A Response: Reassessing the Tank in an Era of Pervasive Lethality

The recent article, The Tank Is Dead: Long Live the Javelin, the Switchblade…., presents a familiar argument for the continued primacy of the main battle tank. It posits that while the tank faces new threats, its core function of providing mobile, protected lethality remains indispensable, and that tactical and technical adaptations will ensure its survival, just as they have in the past.

However, this perspective is built upon a series of flawed historical analogies, a critical oversimplification of modern tactical realities, and a failure to fully grapple with the systemic, rather than platform-specific, changes in warfare. A more rigorous analysis suggests that the challenges facing the tank are not merely another chapter in its evolution, but potentially a fundamental shift that questions its viability as a central instrument of ground combat.

The Problem with Historical Precedent

The article’s argument leans heavily on a historical narrative where the tank has repeatedly faced and overcome existential threats. This narrative, however, mischaracterizes key conflicts to fit its conclusion.

The 1967 Arab-Israeli War is presented as the “heyday of the tank,” validated in a conflict between “similarly equipped adversaries.” This framing is misleading. The war was decided not by a peer-on-peer tank battle, but by the Israeli Air Force achieving total air supremacy in the opening hours. Israeli armor advanced under an umbrella of complete air dominance against adversaries whose command, control, and morale had been shattered. To credit the tank as the decisive element is to ignore the foundational condition of air supremacy that enabled its success.

Similarly, the proposed solutions following the 1973 Yom Kippur War are presented with a simplicity that belies their immense difficulty. The article argues the answer to the Sagger anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) was a turn to combined arms doctrine. While sound in theory, this glosses over the reality that such operations are incredibly challenging to execute, especially against a prepared enemy. The successes against non-state actors like Hamas and Hezbollah, while demonstrating the tactical competence of the Israel Defense Forces and the effectiveness of systems like the Trophy Active Protection System (APS), are not proof of the tank’s viability against a peer state. These groups lack the integrated air defenses, air forces, and deep artillery and electronic warfare capabilities of a state actor, which would contest every element of an Israeli combined arms assault.

The Fallacy of Simplified Counter-ATGM Tactics

The most significant weakness in the article’s thesis is its treatment of the ATGM threat. The proposed solution—to suppress and destroy ATGM teams with combined arms assets—is a circular argument. It presents the desired outcome as the method for achieving it. The core tactical problem is not deciding to destroy the ATGM team; it is finding that two-person, well-camouflaged team before it can fire.

The article asks why Russian forces in Ukraine have not effectively suppressed Ukrainian ATGM teams. This question is framed as a critique of Russian incompetence, which, while a factor, conveniently ignores the sheer difficulty of the task. Let us consider the proposed solutions in a contested environment:

• Mortars and Artillery: These assets are primarily for suppression, not precision destruction. To be effective, they must fire on suspected enemy positions. In a peer conflict, the moment a mortar or artillery piece fires, its position is subject to immediate and lethal counter-battery fire from enemy radar and artillery. The crews of these systems are placed in extreme danger for a low-probability chance of neutralizing a single ATGM team.
• Air Power: In a conflict with a peer adversary, the airspace is not a permissive sanctuary. It is a lethal web of Integrated Air Defense Systems (IADS). Sending helicopters or close-air-support jets to hunt for individual infantry teams is to risk high-value assets against low-value targets in an environment where they themselves are being hunted.

The fundamental challenge posed by modern ATGMs, especially “fire-and-forget” systems like the Javelin, is that they place the tactical advantage squarely with the concealed defender. The idea that these threats can be systematically “swept up” before they can engage is a dangerous oversimplification.

The Unsustainable Economics of Survival

The article points to the development of the Trophy APS as a successful technical adaptation. While an impressive feat of engineering, the very existence of Trophy highlights the core unfavorable dynamic for the tank: its survivability now depends on an exceptionally complex and expensive defensive suite to counter a threat that is comparatively cheap and plentiful.

This creates a deeply unfavorable cost-exchange ratio. A nation must invest millions in a tank, and hundreds of thousands more for its active protection system, to defend against a missile that may cost a fraction of that price. An adversary can afford to field hundreds of ATGMs for the price of a single main battle tank. While an APS can defeat one or two incoming projectiles, it can be overwhelmed by a volley. This economic and tactical reality heavily favors the attacker, who needs only one missile to get through to achieve a mission kill or the complete destruction of a multi-million dollar asset and its crew.

The True Nature of the Modern Threat

The article’s logic appears to rest on an unstated assumption: that our adversaries will not possess anti-tank capabilities as sophisticated as the Javelin. The entire argument for the tank’s continued utility would collapse if it had to face an enemy infantry force equipped with thousands of its own fire-and-forget, top-attack ATGMs. In such a scenario, the concept of a rapid armored advance, or “shock action,” becomes untenable.

Furthermore, the section on drones is convoluted because it fails to identify the true paradigm shift. The threat is not just a single drone attacking a tank. The real revolution is the networking of cheap, disposable intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms—the drones—with long-range precision-strike systems. A small, inexpensive drone finds a tank. It relays the coordinates. Miles away, a guided artillery shell or a loitering munition is launched to destroy the tank.

In this model, the battlefield becomes transparent. The tank’s large thermal and physical signature makes it an easy target to find. Its protection is irrelevant if it can be reliably targeted and struck from beyond its own engagement range.

Conclusion: A Function in Search of a Viable Platform

The central question posed by the article—“Is there a continued role for mobile, protected lethality on the battlefields of the future?"—is the correct one. The answer is almost certainly yes. However, the article errs in its assumption that the main battle tank remains the inevitable platform to provide that capability.

The confluence of cheap, precise ATGMs, the saturation of the battlespace with ISR drones, and the proliferation of long-range guided munitions has created a threat environment more lethal than any the tank has ever faced. The historical analogies are flawed, the proposed tactical solutions are oversimplified, and the economic calculus is unsustainable. The tank is not facing a single challenger, like the ATGM of 1973. It is facing a systemic change in the very nature of ground warfare, one that threatens to make its core attributes—size, noise, and a high thermal signature—a fatal liability. Perhaps it is time to consider that while the dinner jacket is indeed needed, it can no longer be made of the same cloth.