The #war has turbocharged this criticism. #Russia is advancing slowly in eastern #Ukraine thanks to its advantage in #artillery. But it is a grinding campaign rather than one of bold armoured manoeuvre. Russia has lost at least 774 tanks since invading Ukraine, according to a count by Oryx, a blog which tracks the war. Around half of those were destroyed, a third were captured by Ukraine and most of the rest were abandoned. This implies that Russia has lost around a quarter of its estimated pre-war inventory of almost 3,000 tanks. Some elite units, such as the 4th Guards Tank Division, appear to have lost an even higher proportion. Vladimir #Putin envisaged his tanks rolling into #Kyiv; instead they ended up bogged down on the city’s outskirts, before being forced to retreat.
The battles of the last three months have underlined two potent threats to armoured vehicles. One is the anti-tank guided missile (ATGM). Its destructive potential has been clear since the Yom Kippur war of 1973, when #Egypt’s Soviet-made Sagger ATGMs smashed Israeli tanks. A memo written by the American #army after the war assessed that the Sagger, if not disrupted, had a 60% chance of achieving a “kill” against an M60 tank from as far as two miles out.

https://www.economist.com/interactive/international/2022/06/15/does-the-tank-have-a-future? #israel #weapons #drone #military