I have heard this cry numerous times before over the past forty years and it has yet to come to pass. If you would like to submit your own article on this topic or any other, please see our submission guidelines. This article is the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of the UK Defence Journal. What has been widely portrayed in the popular media has led, once again, to predictions that “the age of the tank is over”. Unfortunately, the abiding images in the public view are of heavily armed and armoured, not to say highly expensive, armoured fighting vehicles being destroyed and neutralised wither by plucky individuals with hand-held anti-tank weapons or by cheap – relatively speaking – armed drones and the so-called ‘loitering’ or ‘kamikaze’ munitions. Recent conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan and, more tellingly, the current war in Ukraine have brought a renewed focus on the role of the main battle tank in modern, conventional military operations.

First tank vs tank battle