The massive, powerful Abrams M1A1 battle tank looks as though it can crush anything that stands against it.
But in the Ukraine war, where nimble drones own the battlefield, the tanks have failed to have the effect Ukraine hoped for when America agreed to send the weapons to them in January 2023, according to the Associated Press.
So far, five of the 31 tanks, which cost $10 million each, have been destroyed by drones, two U.S. military officials whose names were not used have revealed.
Buzzing gnat-like drones that hunt and kill on a Ukrainian battlefield mean “there isn’t open ground that you can just drive across without fear of detection,” a senior defense official said Thursday.
The tanks have been put in time-out while U.S. forces and Ukrainian generals try to revise their tactics, Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Adm. Christopher Grady and a third defense official who was not named said.
“When you think about the way the fight has evolved, massed armor in an environment where unmanned aerial systems are ubiquitous can be at risk,” Grady said.
“Now, there is a way to do it. We’ll work with our Ukrainian partners, and other partners on the ground, to help them think through how they might use that, in that kind of changed environment now, where everything is seen immediately,” he said.
One of the U.S. officials emphasized that despite the drone factor, Ukraine’s tactics have not let the tanks do all that they could be doing, one of the U.S. defense officials said.
Will drones become even more important in warfare?
Ukraine has used the tanks in a limited way, and without combined arms tactics that could make tanks, troops, air assets and long-range fire an integrated attack.
The official said several tanks were lost in the battle for Avdiika in eastern Ukraine.
Abrams tanks, like any other tanks, didn’t fare well against drones in a real battlefield and have been pulled back from Ukrainian frontlines. A lesson for U.S. military planners, too. https://t.co/tmucH9UpHO
— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) April 26, 2024
The website intellinews explained that Russia “avoided head-to-head clashes between tanks that they were likely to lose.”
Instead, the site noted, Russia attacks “with swarms of drones that targeted tanks weak points: typically the point where the turret meets the body, the rear covering of the engine and the top of the tank where the armor is thinnest.”
Col. Markus Reisner, an Austrian military trainer said the Abrams is “one of the world’s mightiest” tanks, but it is a new world on the battlefield.
“Welcome to the 21st century — it’s unbelievable, actually,” he said.
Russia has capitalized on the trend in propaganda, with some users posting video of a Moscow bakery selling cakes shaped like destroyed Abrams tanks.
