THE COLD WAR HAS BEEN OVER FOR 30 YEARS, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the world’s tanks today. The armored fighting vehicles of the 1970s and 1980s are still around: America’s M1 Abrams, Russia’s T-72 and T-80, Germany’s Leopard 2, Britain’s Challenger, and Israel’s Merkava. These machines may have been upgraded over the years, but today’s tanks would still look and feel familiar to a Cold War-era tanker.
But time catches up with all things—even 70-ton steel beasts built to withstand the blast of shells and rockets. By 2050, a new generation of tanks will replace the vehicles from the days of Ronald Reagan’s administration.
The new tanks won’t be totally unfamiliar. They will probably look like today’s vehicles, with rotating turrets and caterpillar tracks. There may also be a family resemblance: instead of incurring the huge expense of developing and manufacturing a brand-new design, nations such as the U.S. and Germany are building from existing models.
Nonetheless, tanks in the mid-21st century will have plenty of new features. They will be smaller and lighter, and thus more mobile and easier to transport by air or sea. They will have hybrid or electric engines, launch their own drones, and have defensive systems to stop enemy drones. They will also be highly digital and automated, including extensive reliance on artificial intelligence.
“This means incorporating advances in energy systems, armor, camouflage and other protection technologies, onboard sensors, digital battle management systems, and improved firepower,” says James Black, assistant director for defense at the RAND Europe think tank. “It also means AI and autonomy, both in terms of automating more of the tasks of a tank crew, and in terms of pairing crewed vehicles with uncrewed ground or air systems to fight as a system of systems.”
For a glimpse of the future of tanks, just look at today’s automobiles. Civilian cars and trucks are increasingly digital, with software an integral part of the vehicle, from entertainment to collision-avoidance systems.
“The next generation of tanks will have to mimic some of the design philosophies of Tesla,” says Mick Ryan, a retired Maj. Gen. with the Australian Defense Force. “The main battle tanks will need to be a computer program around which we wrap a vehicle. They must have open architecture and rapidly upgradeable digital systems.”
With its manually loaded, 120mm M256 smoothbore cannon, the M1A2 can fire a variety of different rounds against armored vehicles, personnel, and even low-flying aircraft. A heavy exterior armor provides outstanding protection to its crew of four.
WHEN WORLD WAR II BEGAN IN 1940, tanks weighed as little as five tons. Today, the M1A2 version of the Abrams tops the scale at around 70 tons. This enables the Abrams to pack an impressive amount of firepower and armor, but heavy vehicles chew up paved roads, get stuck in mud, and are hard to transport to the battlefield.
“The Abrams tank can no longer grow its capabilities without adding weight, and we need to reduce its logistical footprint,” Maj. Gen. Glenn Dean, the U.S. Army’s Program Executive Officer for Ground Combat Systems, said in 2023.
The transportability aspect is particularly crucial for expeditionary nations such as the U.S. and Britain, who fight their wars on foreign shores, meaning their armored vehicles must be hauled by scarce cargo planes and ships.
“Next-generation main battle tanks will need to be more strategically deployable while also being tactically survivable,” explains Ryan, who commanded an Australian mechanized brigade. “This means they will have to be lighter and able to be rapidly moved by air, sea, and land.”
The U.S. Army’s current plan for a next-generation tank is to develop a lighter version of the Abrams. This trend can already be seen in more recent tanks such as South Korea’s K2 Black Panther and Japan’s Type 10, which weigh around 50–55 tons. Advances in engine technology may help to further slim down future designs.
While the AbramsX is a conceptual tank from defense contractor General Dynamics, it would theoretically use 50 percent less fuel than the current gas-powered M1 Abrams.
THE ACHILLES’ HEEL OF TANKS has always been fuel consumption. Many armored offensives, from the German blitzkrieg in Russia to the Allied breakout from Normandy, achieved brilliant success initially, only to grind to a halt as the tanks ran out of gas.
As tanks have grown heavier over the last century, so has their thirst for fuel. The epitome of the armored gas guzzlers is the M1 Abrams, a highly capable vehicle that eschewed the traditional diesel engine in favor of a powerful gas-turbine powerplant that offers high acceleration and horsepower. But the fuel consumption of the Abrams is a staggering 3 gallons per mile. That’s taxing enough for the U.S. Army, with its ample supply system, but for less logistically well-endowed users, like Ukraine, keeping tanks refueled is a crucial concern. Fuel trucks are vulnerable, and mud and rough terrain hamper wheeled supply columns.
This has spurred armies to find ways to reduce the logistical burden of armor. One solution is a hybrid-electric engine—the same concept as those found on consumer vehicles like the Toyota Prius—that combine a diesel powerplant with an electric motor and batteries. In addition to improved fuel consumption over purely gas or diesel engines, a hybrid motor would mean better mechanical reliability, a quieter engine less likely to alert the enemy, and a lighter vehicle overall.
The fuel consumption of the Abrams is a staggering 3 gallons per mile.
The next-generation Abrams will likely be equipped with a hybrid engine. Defense manufacturer General Dynamics has already shown how with its AbramX technology demonstration vehicle, which is powered by a diesel-electric powerplant that uses 50 percent less fuel than the current gas-powered M1, according to the company.
And future tanks will need all the electricity they can get.
“The power requirements for new-generation main battle tanks will be much larger and therefore we need better vehicle power and power management systems,” Ryan says. “Beside the need to power all the traditional things like turret, gunnery, and sensor systems, vehicles will need the power for defensive systems as well as the ability to be a recharge station for uncrewed ground vehicles.”
As for purely electric tanks, that probably isn’t feasible yet. Running out of juice in the middle of a battle is a problem—as is finding a recharging station on the battlefield.
A graphic illustrating the French vision of the Main Ground Combat System, notably comprising a tank armed with a 140mm main gun.
TANK CANNONs HAVE BECOME LARGER and more powerful throughout the years. During World War II, tanks typically sported calibers of around 75mm, followed by 90mm and 105mm rifled guns during most of the Cold War. By the 1980s, Western and Soviet tanks were mostly armed with smoothbore cannons of around 120mm, which remains the standard today.
But the next generation of tanks may be armed with bigger guns.
The Main Ground Combat System, a joint French-German initiative to develop a main battle tank by 2040, may be armed with a 140mm cannon. In the 1980s, the U.S. Army also experimented with a 140mm Abrams gun.
New tanks will probably be equipped with autoloaders, which replace the human loader with a mechanical system to feed the cannon. This enables tanks, such as Russia’s T-72, to reduce crew size from four to three, thus enabling a smaller and lighter vehicle. Critics say that autoloaders aren’t as reliable as a human, which is one reason that some tanks—such as the Abrams, Challenger, and Merkava—have a fourth crewman to load the gun.
But the push for slimmer tanks means autoloaders will probably become standard.
TANKS HAVE USUALLY COMPRISED a revolving turret mounted on a tracked chassis, with four to five crew, since the 1920s. Depending on the design, the majority of the crew— commander, gunner, and loader (if no autoloader is fitted)—would be in the turret, with the driver in the more heavily armored hull. The turret made a smaller target than the hull, but if hit and penetrated by a shell or missile, the results could be catastrophic.
The next generation of tanks will have a very different layout: the turret will be automated, while the crew will be safely nestled in the hull. That’s the approach Russia has taken with its T-14 Armata, whose appearance at a 2015 military parade in Moscow startled Western analysts. The Armata’s three-person crew operates the tank from an armored capsule inside the hull, and operates the turret by remote control.
This approach is somewhat reminiscent of the “assault guns” of World War II. These were essentially tanks without a turret, with the cannon mounted in the front and the crew inside the hull. Though they were cheaper than tanks, the lack of a rotating turret and a fixed-traverse gun meant the entire vehicle had to pivot to engage targets.
But technology, such as computerized displays and AI, will enable next-generation tanks to have the best of both worlds: a traversable turret and a well-protected crew.
“Survivability for crewed main battle tanks and other armored vehicles will be important,” Ryan explains. “This may drive more uncrewed turrets on crewed vehicles.”
The TROPHY Active Protection System integrations include: the U.S. Army’s Abrams main battle tanks, Israel’s Merkava main battle tanks and Namer armored personnel carriers, the UK’s Challenger main battle tanks, and Germany’s Leopard 2 main battle tanks.
DESPITE THE AWE CREATED BY BIG, FIRE-SPEWING METAL BEASTS, tanks have never been invulnerable. They have fallen victim to anti-tank missiles, handheld rocket launchers, mines, artillery shells, and bombs. This has led to multiple pronouncements that the tank is dead—most recently in Ukraine, where cheap drones have picked off armored vehicles.
This eulogy is premature. A variety of defensive countermeasures will protect next-generation tanks. Active protection systems, such as Israel’s Trophy, use radar to detect incoming anti-tank rockets, and then employ jammers and smoke grenades to deflect these munitions, or even fire small projectiles to shoot them down.
The problem with fitting active protection systems to existing vehicles is that they add additional weight. But from the outset, new tanks will be designed to incorporate defensive countermeasures against rockets. As for defense against drones, which have proven lethal to armored vehicles in Ukraine, future tanks will be equipped with jammers to disrupt unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) guidance systems.
Next-generation tanks will also become harder to detect.
“The key signatures to be reduced include noise, exhaust, electromagnetic emissions, heat, and visual,” Ryan says. “This will necessitate new camouflage systems that are part of the vehicle as well as add-on systems like thermal nets.”
WHATEVER THE NEXT GENERATION OF TANKS WILL LOOK LIKE, they will be expressly designed to operate with drones—or even launch their own. Manned tanks will be supported by a variety of scout and attack robots, both in the air and on the ground.
“Main battle tanks with crew will act as command and networking hubs for increasing numbers of uncrewed ground combat and support vehicles,” Ryan explains.
Manned-unmanned teaming for aircraft and helicopters has already generated a lot of buzz.
The U.S. Air Force intends to build a fleet of combat drones—which resemble small jet fighters —to support the F-35 manned fighter. Australia is pairing jets and drones in its Loyal Wingman project, while the U.S. Army has tested coupling AH-64 Apache attack helicopters with tactical UAVs.
The same process is underway for armored vehicles. Defense contractor General Dynamics, for example, has developed a variant of the Stryker, called the StrykerX, that is armed with four Switchblade kamikaze drones. And there are plenty of robots that can serve as bodyguards and consorts for tanks. For example, THeMIS (Tracked Hybrid Modular Infantry System), from Estonian firm Milrem Robotics, is a two-ton tracked, remote-controlled robot that can be armed with anti-tank missiles, a 30mm cannon, or machine guns.
ALMOST 200,000 TANKS WERE BUILT DURING WWII, including 61,000 American vehicles. Today’s models are simply too complicated and expensive to manufacture at that scale. But the heavy tank losses seen in the Russo-Ukrainian War, including 8,000 Russian tanks destroyed in just two years, is a stark reminder that nations can’t afford the luxury of buying just a few tanks—no matter how sophisticated.
“The war in Ukraine has shown that conflicts against a peer adversary are likely to be both bloody and protracted, placing a premium on rebuilding the defense industrial capacity to produce, maintain, and replace tanks at scale,” Black says.
Next-generation tanks won’t be mass-produced as in World War II. But they will be designed to be upgradable, with open architecture to allow easy improvements to software, sensors, and other components.
The fact that Cold War-era vehicles are still around shows the tank is far from dead—and the next generation of tanks may have an even longer life.
Michael Peck
Michael Peck writes about defense and international security issues, as well as military history and wargaming. His work has appeared in Defense News, Foreign Policy Magazine, Politico, National Defense Magazine, The National Interest, Aerospace America and other publications. He holds an MA in Political Science from Rutgers University.
