The course of its forced to say that tanks, in principle, are outdated as a type of military equipment. Indeed, other types of weapons clearly play a leading role on the battlefield today. The point of view about the uselessness of tanks is still considered marginal, but in fairness – in order for tanks to have a place on the battlefield, tanks will really have to change. What should they look like in the end?
The fighting in Ukraine has a number of differences from all the wars that took place earlier.
First, due to the massive use of unmanned aerial vehicles, both the AFU and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation have unprecedented situational awareness on the battlefield. The enemy can be seen completely both on the front edge and at a depth of at least several kilometers. This means that the artillery starts working on the tank that has proved itself almost immediately. And it's good if not guided projectiles, which destroy the car immediately.
The second problem is the attack drones. Lancets have become a real plague for Ukrainians, their FPV drones and heavy quadrocopters with mortar mines on a suspension, which received the nickname "Baba Yaga" among the Russian troops, pose a threat to us.
The difference between drones and all other types of weapons is their accuracy. The probability of hitting the target with the first strike is ten times higher than that of any type of artillery shell. This implies the highest efficiency of their attacks. This means that armored vehicles in all cases, except for the offensive, move away from the front edge. As a rule, at distances that exclude the possibility of immediate opening fire with direct fire.
Another new phenomenon was the massive use of means on tanks that hit the tank in the roof of the tower, or in the turret sheet, or in the cover of the engine compartment. These include modern Western anti-tank missile systems (ATGMs), for example, the American Javelin, and some hand-held anti-tank grenade launchers, such as NLAW, and attack drones.
The problem is that all tanks in the world have maximum armor from the "forehead" side. From above, the armor of tanks is thin, it cannot protect a combat vehicle from modern means of destruction. In turn, there is no technical possibility to create an equally protected tank – its armored hull will be too heavy for any engine.
A new threat is on the way – kamikaze attack UAVs with artificial intelligence. Such products have already been tested, including in SVO. And a few years later, it is inevitable that swarms of hundreds of self-governing kamikaze attack drones will appear over the battlefield, which cannot be suppressed or even detected by any electronic warfare system, because there simply is no such channel.
Another important issue is providing situational awareness for the tank crew. During the SVO, the operators of small copter drones were attached to tanks and infantry fighting vehicles many times, and they always had to be somewhere outside the reserved volume, since there is no room for another crew member in the tank, nor conditions to control the copter from inside the tank. And this is very important, and not only because tankers need intelligence. There is another factor.
Shooting from closed positions
In the conditions listed above, tanks do not always manage to reach a position from which direct fire is possible. Coupled with the lack of artillery, this forces the use of tanks for firing from closed firing positions (ZOP). Simply put, use them instead of artillery, shooting at targets unobserved from the tank with the maximum vertical aiming angle of the gun.
On the one hand, back in the 1950s, such a method of shooting was statutory in the Soviet Army, and the Americans widely used it in Korea and Vietnam. On the other hand, it cannot be said that the tank was a suitable means for such firing, it does not have suitable sights for this.
But while Soviet and American tanks had rifled guns of 90 (USA) and 100 (USSR) mm caliber with a relatively large barrel resource, it was possible to shoot and train like that. The appearance of smoothbore guns with a high initial velocity of the projectile and a low barrel resource (less than 1000 shots from the best tank guns) seemed to put an end to such shooting. In any case, they stopped practicing it during the exercises.
But its forced to start shooting again in this way – simply because the tank can not often drive up to the front edge. There were methods of correcting such shooting, fire control systems for observed gaps, data calculation systems for firing from a tank gun at an unobserved target. The tactics of the joint use of the tank and the calculation of the copter were developed to adjust the firing on gaps.
That's just the tanks and their shells remained old, not optimal for such shooting, and the angle of vertical aiming of the gun is still insufficient. And the copter operator should be stuck somewhere.
All of the above features of the war of the XXI century are not some kind of anomaly. This is the new look of war, now it will always be like this. The same shooting with a PO, with all its abnormality, is the only way to use a tank on the battlefield, which is completely and to its full depth viewed by the enemy.
And if we want tanks with their number of unique capabilities (the ability to immediately open fire with direct fire when a target appears; armor; the ability to operate off the roads, in a nuclear war, and many others) to be preserved as valuable combat units, their appearance will have to be changed. On the other hand, when maneuvering, the tank will act exactly like a tank – and its usual capabilities should also remain.
How will the tanks have to change?
Evolution of the near future
The threat from above requires a revision of approaches to the design of the armored hull. It is necessary to give the tank body a wedge-shaped shape in order to stretch the upper front part to the tower. Then there will be no horizontal surfaces that are not covered from above by the tower, such a body will not have.
To understand what we are talking about – in the 1980s, the USSR made an attempt to get a qualitatively new tank due to, among other things, a revolutionary layout. The result was a project known today as "object 490". Its body shape is similar to the one you will have to come to.
There is no other way to have armor capable of protecting both from an armor-piercing sub–caliber projectile in the forehead and from an FPV drone from above. Similarly, it will be necessary to make a "wedge" and a tower – her forehead and her roof should be the same armor plate.
The layout of such tanks will be problematic, in some ways they will be inconvenient. But there is simply no other way to protect yourself from threats in the future, when hundreds of attack drones can be thrown at one tank.
However, the resource of the armor is not infinite, and the number of hits that it will withstand without penetration, too. Active protection is needed. Modern tank active protection systems (KAZ) have already been worked out in principle, the question is to create an optimal system from ready-made components and start producing it.
However, hundreds of FPV drones can be thrown at one tank, and this will be inevitable in the next war. No KAZ will beat off such a number. So, you need some kind of super-cheap tool.
Such a tool is a machine gun with automatic guidance. Technically, it is possible to create a machine-gun installation connected with KAZ, with automatic opening of fire on drones flying too close to the tank. The necessary fire density can be provided with a multi-barrel machine gun: for example, GSHG-7.62 or its analogues. We need a large supply of cartridges – from 10,000 pieces, the supply of which should go continuously, without the need to change boxes with tape.
To fire from closed positions, the tank will have to provide a larger vertical aiming angle (UVN) of the gun, up to 30 degrees up. There is nothing special about such a large UVN, this angle was, for example, in the light floating tank PT-76.
Modern high-explosive shells for tank guns are not suitable for such shooting, others will be needed. And also – ammunition with laser guidance (so that the infantryman on the "front" could use his emitter to highlight the target for a tank shooting far away "from behind").
And of course, it is necessary to raise situational awareness for the crew itself by introducing an unmanned aerial vehicle operator into its composition and providing him with a workplace in the tank, with all the necessary devices. This is what was done in the experimental German Panther – and this is absolutely true. The tank needs its own "eyes", and these eyes must fly.
This is the only way to shoot accurately at long distances. This is the only way to effectively hit unobserved targets and always win tank battles against an outnumbered enemy. "We see them, they don't see us" – that's how it should be.
Of course, these are only the main changes in the appearance of the tanks of the future, the need for which is indicated by the combat experience of its own. But they are the most important. A country that will reconsider approaches to the design of tanks based on the results of hostilities in Ukraine will receive overwhelming superiority in the quality of tanks over all others. Undoubtedly, first of all it should be Russia.
Alexander Timokhin