"The drone apocalypse the Russian and Ukrainian tank corps are experiencing might seem to argue for an end to the tank’s 100-year domination of land-war theory. But that argument misses a key point. That point: it’s a fairly straightforward adjustment for engineers to rebalance a tank’s design and add armor to the top at the expense of the front. That should offer reasonably good protection against small drones. Indeed, Swedish engineers did this years ago when they added thick armor to the tops of their Strv 122 tanks, local versions of the German-made Leopard 2, which itself is broadly similar to the M-1. The Swedes were worried about top-down missile attacks, but their solution to that problem fortuitously addressed a future problem, too. The drone problem. Sweden donated 10 Strv 122s to Ukraine, and it’s worth noting that these tanks have survived multiple attacks by Russian drones. To survive in this dangerous new era, tanks need to be more like the Strv 122 and less like the T-72, T-90, M-1 or Leopard 2. With some small tweaks, tanks – with their combination of protection, firepower and speed – can and should continue to play the central role in ground combat that they’ve played since World War I."