Both in Ukraine and Armenia, tanks were not used adequately in combined arms warfare.
It's a well documented fact that the Armenians failed miserably in combined arms warfare due to poor training and bad use of terrain.
Nagorno Karabakh is terrible tank terrain anyway.
As for Russia in Ukraine, their tank doctrines were thrown out of the window. You would often see lone tanks charging enemy positions without infantry support or even air support for that matter. A tank can only be eliminated by an ATGM if the infantry have not done their job, or are not present. Javelins essentially become useless if infantry is advancing at an adequate distance in front of the tank column to clear the routes from mines and ambushes.
Anyone who thinks drones have made tanks outdated does not understand the first thing about combined arms warfare. And anyone who tries to apply Ukrainian and Armenian examples to the india-Pakistan theatre doesn’t know the first thing about India-Pakistan battle orders. It’s useless to argue with these people, believe me I’ve tried.
If we went along with their analysis, the tank has gone extinct multiple times now. Once after WW1, once after WW2, once when Modern CAS and Gunships were invented, once when modern ATGMs were invented and the list goes on and on, and yet the tank just keeps getting more potent and more useful.
Drones don’t make tanks obsolete or extinct, drones reinforce the need for combined arms warfare where tanks and SHORADs can cover each other.
Traditiional mechannical/tank brigades are outdated in lieu of the introduction of small slow flying drones and ATGM.
Lessons from Ukraines shows that detection and destruction of small drones need re-thinking. Specialised equipment to be accompany modern doctrinised tank battalions would be mixing in a couple of drone-detection and jamming vehicles and laser air defence vehicles, and also radar guided multi-barrels 20mm/25mm/30mm guns + manpads air defense vehicles. You might also want to have a few suicide drones launching vehicles as well to destroy enemy;s drones and ATGM positions.
And you need good scout vehicles and recon drones to acompany your tanks and detect and fire first before enemy's ATGM fire on you.
A column "purely" consist of only tanks, apcs and IFV are vulnerable and will not survive for long in 21st century warfare.
Time has changed, armoured column deployment doctrine should also be changed. Main battle tanks have lose the Alpha-Males status. It badly needs protection from other figthing vehicles.
Except there is no concept of tank columns in modern tank doctrine, that has been obsolete since the 70s. The standard mechanized or armored push has always contained scouts, SHORAD, air cover, infantry and artillery. Ukraine and Armenia are two very poor examples of modern tank doctrine, since said doctrine was not employed in either conflict.
Tanks are no obsolete and are still
the single most important battle implement on the ground after perhaps infantry itself. No drone will ever change that fact, it will only change the way tanks and SHORADs are used.
Tanks were never intended to be used alone or in columns, not even in WW1 when they were first used, they were
always meant to be infantry support vehicles, operating Them without air and infantry cover is akin to sacrificing them on an altar, that’s what’s going on in Ukraine, it’s not that drones have suddenly become so powerful.
