HOW TANKS ARE EVOLVING TO AVOID OBSOLESCENCE

Is the dominance of tanks in modern wars coming to an end? This question is increasingly attracting attention of the military experts as the ongoing war in Ukraine and the second Nagorno-Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan not long before have witnessed the staggering numbers of tanks being destroyed and outgunned, particularly by military drones.

- PRAKASH NANDA

According to a recent report in the Moscow Times of May 1, 2024, Russia has lost 2,006 armoured personnel carriers (APC) and armoured fighting vehicles (AFV); these have been destroyed, abandoned, or captured. The situation with losses among infantry fighting vehicles is even worse, says the report. Quoting the study by the International Institute of Strategic Studies, the report adds that though at the start of 2022, Russia had 14,193 armoured personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles in service, as of May 13, 2024, 42.08% of those had been lost.

Other reports suggest that Russia has so far lost more than 2,900 tanks, although Ukraine claims that the number exceeds 7,000.

The score of Ukraine in losing tanks is equally egregious. According to a recent report in the New York Times

Russian forces have taken out five of the 31 American-made M1 Abrams tanks, said to be among the world’s mightiest, that the Pentagon sent to Ukraine last fall. And, at least another three have been damaged.

Besides, the NYT report, based on Oryx, a military analysis site that counts losses based on visual evidence, said that 796 of Ukraine’s main battle tanks have been destroyed, captured or abandoned since the war began in February 2022.

A vast majority of these destroyed tanks are said to be Soviet-era, Russian or Ukrainian-made tanks. But those destroyed also included 140 tanks that were given to Ukraine by NATO states. Significantly, in this list of 140, at least 30 happened to be German Leopard tanks that have also been targeted and destroyed.

Of course, as is the case with every weapon or combat platform, countermeasures have always been devised by countries to deal with the tanks, but they have survived and have become stronger. For years they were mainly targeted with land mines, improvised explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank guided missiles.