When Lorenz Meier, the chief executive of a drone company, posted a video on social media last week showing a military tank being hit several times by his devices, it was an image that some will have viewed as highlighting the end of an era. After all, the future of the tank is currently under intense debate because of the evolution of warfare.
On Monday, King Charles III visited Tank Museum at the Bovington Camp in south-western England to mark the historic role of what were originally conceived as the battleships of the frontline. During his visit, the King rode in a 1920s-armoured Rolls Royce and met former commanders of the tank regiment of the British army.
So does the tank belong in a museum? At a time of global military build-ups that are stretching government budgets to the limit, it would seem an odd question. For what it’s worth, King Charles not only inspected the newest model of the UK’s Challenger III but also 3D-printed equipment that is integrated in its systems in real time.
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, the author of a new book titled Tank Command, reminds the reader that Britain led the world in the development of tanks until about 1919, but this apex soon came under a cloud. The end of the First World War called into question the need to double the size of the Bovington Camp, the result of which was that a total of 17 battalions of tank operations that had been active in France were disbanded. Work at Bovington “ceased entirely” as staff were stood down in 1920.
Several specialist units that were disbanded after the First World War included the British Tanks Corps. And yet, the author points out, this was swiftly followed by the creation of the Royal Tank Regiment that today remains the oldest tank unit in the world. His overarching point being that the tank is too valuable a platform to write off.
Pendulum swings in perceptions of the role of the tank have featured throughout the decades. But as it turns out, learning lessons from the conflicts of the time was always key to preserving it in the military hierarchy.
During the Second World War, the US replaced its tanks’ main guns with flame-throwers that proved devastatingly effective in its battles against Japan. Meanwhile, Nazi Germany may have erred by investing in the Tiger II tanks that proved to be so expensive that only less than 500 of them were made – too few to make truly strategic breakthroughs against the Soviet Red Army in the Battle of Kursk.
During the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, tanks took on emergency roles as troop carriers in urban environments at a time when lethal roadside bombs wrecked lesser vehicles.
However, the rise of drone warfare in Ukraine has raised questions about the effectiveness of the tank.
It remains to be seen if Russia can integrate armour into its latest offensive that continues to creep forward at vast attritional cost. Getting momentum for its tank units this summer would be a signal that Moscow is closing in on some of the immediate goals of its offensive. There are several other – mostly technical – issues for manufacturers around the world to resolve.
And so, we come back to the clip posted by the drone company boss of small black projectiles bouncing off a tank’s armour. It asks the most fundamental question: how can the tank deal with drones and their electronic swam qualities?
The answer apparently lies in the earliest concept of the tank as a ship on the battlefield. Think more of the aircraft carrier – than the destroyer – at the centre of its own forward-forging electronic contingent. The tank can be a platform surrounded in the area and across the radio spectrums by its own phalanx of weapons. It can be used to project power as deep as possible to the wall of drones that the enemy will no doubt erect.
It appears that manufacturers understand that even amid the electronic changes, the principles of war can remain constant. With that being the case, the lethality of the intervention from the tank is likely to remain the weathervane of progress on the battlefield.
The British monarch’s visit on Monday was not just about relics after all.
