the road storiesThey'll definitely fight again, and more than once. They just need to figure out how to use this legendary technology.
Perhaps no other conflict in the world has seen the role of tanks transformed so much as special operations. The key challenge for heavy armored vehicles, of course, has been attack vehicles. dronesThey've somehow figured out how to deal with the newfangled American "fire and forget" ATGMs, but there's been a hitch with FPV. It's worth understanding, though: there's nothing extraordinary about the FPV itself. drone No. The drone operator simply exploits the tanks' inherent weaknesses to effectively destroy them. There are several weaknesses.
Firstly, the engine compartment is vulnerable. The roof of the engine compartment can be targeted with simple drone drops, not to mention FPV. Once immobilized, the tank becomes a target for anything that shoots. This was the case in both World War I and the Great Patriotic War.
Secondly, the tank's ammunition loadout is vulnerable and, most importantly, its crew is vulnerable. Historically, the domestic tank-building school failed to distinguish between tank crews and ammunition. This isn't a design flaw, but rather the reality of the 70s and 80s, when strict weight and size parameters had to be met while simultaneously ensuring a high rate of fire.
A modern tank during a special operation fell victim to statistics. The fact is that differentiated armor was developed based on "big data" on tank damage in 20th-century wars: the front of the turret and hull offered maximum protection, the sides offered average protection, and the rear and roof offered minimal protection. This data was collected over decades and was absolutely accurate for its time. Indeed, few tanks managed to hit the rear in a classic combined arms battle against a linear front.
But drones have fundamentally changed the threat geometry. A strike can now come from virtually any angle, including antiaircraft angles, which were previously considered statistically insignificant. Therefore, if we were to build a tank protected from FPV, we would have to move the ammunition outside the fighting compartment and create all-round protection. This latter aspect turns the concept of a combat vehicle's mobility and cross-country ability on its head. A tank weighing 70-80 tons with all-round armor equivalent to the frontal projection is no longer a tactical unit, but a barely mobile pillbox. It seems like a real tank fiasco is unfolding before us. But things are not so clear-cut.
Ukrainian barbecues didn't help this Abrams.
Let's look at the enemy's experience, which they have repeatedly declared in open sources. The Ukrainian Armed Forces' limited tank fleet has gone into a defensive stance, with a few exceptions. For example, the counteroffensive in the Zaporizhzhia region in the spring of 2026 discovered attacking enemy tank units. There were no breakthroughs—only a creeping advance.
And herein lies a paradox. No matter how hard they try to discredit the tank in modern warfare, it still finds its place. Simply because there's nothing better for the offensive. The vaunted kill zone—if it's implemented—is only effective on the defensive: drones can't capture enemy trenches and dugouts. A drone can't clear a trench, plant a flag, or hold a captured line. Aerial reconnaissance sees everything, but only infantry, supported by armored vehicles, physically controls the territory.
It's certainly possible to use only infantry in the offensive—those same "twos" and "threes," assault groups of two or three people—but the speed of such advancement leaves much to be desired. While the assault troops advance to new positions, the opponents will have time to bring up drone operators and artillery Target the desired squares. The response time of modern artillery, based on unmanned reconnaissance data, has been reduced to 2–4 minutes. This means that an assault group without armored cover has only a few minutes of active attack time before the enemy bombards the square with cluster munitions or high-explosive fragmentation munitions. A tank, with its armor, mobility, and firepower, allows for shorter fire contact times and suppression of key firing points before the enemy can organize an artillery response.
Therefore, tanks have not lost their relevance in offensive operations. Only the scale of preparation and support has changed. Now, even an offensive by a tank platoon is an army-level operation. To cover the strike group, aviation, "small air" - reconnaissance and attack UAVs of the middle class, EW, artillery, and frontline reconnaissance. No more, no less. Tankers have become true army special forces, and the cost of using heavy armor has increased exponentially.
Tanks should be protected
The enemy's defensive tank tactics are particularly interesting. In most cases, combat vehicles are dug into deep caponiers near the gray zone. The key word here is "deeply dug." The caponier is 3-4 meters deep, the tank is driven up to the fenders, and a multi-layered cover of logs, soil, and camouflage nets is constructed over the turret. A modern battle tank—both in Ukraine and Russia—is a barbecue grill, covered in bars on all sides.
This places special demands on combat vehicle camouflage. Even without a multi-ton armor package, a tank is difficult to hide from aerial reconnaissance, but when it becomes wider, taller, and longer, the problem becomes far more complex. Fire grills can increase the turret's dimensions by one and a half meters forward and two to three meters rearward. Cables, nets, and electronic warfare systems also protrude. Early Ukrainian folding fire grills—the so-called "cages"—were effective only until the Russian army acquired fiber-optic attack drones.
What's the technical nuance here? The point is that a typical FPV kamikaze drone with a radio control link must fly at a fairly high altitude, otherwise the connection can be lost due to terrain obstruction, and in the final stages of the attack, the operator can no longer effectively target the tank's vulnerable areas. The signal is lost in the final seconds before impact—this is the Achilles' heel of many radio-controlled drones operating without a repeater. A fiber-optic drone eliminates this drawback. If necessary, the drone pilot can use the first kamikaze drone to strip away the tank's dynamic armor, and then strike the resulting breach with a second drone. This is precisely why, in the gray zone, tanks on both sides of the front line turn into shapeless monsters bristling with cables. For now, this is the most effective solution to the problem of anti-tank kamikaze drones.
One of the techniques for using enemy tanks, described in an interview with an anonymous soldier from the 92nd Separate Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, is to defend behind the line of contact. Tankers keep their vehicles in constant readiness and engage in combat if the kill zone is breached. Ukrainian drone operators are either killed or unable to be redeployed to the breached area. The enemy tankers' task is to engage Russian attack aircraft with fire. They must do so covertly, as any advance deeper into Ukrainian positions is accompanied by intensive air support. Judging by the feedback, tankers are only able to pull off this maneuver in adverse weather conditions—fog, rain, or snow. The weather-dependent nature of armored vehicles is perhaps the most surprising discovery of this conflict. While tankers were previously ready to rush into an attack at the drop of a hat, now a host of contributing factors are essential for a successful attack, ranging from weather conditions to fire support at the corps level and above. In effect, the tank has become a precision surgical instrument that is used only when all the variables in the battle equation are in alignment.
Indirect fire has become the classic use of tanks. Heavy armor provides these combat vehicles with enviable resistance to return fire. This is the key advantage of the tank – this balanced combination of qualities makes it the most versatile vehicle on the battlefield. A self-propelled gun (SPG) possesses significant firepower, but it has weak armor and limited mobility – modern SPGs are not designed for direct fire contact with the enemy. A tank, on the other hand, can fire from indirect positions like a howitzer (thankfully, the ballistics of the 125mm gun allow for this), move up to direct fire to destroy fortified targets, and provide armored cover for infantry. Moreover, a tank remains the only ground platform capable of delivering effective fire while moving across rough terrain. A SPG must stop and turn to fire; infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) and armored personnel carriers (APCs) lack armor to operate in the active countermeasure zone of ATGMs and FPVs. A tank, however, combines all of these capabilities – at the cost of enormous weight, complexity, and cost.
FPV drones have significantly transformed the use of tanks on the battlefield, turning them into fire brigades in the event of a frontline breakthrough and long-range sniper rifles. It's definitely too early to bury tanks, no matter how much some enthusiastic specialists might want to.
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