Why the U.S. Army Needs the AbramsX Tank

Key Points: Despite cheap drones devastating tanks in recent conflicts, the U.S. Army is developing the next-generation AbramsX.

-This move isn’t a return to old ways but a necessary evolution for modern warfare.

Soldiers with 1st Battalion, 68th Armor regiment, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division execute platoon live fire exercises Dec. 7, 2021, Fort Carson, Colorado. Platoon live fire exercises prove a platoon’s ability to engage targets and maneuver together on their M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks. (U.S. Army photo by Capt. Tobias Cukale)

-The lighter, hybrid-electric AbramsX is designed as a networked “combat node,” integrating AI, advanced sensors, and an Active Protection System to survive on a drone-saturated battlefield. While drones have changed warfare, the author argues they cannot hold ground.

Smart, survivable armor like the AbramsX remains the essential backbone of a military capable of winning a major ground war.

Is the AbramsX Tank A Waste of Billions? 

The tank is dead again. So we are told, every time a new technology promises to render it obsolete. The drone swarm, the loitering munition, the cheap quadcopter with a grenade taped to its belly: This is the latest funeral procession for the armored behemoth.

And yet the U.S. Army is preparing for what might be its most ambitious armor program in decades: the AbramsX. The timing seems off, even perverse. After Ukraine turned into a graveyard of Russian tanks, and the skies above Gaza and Sudan showed how cheap drones can punch far above their weight, why is America doubling down on a next-generation tank? The answer is simple but uncomfortable: because real war my be coming, and in real war, firepower still matters.

Survivability still matters. And combined arms warfare – grounded, ugly, bloody, mechanized warfare—is not going away. If anything, it’s about to get worse. The AbramsX may be imperfect, but building it is not just prudent; it is essential.

The modern battlefield has changed. The myth that high-end armor is invulnerable was shattered in Ukraine, where $20 drones and first-person-view (FPV) quadcopters with makeshift explosives have destroyed tanks with grim efficiency. Russian T-72s and T-90s have been shredded by loitering munitions such as the Switchblade or Lancet. Even Israeli Merkavas – arguably the most combat-tested tanks on Earth – have been hit in recent skirmishes by quadcopters targeting hatches, optics, and rear engine decks. These operational realities raise the same question everywhere: Is the tank finished?

U.S. Soldiers assigned to the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division supporting the 4th Infantry Division maneuver an M1A2 Abrams tank and M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle past a simulated opposing force’s Leopard 2A6 tank during exercise Arrow 23 in Niinisalo, Finland, May 5, 2023. Exercise Arrow is an annual, multinational exercise involving armed forces from the U.S., U.K., Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, who train with the Finnish Defense Forces in high-intensity, force-on-force engagements and live-fire exercises to increase military readiness and promote interoperability among partner nations. (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Sgt. John Schoebel)

But the death of the tank has been announced before. In 1973, the Yom Kippur War saw Egyptian infantry with Soviet-made Sagger missiles wipe out Israeli armor in staggering numbers. In 1991, GPS-guided munitions and airpower were supposed to replace tanks altogether. In 2006, Hezbollah’s guerrilla war in southern Lebanon made armor look like a liability in asymmetrical warfare. Each time, the tank was pronounced obsolete. Each time, it evolved. And each time, armies that abandoned armor paid the price when the next war came.

The AbramsX is technically not just a new tank. It is a prototype for a new kind of platform altogether – one that tries to reconcile the raw firepower of traditional armor with the demands of a sensor-saturated, drone-heavy, AI-enabled battlespace.

The AbramsX retains the 120-mm smoothbore cannon of the M1A2 but incorporates an autoloader, reducing crew size from four to three. It ditches the aging gas turbine in favor of hybrid-electric propulsion, improving fuel efficiency, reducing thermal and acoustic signatures, and providing bursts of silent mobility. Externally, the tank is more angular, modular, and lighter by more than 10 tons. But it is the digital architecture that makes the AbramsX a true next-generation vehicle.

The AbramsX is not a closed system – it is designed as a combat node. It integrates next-generation C4ISR connectivity, enabling real-time data sharing with unmanned systems, airborne platforms, and other combat vehicles. It comes equipped with a suite of AI-enabled battlefield management tools, automatic threat detection, and semi-autonomous target engagement capabilities. A tethered drone mounted on the turret can scout over the horizon. Its sensors fuse feeds from across domains into a single situational awareness picture. Think of it less as a tank and more as an armored data processor with a main gun.

Critically, AbramsX is being built with a layered Active Protection System capable of intercepting kinetic threats and drone attacks. The Army isn’t betting that the drone problem will disappear. It’s trying to make armor survivable in the age of cheap, ubiquitous aerial lethality.

But will it survive the drone swarm? While the AbramsX may be smarter and leaner than its predecessors, it is still a 60-plus-ton vehicle operating in a world where a $200 quadcopter can hover above it, identify a soft spot, and drop a munition through the open hatch. No amount of armor or AI can fully eliminate that threat. The problem isn’t just kinetic; it’s psychological and strategic. Infantry is already reluctant to ride in tanks that can be silently stalked by drones they cannot hear. Platoon leaders must now choose between risking armor or being spotted by a flying GoPro feeding data back to an artillery unit three clicks away. Drones have created a new kind of air-ground inversion: control of the air, once an enabler of ground maneuver, is now a prerequisite for survival.

Yet drones are not invincible. FPV drones need line of sight. Loitering munitions have limited endurance and are vulnerable to jamming, spoofing, or small arms fire. Swarms can be disrupted with directed-energy weapons, AI-based counter-unmanned aircraft systems, or even old-school tactics including camouflage, deception, and movement discipline. This is not the end of armor, but it is the end of unsupported armor. Tanks integrated into a layered, adaptive, networked force can still dominate the battlespace.

Drones Can’t Hold Ground, AbramsX Can 

The AbramsX is not a perfect solution, and it is not cheap. And in a budget-constrained environment, every dollar spent on next-generation armor is one not spent on cyber, space, or hypersonic capabilities. But war is not a menu from which you order à la carte. A military needs redundancy, depth, and mass that give it the ability to take ground, hold it, and survive under fire. And that still means armor. Just smarter armor. Lighter, networked, drone-aware, AI-enabled armor.

Critics will say the future belongs to unmanned ground vehicles, or that armor should be replaced by long-range fires and airpower. But this view confuses attritional precision with positional control. No drone swarm is going to roll through a ruined city and clear it room by room. No artillery strike is going to impose political authority on contested terrain. Victory still requires people in physical contact with the ground, protected by steel, and capable of delivering shock. The tank remains the best platform for that brutal job.

Tanks Have A Future 

There is also a deterrent logic to AbramsX. China is not slashing its armored forces. Russia, despite catastrophic losses, is still building new tanks, faster and more cheaply than the West. Turkey, India, and South Korea are all modernizing armor.

There is good reason for this: In any future peer conflict, especially in places such as the Korean Peninsula or Eastern Europe, the side that can survive the first wave of drone-enabled chaos and still fight, maneuver, and break through will win.

If the United States walks away from armor now, it sends a signal not just of technological arrogance, but of strategic unseriousness.

AbramsX Is Needed 

AbramsX is not about nostalgia. It’s about staying in the fight when things get ugly, close, and real. Drones may be the new limbs of the 21st-century military body, but the tank, reimagined, hardened, and networked, is still its backbone.

Which leaves us with the only conclusion we can draw: The tank is dead – long live the tank.

About the Author: Dr. Andrew Latham

Andrew Latham is a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities and a professor of international relations and political theory at Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN. You can follow him on X: @aakatham. He writes a daily column for National Security Journal.

More Military

Su-57 vs. J-20 Fighter: Who Wins?

J-20 vs. NGAD Fighter: Who Wins?

China Might Have a New Stealth Fighter