in a previous video we discussed the many claims regarding the death of the tank among the many
comments I received on that video I noticed a distinct Trend the insistence on the power of
the Drone no doubt you have probably seen or heard of at least one instance from the
ongoing Ukraine conflict regarding tanks or other armored vehicles being damaged
or destroyed using unmanned strikes there is certainly no disputing that drones have served
as powerful weapons to destroy targets with minimal risk to the operator however I feel
it is worth taking a few minutes to discuss the question do drones make tanks obsolete
I love making content like this for you guys and gals but I can't always guarantee a particular
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possible now let's take to the skies and see what we can learn about the reality of drone Warfare
drones have existed in one form or another for over a century you could even argue they date back
to the 1800s with the use of unmanned balloon bombs though conceptually similar we normally
associate drones with something both unmanned and remotely controlled not just left to drift toward
a Target these however are still over 100 years old with the U.S and Britain testing pilotless
aircraft with radio controls all the way back in 1917. the term drone in fact is believed to
have originated in 1935 with a British Target aircraft known as the de Havilland queen bee
when exactly the first drone saw combat is unclear but we can definitely say it was some point during
the second world war with the U.S utilizing them in the Pacific against Japanese targets
with limited success drones would go on to see more major use during the Vietnam War as both
reconnaissance devices and as methods of attacking static targets all of this pales in comparison to
the massive surge of drone use especially post 911 with them becoming an integral part of many
combat operations or pinpoint strikes although the origin and use of drones predates the Modern
Combat we usually associate it with when it comes to drones being used against armored vehicles this
is indeed a more recent phenomenon the ability to use drones against armor has theoretically
existed since the mid to late cold war with the improvements to anti-tank missile technology but
when the first real world case of this occurred is on clear systems such as the American predator
drone equipped with Hellfire missiles have existed since the turn of the century with prototypes even
going back into the 80s these were designed in part to be able to destroy Soviet armor and are
easily capable of such an action nowadays despite this the earliest examples of drones being used
against armor I could find are from the late 2010s the first incident I could find occurred when an
Isis drone was used to drop an explosive into an Iraqi M1 Abrams reportedly killing the Tank's
Commander about one year after this reports of a Syrian t-72 destroyed by a U.S Reaper drone made
headlines after it came within firing range of U.S backed forces regardless of when the
first instance actually occurred though the fact remains that tanks are not immune to these types
of weapons this has become increasingly evident with the recent conflict between Ukraine and
Russia but also was shown in 2020 with azerbaijani drones being used against Armenian armor this
brief history lesson on drones is great but we're here today to talk about whether This spells Doom
for tanks moving forward the trouble I ran into while researching this is the lack of information
available no doubt part of the reason you clicked on this video yourself there's no shortage of
clickbait Articles hailing the victories of drones in Ukraine but I wanted to talk to
someone who actually understands the subject more thankfully I was able to spend some time speaking
with Paul Shari the vice president and director of studies for the center for a new American Security
but I'll let him explain in his own words why you should listen to him on this topic
well before we start do you want to just briefly introduce yourself to my viewers so
that they sort of kind of understand who you are and why they can trust you on this topic
um absolutely so I'm Paul shory I'm the vice president and director of studies at the center
for a new American Security I'm the author of four Battlegrounds power in the age of artificial
intelligence and I'm a former U.S Army Ranger and I serve multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan
we've seen a lot about drones being used against armored vehicles in the ongoing conflict in
Ukraine do you think drones will continue to be a major threat to tanks or was that early success
that we saw only temporary I think we're going to see over time the battlefield environment become
more transparent and more lethal in ways that are going to be very difficult for ground forces
and in particular for armored vehicles so I think we've seen a number of ships and drones are part
of this shift in ground Warfare that is going to make the Warfare environment much more challenging
for armored vehicles like tanks so I do think it's the case that drones are going to continue
to be a persistent threat for armored vehicles on the ground it's not you know as simple as saying
like the tank is dead uh yeah and we're going to continue through tanks used in Modern Warfare and
you know it's not that drones are always going to be able to find tanks we're always going to
be able to attack them we're certainly seeing in the case of Russia's military they don't
have very good effective defenses against rounds but also they're not very capable across the board
um we've seen the Russian military you know is showing itself to be incompetent and basically a
whole range of uh you know basic military tasks whether it's Logistics or maintenance or other
things and so that's not necessarily indicative of how other militaries are going to perform
there are countermeasures Against drones they're available ground fire one of the things we're
seeing in Ukraine is these counter drone attacks where um actually Russia is using electronic
warfare to pinpoint the Drone operators and then call artillery in and then so these Innovations
of drones and counter drones are going to evolve but I do think over the long run it's going to
make the environment uh more transparent more lethal in ways that are really hard for armored
ground vehicles and I think the probably the role of tanks and warfare is going to change over time
so going back just a little bit onto the countermeasures aspect are you familiar with
any particular things that tanks have that can be used as counter measures Against drones or have we
yet to see that sort of come into to play I'm not aware of any systems that have been designed that
are on tanks today that are specifically used to counter Against drones but there's a lot of
things that would absolutely work and have been used in other contexts so for example Jammers
or high-powered microwave weapons that can zap drones out of the sky fry the electronics those
exist those have been used in other contacts they would just need to be mounted on a tank
for example certainly machine guns super effective against drones so that also is the kind of thing
that could be mounted against tanks so when you look at something like an active protection system
for ground vehicles that a number of countries have that's designed to shoot down RPGs or other
anti-tank Munitions missiles or Rockets coming in that's actually a much harder problem than
shooting down a drone it's going to be much more difficult to shoot down um you know an RPG or an
anti-tank rocket coming in against the tank and having an active protection system take that
out very doable that's not new technology so the drones are pretty vulnerable just because again
we don't see Russia doing it very effectively doesn't mean that another country wouldn't do it
um if the US was in this position where you know another country or an oddstate actor say
Isis was using drones to attack U.S tanks or another Advanced military like say Israel I
have all the confidence in the world that they could put together countermeasures that would be
pretty effective again at least in the near term thank you a lot for your assistance on this it was
really nice to talk to you and get these answers I'm sure it's going to help a lot of people kind
of understand more of the Nuance of this topic yeah absolutely thanks for reaching out thanks for
having me on the show um it's great to talk with you well uh is there anywhere else that somebody
watching this might be able to go to either find more information from you or just on this
topic that would be trustworthy and not just some article that somebody crapped out in an afternoon
yeah so we actually are working on a project here at the center for New American Security to explore
this very issue the role of drones in the future of warfare and in high-end conventional conflict
um so we the report's not out yet but I am very excited about it and so stay tuned for
more from us and very excited to share that report with you once it's released
all right well I will leave a link to you guys down in the description of the video when it comes
out and uh yeah thank you I really appreciate this so as we can see drones May pose a threat to
tanks and other armored vehicles but this is not a one-sided fight something as simple as well-placed
machine gun fire can easily knock a drone out of the sky this is further supported by the more
recent reports of Ukrainian drone operations being scaled back particularly in regards to the larger
systems as Russia realizes that maybe having air defense systems to protect against them is not a
bad idea as I said in my previous video discussing the many instances of the death of the tank there
will always be a counter to any weapon system the future is hard to predict and tanks will certainly
have to adapt to the rapidly changing Battlefield unlike what many keyboard Warriors may try to
claim though the era of the tank is undoubtedly far from over I want to give a huge thanks to Mr
Shari for taking the time to answer the questions of some random YouTuber who sent him an email if
you'd like to see the full interview I'll be posting that to the channel as well I highly
recommend it if you found this topic interesting let me know what you thought of this topic and
this style of content down in the description this was a really interesting exploration for
me and was my first attempt at an interview for a video of this style I really enjoyed it though
so if you want to see more like this feel free to suggest Topics in the comments I should have
another video sort of like this talking about the Vietnamese prison known as the Hanoi Hilton
coming soon so make sure you're subscribed so you won't miss it one last thanks to conflict
of Nations for sponsoring this video and a quick reminder to try the game using that link below as
always thank you to all of you for watching and to my YouTube members who similarly support me
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