🪖📝 Nicholas Drummond on X: We live in the era of the $20 million dollar MBT. This is unsustainable when tanks can be eliminated by $300 drones. The two causes of such rampant price inflation are:

1️⃣ Over-specified requirements that create machines of enormous complexity.
2️⃣Small order quantities that prevent economies of scale from being achieved.

Unavoidably, we still need tanks if we want to recapture lost ground, so we must reimagine the brute force and shock effect that only heavy armour can bring. To regain freedom of movement on the battlefield, we will need to invest in counter-UAS defences on a grand scale. This is being done.

Combined arms teams will be comprised of various elements:

✅Armoured units in MBTs to provide direct firepower for eliminating other armoured vehicles and destroying enemy positions
✅Infantry units in IFVs to assault enemy positions
✅Cavalry units in CFVs to provide drone and ISTAR support
✅Artillery units to provide indirect fie support via tube, rocket, and missile systems
✅Engineer units to provide obstacle removal and mine clearance
✅Combat aircraft to provide close air support

(Plus signals, logistics, medical, REME, intelligence, and other miscellaneous units)

To reduce the cost of the orchestra of war, we will need to develop simpler vehicles and produce thousands of them via collaborative international programmes.

🔗 Nicholas Drummond