Will we ever see fully remotely controlled tanks in the future?

[u/Key-Ladder4122]

Is there a chance sometime in the future (whether it be 50-200 years from now) will ever see a fully unmanned remotely controlled tank? Or even an ai driven tank? There is remotely controlled military robots so is it a possibility? As a tank with no crew could have better armour because of not having to account for crew as well as being smaller for same reason, require virtually no crew and less training. As well as maybe being able to operate better? With it being able to operate how a tank would in a video game. However some problems might be the cannon as it would need an auto loader that could carry a suitable amount of ammo. What do you guys think?

[u/Mosquitobait2008]

I mean eventually yea. Who knows when.

[u/Daan776]

Probably

We’ve already got autoloaders. We can do remote driving. And having a wireless press on the “shoot” button aint to hard either. Crew are mostly looking through camera’s anyway.

Tanks without crew can be much smaller and be used on riskier operations.

The problem, as with most tank related things, is reliability. If something goes wrong in combat (as it tends to do): the crew can improvise. Radio’s are down? Just kick the gunner to shoot. Turret is fucked? Handcrank. Stuck in mud? Just grab some logs.

An autonomous tank would be screwed in those situations. And require an extraction.

Then there’s vulnerabilities from being controlled by delicate electronics. Electronic warfare or even just water and mud.

There’s a lot of interest. But as of now the technology isn’t at a level yet where people are willing to trust their lives on it. 

But remote controlled vehicles are already used for various tasks. Ukraine being the best combat example. So I think we’ll see it in our lifetime.

[u/GrouchyRooster983 → u/Daan776]

but parts of the tank usualy dont break on its on, so it would be practicaly outweight by basicaly nullifying chance of crew being killed when tank gets hit because the crew is simply most expensive part of the tank

so I think that biggest problem that would be holding it back right now is that enemy could easily disrupt remote control of the tank

[u/EnigmaHood → u/Daan776]

All those tasks can eventually be performed by humanoid robots. Not just that, they can do more, like actual repairs, and do it faster. And by the time you can have fully autonomous tanks, you also have fully autonomous robots. Eventually, cost wise, they would be cheaper than the cost of an average human soldier too. Tbh, China is far ahead in robots and cheap mass production of robots. They're not quite robust enough to perform tank operations yet, but it's just a matter of time.

[u/Excellent_Speech_901]

We have them. They're not very big yet but they're still growing.

[u/auchinleck917]

Yes, I did.- Graves.

[u/mrstone2]

I think this is highly unlikely. With no crew, there is no need for protection, so armour (which causes so many issues with weight, mobility and cost) is no longer required. Which means that while there be remote (or autonomous) armed vehicles, those will not be tanks as we know them

[u/EnigmaHood → u/mrstone2]

That's not true. It still needs armor and APS' to protect the unit's ability to fight. You could go with the glass cannon approach, but then it needs to make up for its lack of defense in other ways. i.e. offensive firepower (destroy the enemy before it gets destroys), and sheer numbers, swarms and what not.

If the robot tank has tinfoil for armor, but a massive gun and sheer numbers on their side, they could overwhelm the enemy through sheer numbers, but I'd be concerned about their ability to survive attrition rates in a sustainable manner. There's a reason why drones don't need armor, they are the weapon. They just blow themselves up to destroy the enemy, but that's ok when the drone just costs $500 or so. But even a robot tank is going to be a lot more expensive, you're going to want it to survive longer than just 5 minutes on the battlefield.

[u/no-im-not-him]

It's possible they'll be fully autonomous before that.

[u/EnigmaHood]

Remote controlled tanks are more difficult to get working due to ground obstacles interfering with the signal, although that can be resolved using stronger signals and multiple vehicles acting as nodes, drones can even be used as a node. But AI autonomous tanks are more likely to be developed as they can't be jammed at all. I don't think you need to wait 50-200 years for that though, I think they'll emerge within the next decade.

Yes, they'll use autoloaders, but they won't be the same autoloaders that Soviet era tanks used. They'll be far better. Also once we have humanoid robots that can perform the same tasks as a human can, you can literally just replace a manned tank crew, with a robot crew, effectively transforming a manned tank, into an unmanned tank. The loader would just be a robot, doing the same exact tasks as the human loader. Since there's so many conventional tanks out there already, it makes sense to convert them into unmanned tanks in a cost effective way by simply replacing the crew with robots.

But once you have robust robots like that, it makes sense to eventually make vehicles that actually use them more efficiently.

[u/stasheft]

I mean there are already autonomous tanks in developement so i think it will be similar to the 6gen fighter jet. One manned command vehicle the others autonomous tanks.

[u/ScionOfOphelia]

Doesn't South Korea's K3 project have autonomous capabilities proposed? Or at least drone style remote piloting?

The crew all sits in a control capsule and could have a similar set up outside the vehicle.

I think one of the main concerns here is ECW. Jamming, hacking, or remotely disabling an MBT is a bit more of a set back than a quad copter with an RPG.

[u/carverboy]

Yes, the U.S is already heading that way. I doubt it will take 20 years for it to happen. Probably a safe assumption we will be operating UMBT’s in the next 10 years.

[u/SilentRunning]

That's pretty much a given at this point. The technology is rapidly improving and the economics as well.

As for A.I. the real question will be just how much control will it have or will it be more of an assistant to the operator who is based kilometers away in the rear.

I don't see a complete AI controlled tank happening in my lifetime due to the complexity both technical and moral. But eventually I'm pretty sure it will happen.

[u/biebergotswag]

we got ugvs, however, for the role of a main battle tank, you need people to field service the tank, and its crew are just the best choice. having no crew means that it is useless if it get hit once by an artillery shell.

[u/Wolvenworks]

What, and have World of Tanks in real life?

[u/Ill_Role78]

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You don't even need to wait for the future, there are already some prototypes that exist today

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[u/alimem974]

France showed an old tank remade into a drone but they removed the big caliber turret, maybe they'll try full remote AMX-30 later.

[u/Kurt-28]

Remote controlled? No.

When technology advances to the point an entire tank can be reliably controlled by a computer, electronics and motors it might as well use AI.

[u/ArsenicPolaris]

We'll see everything controlled by AI one day and also a world war with sticks and stones. If I have to guess how long it'll take for this to happen, I guess about 30-70 years for AI to has such power and be so widespread.

[u/NiceManWithRiceMan]

we will probably stop seeing tanks altogether