Paul Scharre, former US Army Rangerīut looking at the ineffectiveness of Russian tank attacks in Ukraine, one can see how technology - particularly advances in high explosives and guided missiles - is further tipping the odds to favor anti-tank defenders, to the point where tanks could arguably be rendered obsolete. Tanks have long been susceptible to soldier-carried weapons like bazookas and recoilless rifles, as well as improvised explosives such as the anti-tank ' sticky bombs' seen in the film 'Saving Private Ryan.' Tanks are going to move, over time, into more of a mopping-up role. It's their job to punch through enemy positions so infantry can flood in and hold the newly gained ground. Tanks have ruled land warfare for more than 80 years. 'An infantry that is determined to fight is now super-empowered by having things like a huge number of point-and-shoot disposable anti-tank rockets,' Edward Luttwak, a military strategist who consults for governments around the world, told Insider. Soldiers are using charred suburban landscape to ambush tanks with a new generation of fire-and-forget weapons that makes tank-killing unsettlingly simple, even in the hands of a volunteer.

The emerging evidence of tanks' tactical weakness is 'striking,' as one expert put it, and it has opened up a debate about whether tanks might be on their way to joining chariots and mounted cavalry in the boneyard of military history.Ĭheap, low-flying drones are striking tanks from above. Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin examines the inside of a T-90AM battle tank, in 2011. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.

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