I’d be interested to discuss this more sometime. Take the Abrams for example. It costs what, six million dollars?
Who would win in a fight: an Abrams or six million dollars worth of drone troops? (What might this look like? Maybe 15 pickup trucks, each with a driver and a FPV drone operator in them. Each truck is loaded with 100 drones of various kinds.) Let’s be kind to the Abrams and give them a couple drones too, for scouting.
It seems clear to me that the drone force would win, and it wouldn’t be close. It would be like a WW2 battleship going up against 15 WW2 aircraft carriers. Curious if you disagree.
Perhaps you think that the Abrams would lose to the drone force, but that there are some kinds of missions that the Abrams is better for, and therefore the Abrams is not “dangerously outdated?” What would these missions be? Heavy assaults on fortified lines? Nah, probably still better to have the swarm of 1500 drones hitting the fortified line from 20km away. The Abrams isn’t even more survivable than the pickups really, I mean it’s better if you come under artillery fire probably but if you come under attack from FPV drones it probably takes about as many drones to kill the Abrams as to kill all 15 pickups even in ideal conditions, and realistically the pickups will be scattering and hiding and shooting back at the drones and probably it’ll take dozens of drones to get them all and also the men will have abandoned their trucks and hid in basements.
I agree that Abrams tanks aren’t useless. They are like the WW1-era battleships in WW2; still better to have than nothing; useful for shore bombardment maybe and useful as screening ships for the carrier battle groups. But you sure as hell shouldn’t be building any more of them; that would be a waste of precious resources that could be used to build other things—things that aren’t battleships at all, things like carriers and subs and destroyers. Similarly, there should be no new tanks built from now on basically, since every such tank would consume money that could instead be used to buy more useful things.
What drone countermeasures do you think are promising?
I’ll be at Lighthaven next weekend, Friday and Saturday, happy to discuss in person. This isn’t my focus, but I can present some common views. I can’t discuss specific developing tech or countermeasures, and generally don’t know the specifics anyway. Some sort of countermeasure always develops, though how costly and effective it is, how it changes the various warfare niches, remains to be seen.
Who would win in a fight: an Abrams or six million dollars worth of drone troops?
It’s worth noting that tanks will basically always lose a one-on-one fight to dismounted troops of an equivalent cost-to-equip, given reasonable cover, morale, and equipment. This was true in 1940, in 1970, in 2000, and now. Sending unscreened tank columns alone into battle in anything other than a flat desert is suicidal. Tanks shine in combined arms, but are vulnerable on their own. Combined arms warfare is extremely difficult to coordinate; neither Russia nor Ukraine have been able to pull it off much in recent years, with the initial Kursk offensive as a notable exception. It shouldn’t surprise us that heavy tanks struggle in geography they’re not suited for, used by armies who are unable to use them to best effect. That is not the only relevant scenario.
Maneuver warfare. Combined Arms Offensives. Breakthrough operations against prepared defenses in high-intensity conflicts. Counter-offensives to stop enemy advances (i.e. Kursk).
Here’s some published US Army discussion of this problem. Yes, Armor officers have tanks and are motivated to say they’re the solution to every problem. But they have a point that other countries failing to successfully execute combined arms does not mean that NATO would. There’s some things we’re good at, skills that we’ve invested in disproportionately compared to peer competitors. Joint Operations at all scales (nations, services, combined arms), is top of that list. https://warontherocks.com/2025/07/steel-in-the-storm-recent-wars-as-guides-for-armor-transformation/
I guess 5 Abrams and 30 million worth of drones vs 60 million worth of drones might be a better comparison. I think I’d still favour the drones but it’s much less obvious.
My view on where the tanks might win is: there’s a point at which you basically saturate your capability at “whatever drones are good at” while there might be some other job tanks are good at (my vague guess is that this is something like “attacking well defended positions”—they’re fast, take specialized weapons to defeat, and have big guns), and you’re better off having that capability than further saturating your drone capability. But I’ve little in the way of quantitative insight about where saturation might occur, nor how good tanks are at attacking.
A particular point I’m a bit confused about: I’ve often seen people saying: tanks need infantry support to be safe. However, aren’t infantry and tanks both vulnerable to drones?
What pickup trucks are you using? How much do the pickups cost? What armour do they have if any?
There’s one drone operator per pickup. These are FPV drones so they’re limited to at most a handful of drones at a time. You can’t swarm the Abrams, and unlike what the videos would have you believe the chance of an individual drone taking out an Abrams is tiny. The tank has plenty of time and opportunity to blow up the pickup.
The drones aren’t as cheap as you believe—the FPV drones with fibre optic used in Ukraine are many thousands of dollars each. Each pickup, operators, and drone is worth many hundreds of thousands and is likely a sitting duck to artillery, tank fire, and yes counter drones, especially when it moves.
The play would be to sneak the truck in under cover of darkness, set up shop somewhere camouflaged, and then use the drones to help defend the current area, and atrite enemy forces. Basically the same thing as is happening now in Ukraine. It helps in a slow grinding war, but doesn’t help you in a manoeuvre war.
Nato doctrine is all about manoeuvrability and air power. Once air superiority is achieved your pickups are sitting ducks. Only individual people can act effectively against air superiority.
The aim of the tank in that situation is rapid movement and firepower, whilst being protected from most attacks. The pickup can easily be blown up by an enemy ATGM, RPG, or drone operator so just isn’t as useful in manoeuvre warfare. The driver can easily be killed by an assault rifle.
Giving individual troops drones is obviously a power multiplier but with current drone technology I don’t think a drone carrier makes much sense—too exposed in a manoeuvre war, and no different to what’s currently going on in a war of attrition.
(Of course all this changes once we can coordinate fully autonomous drones at scale and low price)
I’d be interested to discuss this more sometime. Take the Abrams for example. It costs what, six million dollars?
Who would win in a fight: an Abrams or six million dollars worth of drone troops? (What might this look like? Maybe 15 pickup trucks, each with a driver and a FPV drone operator in them. Each truck is loaded with 100 drones of various kinds.) Let’s be kind to the Abrams and give them a couple drones too, for scouting.
It seems clear to me that the drone force would win, and it wouldn’t be close. It would be like a WW2 battleship going up against 15 WW2 aircraft carriers. Curious if you disagree.
Perhaps you think that the Abrams would lose to the drone force, but that there are some kinds of missions that the Abrams is better for, and therefore the Abrams is not “dangerously outdated?” What would these missions be? Heavy assaults on fortified lines? Nah, probably still better to have the swarm of 1500 drones hitting the fortified line from 20km away. The Abrams isn’t even more survivable than the pickups really, I mean it’s better if you come under artillery fire probably but if you come under attack from FPV drones it probably takes about as many drones to kill the Abrams as to kill all 15 pickups even in ideal conditions, and realistically the pickups will be scattering and hiding and shooting back at the drones and probably it’ll take dozens of drones to get them all and also the men will have abandoned their trucks and hid in basements.
I agree that Abrams tanks aren’t useless. They are like the WW1-era battleships in WW2; still better to have than nothing; useful for shore bombardment maybe and useful as screening ships for the carrier battle groups. But you sure as hell shouldn’t be building any more of them; that would be a waste of precious resources that could be used to build other things—things that aren’t battleships at all, things like carriers and subs and destroyers. Similarly, there should be no new tanks built from now on basically, since every such tank would consume money that could instead be used to buy more useful things.
What drone countermeasures do you think are promising?
I’ll be at Lighthaven next weekend, Friday and Saturday, happy to discuss in person. This isn’t my focus, but I can present some common views. I can’t discuss specific developing tech or countermeasures, and generally don’t know the specifics anyway. Some sort of countermeasure always develops, though how costly and effective it is, how it changes the various warfare niches, remains to be seen.
It’s worth noting that tanks will basically always lose a one-on-one fight to dismounted troops of an equivalent cost-to-equip, given reasonable cover, morale, and equipment. This was true in 1940, in 1970, in 2000, and now. Sending unscreened tank columns alone into battle in anything other than a flat desert is suicidal. Tanks shine in combined arms, but are vulnerable on their own. Combined arms warfare is extremely difficult to coordinate; neither Russia nor Ukraine have been able to pull it off much in recent years, with the initial Kursk offensive as a notable exception. It shouldn’t surprise us that heavy tanks struggle in geography they’re not suited for, used by armies who are unable to use them to best effect. That is not the only relevant scenario.
Ok, interesting- but what would be the relevant scenario, then, in which it’s better to have a tank than the drone force I described?
Maneuver warfare. Combined Arms Offensives. Breakthrough operations against prepared defenses in high-intensity conflicts. Counter-offensives to stop enemy advances (i.e. Kursk).
Here’s some published US Army discussion of this problem. Yes, Armor officers have tanks and are motivated to say they’re the solution to every problem. But they have a point that other countries failing to successfully execute combined arms does not mean that NATO would. There’s some things we’re good at, skills that we’ve invested in disproportionately compared to peer competitors. Joint Operations at all scales (nations, services, combined arms), is top of that list.
https://warontherocks.com/2025/07/steel-in-the-storm-recent-wars-as-guides-for-armor-transformation/
I probably won’t be around then alas but if I am ill try to find you! Thanks!
I guess 5 Abrams and 30 million worth of drones vs 60 million worth of drones might be a better comparison. I think I’d still favour the drones but it’s much less obvious.
Good point. Yeah I would still favor the drones, and by a lot. The abrams would be about as useless as the Yamato, probably moreso even.
My view on where the tanks might win is: there’s a point at which you basically saturate your capability at “whatever drones are good at” while there might be some other job tanks are good at (my vague guess is that this is something like “attacking well defended positions”—they’re fast, take specialized weapons to defeat, and have big guns), and you’re better off having that capability than further saturating your drone capability. But I’ve little in the way of quantitative insight about where saturation might occur, nor how good tanks are at attacking.
A particular point I’m a bit confused about: I’ve often seen people saying: tanks need infantry support to be safe. However, aren’t infantry and tanks both vulnerable to drones?
Shoot them with a bullet. The anti-aircraft guns of WWI and WW2 would be very effective at cutting swaths through drone swarms.
What pickup trucks are you using? How much do the pickups cost? What armour do they have if any?
There’s one drone operator per pickup. These are FPV drones so they’re limited to at most a handful of drones at a time. You can’t swarm the Abrams, and unlike what the videos would have you believe the chance of an individual drone taking out an Abrams is tiny. The tank has plenty of time and opportunity to blow up the pickup.
The drones aren’t as cheap as you believe—the FPV drones with fibre optic used in Ukraine are many thousands of dollars each. Each pickup, operators, and drone is worth many hundreds of thousands and is likely a sitting duck to artillery, tank fire, and yes counter drones, especially when it moves.
The play would be to sneak the truck in under cover of darkness, set up shop somewhere camouflaged, and then use the drones to help defend the current area, and atrite enemy forces. Basically the same thing as is happening now in Ukraine. It helps in a slow grinding war, but doesn’t help you in a manoeuvre war.
Nato doctrine is all about manoeuvrability and air power. Once air superiority is achieved your pickups are sitting ducks. Only individual people can act effectively against air superiority.
The aim of the tank in that situation is rapid movement and firepower, whilst being protected from most attacks. The pickup can easily be blown up by an enemy ATGM, RPG, or drone operator so just isn’t as useful in manoeuvre warfare. The driver can easily be killed by an assault rifle.
Giving individual troops drones is obviously a power multiplier but with current drone technology I don’t think a drone carrier makes much sense—too exposed in a manoeuvre war, and no different to what’s currently going on in a war of attrition.
(Of course all this changes once we can coordinate fully autonomous drones at scale and low price)