U.S. Army Abrams Tank and New Robot Tank May Fight Together

Video Above: U.S. Army AI Uses Human Brain as a Combat “Sensor”

By Kris Osborn – President & Editor-In-Chief, Warrior Maven

(Washington, D.C.) One way to solve the debate about whether to build a future tank for 2030 or simply continue to upgrade the Abrams main battle tank, may simply be to do both. 

That may be the Army approach, as the service appears to both be massively upgrading its classic 70-ton main battle tank while also moving quickly to make a decision in 2023 on concepts for a new platform called the “Optionally Manned Tank.”

Optionally Manned Tank

The Optionally Manned Tank is now purely in a conceptual stage, as the Army Science Board and Ground Vehicle Systems Center are currently exploring the “realm of the possible” regarding what kinds of technologies, platforms and weapons might best contribute to a new generation of tank-like vehicles.

“We are gathering information in the form of studies and technology maturation,” Maj. Gen. Ross Coffman, Director, Next Generation Combat Vehicle Cross Functional Team, Army Futures Command, said in an interview with The National Interest.

Interestingly, while the actual tactical function and impact of the new platform is intended to generate an extremely lethal, survivable “tank-like” impact on the battlefield, the platform itself may not even look like a tank, Coffman said.