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Will drones make tanks obsolete?
(lemmygrad.ml)
Some say that tanks are obsolete in modern battlefield. One example is a recent total destruction of Leopard tanks in Ukraine by Russian Lancet drones. On the other hand, it may be just because Leopards were not prepared for such a kind of weapon, and tank designs will adapt for the use of drones. I hope tanks will survive of course :) What do you think?
It was less the tendency for liberals to be drawn towards ubermensch sentimentality and more the material conditions the Western tanks were created under. The Soviet T-64/72/80 series would end up with about ~43.5k produced. The production run for Western tanks are around ~16k total. Add in the vast amount of T-55s/62s and various BMPs and that would create some pressure on them to somehow cope with fighting the Soviet and Warsaw Pact where being outnumbered 3:1 is to be expected.
Combined with the fact that Western procurement has to factor in the profit motive for armaments production and having missed out on the weight-saving technological solutions of autoloaders and ERA at the time, Western tank development would inevitably be drawn to weight busting, costly tanks.
Even for an esthetics, Soviet solutions, where only necessary parts are present, looks much more elegant, at least for me.