Tanks have proven vulnerable to drone attacks and are used less and less in the war in Ukraine. However, NATO countries, including Romania, continue to buy and develop new types of such weapons.
Drones turn tanks and armored vehicles into wrecks in flames in Ukraine, but NATO allies are doubling down on these heavy weapons.
In images from the war in Ukraine, cheap FPV quadcopters swarm buzzing towards the open hatches of tanks and explode violently. Shattered wrecks remain scattered along roads and fields. Public sources and expert groups estimate that thousands of armored vehicles have been lost, many of them destroyed by drones.
Amidst this massacre, NATO is seriously betting on... armored vehicles.
Many armies are investing in tanks, sometimes for the first time in their history, and arms companies are producing new models as Europe prepares for the possibility of extended Russian aggression, as shown in an analysis published by Business Insider.
Who is buying tanks and why are they investing in them
Six NATO allies have announced new tank acquisitions this year. Sweden and Czech Republic are each buying 44 German-made Leopard 2A8 battle tanks, Netherlands is buying 46, and Croatia up to 50. Poland is acquiring 180 South Korean K2 Black Panthers tanks. And Lithuania, a NATO ally bordering Russia, is buying tanks for the first time. Vaidotas Urbelis, the Ministry of Defense's policy director, stated last year that the decision was made in response to the war in Ukraine.
The German army is also betting on its own tanks, deploying Leopard 2A8 with its new brigade in Lithuania, the first major German brigade permanently stationed abroad since World War II. The brigade's commander told the cited publication that the war has shown that tanks will be essential for NATO's protection.
The 2A8 is the most advanced Leopard tank of KNDS Deutschland, with modifications based on lessons from Ukraine, such as protection against drones.
Major European defense firms Leonardo and Rheinmetall announced a 50/50 partnership last year to develop and produce tanks and armored vehicles, while RENK from Germany is making a $585 million investment this year in the armored vehicle production capacity. And the Lithuanian company Aurida Engineering has manufactured the first domestically built MRAP armored vehicle, although it is only a prototype.
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There are also a dozen European countries actively developing a new next-generation battle tank - a concept called Europe's Main Armored Tank. The US and Europe have long known armored warfare, both in theory and from brutal practice, and there are still massive investments in this regard for the future.
Romania buys over 200 tanks
Romania is joining the list of countries investing in tanks. The Ministry of National Defense (MoND) announced last week that it has requested Parliament's approval to start the procurement procedure for the "Main Battle Tank" endowment program.
Phase I of the endowment program, with an estimated value of $458.20 million, involves enhancing the tank battalion's capability equipped with the Abrams M1A2 SEPv3 tank. In this regard, machine guns, ammunition, spare parts, simulation and testing equipment, support and technical assistance services, transport, training services are planned to be purchased.
Phase II, with an estimated value of €6,488.34 million, aims to acquire 216 tanks and 76 derivatives for equipping tank and infantry structures within the Land Forces, as well as purchasing logistic support and specific training and training equipment.
Tanks are outdated
In the Middle East conflicts, where the US and its allies enjoyed aerial superiority, tanks played decisive roles, leading major operations such as "Thunder Run" in Baghdad in 2003 or overwhelming enemy armored vehicles, such as tank confrontations in the Gulf War in 1991.
But in Ukraine, it's a different story. This war has turned into a tough fight, with largely static front lines and both sides setting up defensive positions like trenches, fixed concrete barriers, and minefields, all with drones swarming overhead. Tanks do not excel in such conditions.
Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former British army officer who served in a tank regiment, told the American publication that this has diminished their effectiveness, as mobility "is really their most useful thing, it always has been."
Ukraine's last major attempt to use tanks was in the 2023 counteroffensive when it tried to advance with new Western tanks but suffered heavy losses against prepared defenses. Moscow's forces were given time to settle in deeply amid the delay of Western support. And Russia continued to try its luck with mechanized unit attacks but did not achieve remarkable success.
Drones have made the battlefield more challenging for vehicle operations, and both sides are now more cautious in their use.
Tanks now operate further back, in hidden positions or as mobile artillery. Sometimes, they are used in small numbers for carefully planned attacks, supported by drones, electronic warfare, and other vehicles, but they are not at the forefront of large-scale operations.
At the beginning of the drone war, "a lot of tanks were relatively easily destroyed by FPV drones, and it seemed quite illogical that a $500 drone would destroy a $5 million tank," de Bretton-Gordon said.
Tanks, often with the least armor above, were not designed with aerial threats in mind, especially from small exploding drones.
Scott Boston, a ground warfare expert at RAND, said, "Both sides keep them quite significantly away from the contact line because they don't want to jeopardize them."
Both sides have also modified their tanks, adding armor and various improvisations to make them more resilient in case they face drones in combat.
And yet, the tank is not dead
NATO closely monitors the war in Ukraine, learning where it can, but focusing on preparing for a possible war, a confrontation that, given the potential capabilities involved, could look different from the war being fought today.
"Everyone is preparing for the last war and is never prepared for the next war. It would be a mistake to think the next war will look exactly like the one in Ukraine," Jeffrey Edmonds, a Russian analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses and a former US Army armored officer, told Business Insider.
A Russian war against NATO might not look like the war against Ukraine. "What's happening in Ukraine is in a way distinctly determined by the conditions of the war in Ukraine."
The landscape is very different, the front lines may not look the same, and, perhaps most importantly, the weapons in such a war could be very different.
NATO has significantly greater firepower than Ukraine, which could prevent the war from ever turning into an exhausting and attritional drone confrontation.
The alliance's capabilities are "much more advanced than Ukraine's and much more advanced than Russia's," including equipment like the F-35 stealth fighter jets, de Bretton-Gordon said.
Although challenging, as threats to air resources multiply, NATO could theoretically provide the necessary air cover to use tanks effectively and in much larger numbers than Ukraine.
The West is also modernizing tanks considering the threat of drones and developing a series of anti-drone systems.
"A tank still has its role," Edmonds said. "Tanks provide shock effect, long-lasting fire. If you can mitigate some of the impact of the drone and can maintain a fluid fight, then I think they still have a clear role to play," he added.
The U.S. Army Secretary believes the same, stating that predictions about the tank disappearing from the front lines could be wrong.
Instead, this capability could simply be used differently, with tanks being held in the back lines. And experts indicate that tanks will be necessary for conquering terrain.
"You can hardly ever achieve your objectives without some kind of capability to attack, counterattack, or regain ground," Boston explained. You can't win a war on the defensive, and to attack, you need equipment like tanks.
Bretton-Gordon confirms, stating that "mobility and firepower protection are still fundamental on the battlefield." That's why, for now, NATO is still betting on tanks.