Die Zukünfte des Panzers: Drei Szenarien für die Entwicklung des Panzers im Zeitalter der Drohnen

Summary

The presenter asks whether tanks still have a future in an era shaped by drones, especially after their prominent use in Ukraine. The answer is not a simple yes or no: tanks remain in use and provide capabilities drones do not, but the battlefield is changing enough that tanks may need to change their tactics, design, or even their relationship to human operators.

Why Tanks Are Challenged—but Not Necessarily Obsolete

A tank’s enduring purpose is mobile direct fire under armor protection: bringing protected firepower to bear while moving across the battlefield.

Cold War-era main battle tanks were designed for fast, high-intensity combat against other tanks. Their rotating turrets and powerful guns supported rapid target engagement and maneuver.

Drones complicate that model by making it harder to hide, increasing the chance of a hit, and allowing attacks on vulnerable areas that conventional weapons may not easily reach.

The presenter cautions against concluding that drones simply replace tanks:

• Tanks and drones perform different tasks.
• Social-media footage does not show every failed attack. The presenter cites estimates of roughly 10–40 unsuccessful attempts before some tank kills.
• Ukraine and Russia continue to use their available tanks, which the presenter takes as evidence that tanks remain useful.

Other factors also contribute to tank losses and battlefield difficulties, including mines, anti-tank weapons, artillery, training, leadership, and doctrine. Drones can make some of these threats more effective by improving reconnaissance and targeting.

How Tank Protection Can Be Understood

The presenter describes protection as an “onion” of defensive layers, read from the outside inward:

1. Avoid detection

   • Use a low silhouette, careful positioning, noise reduction, and camouflage.
   • Multispectral camouflage may make a vehicle harder to detect across different sensing methods.

2. Avoid being hit

   • Use mobility, smoke or other obscurants, jamming, and active protection systems.
   • These systems could be adapted to counter drones, including both “soft-kill” measures that disrupt or mislead a threat and “hard-kill” measures that physically intercept it.

3. Prevent penetration

   • Armor, reactive armor, and specialized protection can reduce the chance that a hit penetrates.
   • Better protection for the vehicle’s upper surfaces is particularly relevant against drones.

4. Limit damage after penetration

   • Compartmentalization, ammunition blowout panels, fire suppression, and spall liners can reduce the consequences of a penetration.
   • A more uniform, closed vehicle shape could also make it harder for an operator to target specific weak points.

The presenter compares today’s challenge with the emergence of anti-tank guided missiles in the 1970s. Those weapons increased both the chance of a hit and the likelihood of penetration, but tactical and technical adaptations helped restore a workable balance. Today’s drone threat is more severe because it affects several protection layers at once: detection, hit avoidance, and the likelihood of penetration. The presenter nevertheless frames it as a serious technical and tactical challenge rather than proof that tanks are finished.

Three Possible Directions for the Tank

1. Adapt the Tank to Its Current Battlefield Role

The first scenario stays closest to existing tanks but changes their protection and, potentially, their design.

• Tanks may need to operate more cautiously, with greater emphasis on concealment, jamming, camouflage, smoke, and active defenses.
• Their roles may shift away from tank-versus-tank duels and rapid armored breakthroughs toward tasks such as:
  • Direct fire support for infantry.
  • Firing on targets at close range.
  • Accurate fire over longer distances.
• If these roles become more important than rapid engagement in every direction, a complex rotating turret may no longer be essential.
• The presenter therefore considers a casemate-style armored vehicle, with its main weapon fixed into the hull rather than mounted in a rotating turret. Historical examples include German assault guns and Sweden’s Stridsvagn 103.
• Such a vehicle could be designed around the needs of direct-fire support and equipped with drone countermeasures, specialized upper armor, jammers, smoke, and reduced-signature features.
• The trade-off is that additional protection tends to increase weight, while changing the vehicle’s role may allow some weight to be saved.

The presenter’s broader point is that the familiar turreted main battle tank is not the only possible form of a tank. Historically, tanks have changed substantially in appearance and design while retaining their underlying purpose.

2. Create a Drone-Protected Armored Battle Group

The second scenario draws an analogy between tanks and battleships, and between drones and aircraft carriers.

• Battleships were once defined by their heavy armor and powerful guns, but aircraft carriers gained a major advantage through the greater reach of their aircraft for reconnaissance and attacks.
• The presenter argues that a similar shift may be possible on land: instead of relying on an individual tank to dominate its surroundings, a force could use a drone-carrier vehicle as the center of a networked group.
• The drone carrier could deploy reconnaissance drones and counter-drone systems, creating a protective “drone umbrella.”
• Armored vehicles, direct-fire support, and indirect fire could operate under that umbrella as part of an integrated force.
• This would not make the other vehicles irrelevant. Rather, the tank-like vehicle would depend more closely on a wider network of supporting systems.

The key idea is a move from the tank as a powerful standalone platform toward an armored force whose protection and reach come partly from its accompanying drones.

3. Merge Tanks with Unmanned Ground Vehicles and Robotics

The third scenario imagines the boundary between tanks, drones, and robots becoming less distinct.

• Unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) are already used for varied tasks, including transporting supplies, evacuating wounded personnel, recovering bodies, and supporting combat operations.
• Some UGVs are small and rely on mobility and a low profile rather than heavy armor; others have more substantial protection.
• The presenter notes that older tanks might also be converted into remotely operated vehicles. One example discussed is the proposed ReFurBot, based on refurbished French AMX-30 hulls and a remote-control module. The presenter questions whether the specific project is practical but sees the concept as significant.
• A further step would be autonomous operation. The presenter says that autonomous target detection, identification, and attack are technically possible, while emphasizing that ethical and international-law questions remain serious.
• The video cites a reported instance in which Ukraine used ten autonomous drones in 2024, based on a statement by a senior defense-industry official. The presenter says the report had not, to their knowledge, been denied.
• The presenter also discusses armed robotic dogs tested by the U.S. Marine Forces Special Operations Command. According to the account presented, they had AI-supported detection systems, but only remote-control operation—not autonomous firing—had been tested.
• The possibility is then extended to humanoid robots performing infantry tasks. The presenter cites demonstrations and industrial trials as indications that machines may eventually be able to undertake physical tasks currently performed by people.
• A future force could therefore include autonomous or remotely controlled armored vehicles, ground robots, and robotic infantry. This remains a projection, not a claim that such a force is already operational.

Overall Conclusion

The tank has repeatedly been declared obsolete and has often survived by changing its technology, tactics, and role. The presenter considers it plausible that tanks will again be transformed—perhaps significantly—rather than simply disappear. But survival is not guaranteed: the video closes by comparing the tank’s uncertain future with cavalry, which endured many predictions of its demise but eventually ceased to be a battlefield factor.

Speakers and Sources Featured

Speaker

• One presenter/narrator speaking on behalf of the German Tank Museum. No other person is heard speaking in the supplied subtitles.

Sources and examples mentioned by the presenter

• The article “The Era of the Cautious Tank.”
• A 1939 statement by an author named Fischer in the specialist journal Die Panzertruppe, concerning the future of cavalry.
• H. G. Wells’s 1903 story The Land Ironclads, referenced in discussing the origins of the “landship” idea.
• A linked overview of the ethical and international-law issues surrounding autonomous weapons.
• A reported statement by a senior defense-industry official about autonomous Ukrainian drone use in 2024.
• U.S. Marine Forces Special Operations Command and U.S. Department of Defense Directive 3000.09, in connection with armed robotic dogs and autonomous weapons.
• Examples or projects associated with Ghost Robotics, the Russian Uran-9 system, S2M Equipment, KNDS, Hyundai, Boston Dynamics, Google Gemini, BMW, and Foundation Robotics.