Many of those updates reflect the changing role of main battle tanks-a designation for the heavily armored, fast, powerful, do-it-all battlefield vehicles. Images of exploded and burned hulls serve notice that armored fighting vehicles are no longer the impenetrable fortresses they were when they dominated World Wars I and II.ĭespite Russia’s heavy tank losses in Ukraine, experts expect its newest and most sophisticated tank to roll out as soon as this year with new technologies and weapons systems that might rival those of Germany’s Panther.

Ukraine’s army has destroyed as many as 936 of Russia’s aging T-72 and T-80 tanks.

The battlefields of Ukraine clearly reveal the devastation of those technologies. This sophisticated battlefield vehicle might not see action for another decade, but some of those technologies are already appearing on tanks from Russia, China, Turkey, and the United States as armies rally to modernize tanks to defend against increasingly effective anti-tank weapons. But its most exciting features are unseen: high-tech active armor that explodes just prior to being struck, directing munitions away from the tank the potential to support AI-powered weapons its own drones that it can release to electronically jam enemy radars and remote-controlled lasers that will fire at enemies without the tank crew having to leave the armored hull. Painted in green, yellow, and gray digital camo, the tank has a sleek hull and an imposing turret. G ermany shocked life into the future of battle tanks when it released details of its new KF51 Panther this summer.

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