Why are tanks still used in battlefield if they can easily be destroyed by drones?
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Why are soldiers still used in battlefield if they can easily be destroyed by artillery?
Why are artillery still used in battlefield if they can easily be destroyed by aircraft?
Why are aircraft atill used in battlefield if they can easily be destroyed by missiles?
For any given weapon system there are several ways to kill it. War is about killing more of the other sides shit than you lose. Mobility, armor, and bigger guns are all always good. So tanks will be part of the mix gor any force that can manage them.
Modern military doctrine is heavily dependent ln multi domain and involvement. An individual tank is dead meat. Just like an aircraft carrier alone is dead meat. With the benefit of airplanes, helicopters, drones, satellites, light vehicles and infantry plus artillery all working together a tank is a formidable opponent if used correctly.
And future tank platoons may include equipment on the tank or a separate vehicle with equipment like radar, electronic warfare to block communications with the drone, dazzle sensors, or even something like a low caliber bullet c-ram or laser destroy the drones
Defense is always bulkier and harder than offense. To stop swords and knives the armor the person needed to wear was bulkier and more expensive than the weapons themselves. To stop a bullet you need a lot of material. To stop a shell you need even more. The first tanks could only stop small arms fire even though field guns and rifles existed that could pierce them. Then tanks got even heavier and you needed field guns or other tanks with sufficiently large cannons to take them out. This kept happening until tanks got very big and heavy and militaries realised that after ww2 direct tank to tank combat was rare and tanks were more useful when fast and mobile rather as huge slow moving chunks of steel so tanks got smaller again.
Post ww2 most conflicts have been asymmetrical. That means that the two opposing sides are not equal in terms of their equipment and capabilities. Tanks used to dominate the battlefield but they became vulnerable, even during ww2, to small man portable rocket launchers which are much cheaper than tanks themselves. Likewise gunships were dominating during the post war and cold war but when manpads (man portable air defense systems) became widely available gunships were suddenly very vulnerable and almost never used as they once were. The US heavily relied on armed helicopters during the Vietnam war as did Russia in Afghanistan but nowadays they’re not.
It’s natural for any weapons system to lose its dominance when countermeasures are developed. That doesn’t mean it becomes obsolete, it just means that the way you use it changes. Tanks no longer have the edge they once did and a tank platoon can’t necessarily push back an entire infantry regiment but they’re still very useful. Heavily armored and very mobile, it’s the equivalent of a pillbox on wheels. They’re not meant to bull rush the enemy but they pack a punch and can move around the battlefield quickly. They’re also not meant to be used by themselves. Tanks provide support to infantry but also need support from infantry themselves. Sending out individual vehicles to fend for themselves rarely worked even long before automatic guided rockets or drones. Sure having a tank may not be very useful against an enemy who also has tanks but having one against an enemy who doesn’t provides a significant advantage.
Drones are cheap and that’s what makes them so useful but don’t think that they’ll keep being as successful as they are now. Countering drones is surprisingly easy and you can bet that all militaries, moving forward, will be employing such countermeasures.
Anti tank missile are more interesting.
There a lot of them a tanks can’t stand under modern ones.
A weapon does not become obsolete because it’s easily destroyed, it becomes obsolete once a better weapon replaces its role, or the role itself becomes obsolete.
You are ignoring the order of operations, so to speak.
Drones would be a part of a first offensive to eliminate larger threats. Tanks protect and stabilize infantry positions once boots are on the ground.
tanks been around for like 100 years now and with each new anti tank development people think the same sentence.
The reality is that tanks are awful to use in the current state of war. They produce a shit ton of heat so they’re easily spotted with anything thermal. They’re prohibitively expensive compared to how much utility they provide.
The reason they’re used is because they’re better than nothing, and at the very least, they’re a hell of a lot better than a soldier with a gun, bar few.
They’re effectively mobile artillery + mobile anti-personnel. They are a safe (very liberally applied meaning of ‘safe’ here) way to assert dominance over territory except when drones or artillery strike. They go out, shoot some rounds, tout around for a bit, and refuel. Repeat process. Same thing that infantry does, but with different logistics.
Also, artillery is currently a larger threat to tanks than drones, but both apply.
Artillery is and always has been the King of Battle.
It’s part of combined arms tactics. Each piece covers each other working in unison. In that sense the infantry covers the tanks blindspots which allows the tank to move up and cover their infantry. And any prelude to a ground assault begins with a missile/artillery/bomber drop to soften targets. The ground assault then captures anti air or whatever position to setup anti air which allows for close air support and supply. Even mid fighting there will be continuous artillery drops so as you see it’s all combined arms.
The videos we see are always some lone tanks or infantry out in the open.
In land warfare, each division has their roles. For instance armor such as tanks are used to “take ground” and promote advancement into new ground. And ONLY infantry are able to hold/keep the ground from the advancement.
It is pretty clear that tanks are at a disadvantage now with the usage of drones. But as in any warfare it is a constant battle between defence and attack technology. Think of it as a pendulum that swings there is no middle ground. It will constantly swing between defence and attack. As soon as the technology for defence improves then attack will be at a disadvantage for a short time.
Eventually technology for tanks will be able to stop drones, then at that point the pendulum will start swinging back to attack in order to break that defence, with that being new drones/weapons/cyber etc.
Its important to know that, yes war is not a nice thing to have but… Only War promotes advancement in technology nothing else. A good example of that is the ww2 V-2 rocket, if that wasn’t developed it would have taken much longer to develop large stage rockets used as in Apollo 11.
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