July 31, 2025, 6:03 a.m.
Tanks for the Memories: Are Armored Fighting Vehicles Obsolete?
The Conspiracy Report
By Egon E. Mosum
September 15, 1916 was the first birthday of the use of tanks in war.
The tank was of British make, and was appropriately known as the Mark I. It was used in the battle of the Somme in France in World War I, and no doubt made some impression on the enemy forces, although it wasn’t all that effective.
This tank was also used around that time, in Gaza for another first, and today, one hundred and nine years later, we still see tanks in Gaza, albeit somewhat more advanced than the Mark I.[1]
Rolling through Gaza now, is the Merkava Mark IV, and it is an effective killer. According to a recent Reuters report, fifty-nine Palestinians would — but no longer can — testify to that fact.[2]
So, the argument can be made with enough destructive proof, that at least in certain situations, the tank is still a useful weapon—especially in urban combat environments, like are found in the Israeli Gaza operation.
On the other hand, six months before the killing of the Palestinians, five Israeli tanks were destroyed by Hamas in Northern Gaza, according to a report in the Middle East Monitor.[3]
So even in areas where a tank may be effective, it is vulnerable.
However, one of the things that militaries have learned from the almost three-and-one-half year war between Russia and Ukraine, is that in open field operations, in areas of operation geographically similar to that of the great armored battles of World War II, tanks, and other armored vehicles may have seen their last hurrah.
They can too easily be destroyed by inexpensive drones, and drone warfare is increasingly being conducted in wars world-wide.
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It has been conservatively estimated that as of May, 2025, the Russians have lost three thousand tanks in the Ukraine war.[4]
While due to losses, Russia is using a mixture of older and newer tanks, the T-90, which is a more advanced tank, in 2022, cost approximately $4.5 million to produce.[5]
It is estimated that one hundred of these have been destroyed in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian FPV (first person view) drones which are often responsible for destroying Russian tanks, can be manufactured at a cost of approximately three-hundred dollars.[6]
The economics and effectiveness of inexpensive drone warfare may herald the end of the tank in modern non-urban warfare. In fact, it has been estimated that sixty-five percent of the Russian tank losses in Ukraine were due to FPV-First Person View drones.[7]
Let’s do some math.
Using the 2022 sticker price for a Russian T-90, four and one half million multiplied by one hundred — estimated losses of this model in the Ukraine — gives us a total of four hundred and fifty million dollars-worth of military metal made molten scrap.
Using the approximate cost of producing a Ukrainian first-person view drone of three hundred dollars, multiplied by one hundred, gives us a cost of thirty thousand dollars.
Getting out our calculators, we see that thirty thousand dollars-worth of drones can wipe out four hundred and fifty million dollars-worth of tanks. Or in other words, the cost of one Russian tank is fifteen hundred times more than the cost of the drone that can destroy that tank.
Thus, an economically weaker force can still prevail against a much stronger economy engaged in battle with it, at least when it comes to mechanized armor.
Moreover, where a military item like a tank requires a large factory and numerous workers to create, drone manufacture can take place in small facilities, or even in a basement ‘mom and pop’ operation.[8]
This means the tank manufacturing country offers a big target for aerial bombing (and drone swarms), while it may be extremely difficult to detect where drones are being manufactured.
When one realizes and remembers that one of the main reasons the United States won World War II was the fact that the enemy couldn’t reach — and therefore degrade and destroy — our production facilities.
The existence of extremely low-cost and low-profile manufacturing of highly effective weapons creates a new reality in modern warfare.
Wholesale destruction can be had at wholesale prices.
The new reality of cheap drones, versus expensive armor has not been lost on war planners.
In a November 2023 article in Defense Express, it was reported:
‘Between 1979 and 1993, the U.S. defense industry produced 8,800 M1 Abrams main battle tanks in total. The average was 840 units annually, or 75 a month, according to public data. Moreover, the capacity could be doubled or even tripled if necessary. However, the ongoing defense contracts indicate a reduced production rate nowadays of only 12 tanks per month or up to 135 per year.’[9]
In a recent article from Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies regarding tanks, it was stated:
‘[Tanks] will no longer come within kinetic firing range of each other, and will be discovered and attacked at much longer ranges…The tank’s heavy armor has similarly reached the limits of its ability to withstand precision, tandem hollow-charge, fire-and-forget munitions, which target the tank’s top.’
Now, Israel knows a thing or two about tanks, and in the aforementioned article it was reported that in the Israeli Defense Force the number of tanks has been significantly reduced.[10]
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE
The freedoms and opportunities we enjoy in the United States, and in other Western democratically oriented countries, are supported by the respective militaries.
Those militaries are made effective — or rendered ineffective — by matching men, material and a modus operandi that is consistent with the new realities of the twenty-first century battlefield.
Those militaries are financed by the citizens of the respective countries via taxes. And those citizens depend on the war planners to make the right decisions, to modernize operations, and to realize what currently works and does not work in the fog of war.
The financing is finite, and the efficient use of funds designated for military use is crucial to the continued existence of a country.
We have all borne witness to the wasted expensive remnants of Russian armored vehicles in Ukraine, destroyed by (often) home-made drones that cost as much to manufacture as a dinner for two in a Manhattan restaurant.
Weapons of war on the one hand are getting more expensive to produce, and yet, on the other hand are becoming more vulnerable to counter weapons that are becoming much cheaper to produce.
The production facility profiles of those cheap weapons can be very hard to locate for destruction by aerial bombardment, while both drones and ballistic missiles can easily locate and destroy large footprint production facilities of major weapons of war.
The days of the chariot are over. Perhaps, except in limited circumstances, the tank, which was the evolution of the chariot, is seeing its sunset as an effective tool in large scale battlefields in modern war.
Sources:
[2] Israeli tanks kill 59 people in Gaza crowd trying to get food aid, medics say Mugrabi & Khaled 6/17/25 REUTERS https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-tank-shelling-kills-45-people-awaiting-aid-trucks-gaza-ministry-says-2025-06-17/
[3] Hamas’s Al-Qassam targets 5 Israeli tanks in northern Gaza 1/3/25 MIDDLE EAST MONITOR https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250103-hamass-al-qassam-targets-5-israeli-tanks-in-northern-gaza/
[4] The Russia-Ukraine War Report Card, June 11, 2025 RUSSIA MATTERS https://www.russiamatters.org/news/russia-ukraine-war-report-card/russia-ukraine-war-report-card-june-11-2025#:~:text=as%20of%202025.-,According%20to%20a%20May%202025%20estimate%20by%20the%20U.S.%20Defense,more%20than%2010%20naval%20vessels.
[5] FIVE COAT CONSULTING GROUP THE COST OF WAR https://www.thefivecoatconsultinggroup.com/the-coronavirus-crisis/ukraine-context-d33#:~:text=T%2D90%20Tank%20%E2%80%94%20%244%2C500%2C000,afford%20after%20the%20conflict%20ends.
[6] Ukraine pumping out kamikaze drones for as little as $300 – and they can destroy tanks: ‘This is modern warfare’ NEW YORK POST Caitlin Doombos 2/26/25 https://nypost.com/2025/02/26/world-news/how-ukraines-drone-army-has-changed-the-battlefield-forever/
[7] Drones Accounted For 65 Percent Of All Russian Tank Losses In Ukraine War Reuben Johnson 2/18/25 19FORTY FIVE https://www.19fortyfive.com/about-us/?_gl=1*mpze7s*_ga*MTE5MTQ2NDQxNy4xNzUwMjE2NDIw*_up*MQ..https://www.19fortyfive.com/about-us/?_gl=1*mpze7s*_ga*MTE5MTQ2NDQxNy4xNzUwMjE2NDIw*_up*MQ..
[8] Ukraine's DIY drone makers are helping fighters on the front lines Eleanor Beardsley 4/12/25 NPR https://www.npr.org/2025/04/12/g-s1-59428/ukraine-drones-russia-war
[9] U.S. Made 75 M1 Abrams Per Month in the 1980s, Now 12 is the Limit 11/20/23 https://en.defence-ua.com/industries/us_made_75_m1_abrams_per_month_in_the_1980s_now_12_is_the_limit-8621.html
[10] THE FUTURE OF THE TANK AND THE LAND BATTLEFIELD Azar Gat Institute for National Security Studies https://www.inss.org.il/publication/tanks/