The original trade was symmetrical
A 1980s Soviet T-72 killed a 1980s American M1 with a $1,000 sabot round fired from a $1M tank. Both sides paid roughly the same to play. Anti-tank guided missiles like TOW or Kornet ran $50K–$100K per shot — expensive, but still inside the same order of magnitude as the target.
What changed in 2022–2024
Ukraine industrialized the FPV (first-person view) drone: a hobby-grade quadcopter flown by a pilot with VR goggles, carrying an RPG warhead or a single grenade. Bill of materials: $300–$700. Crews build them in workshops, not factories. The drone flies in from above and behind, where every tank in the world is thinnest — the engine deck, the turret roof, the ammo bustle.
Why top-attack breaks the tank
Tank armor is laid out for the threat the designers expected: a sabot round or HEAT missile coming in nearly horizontal, at the front. The frontal arc on a Leopard 2A7 or Abrams SEPv3 will stop almost anything in that envelope. Roof armor is a fraction of that — usually 30–50mm, enough to stop shrapnel, not a shaped-charge warhead. Javelin understood this in 1996; FPV drones democratized it.
The new economics
At a $500 cost-per-kill against a $10M tank, the exchange ratio is 20,000 to 1. Even if 9 out of 10 drones miss, the survivor still pays for itself 2,000 times over. That ratio is what every defense ministry on Earth is currently trying to fix — with cope cages, anti-drone EW, hard-kill APS systems like Trophy, and eventually drone-on-drone defense.
Does the tank still make sense?
Yes, but not alone. The tank's job — moving protected firepower across ground that infantry can't — hasn't disappeared. What's gone is the era of tanks operating without dedicated counter-drone overwatch. The MBT of 2030 will be cheaper to lose, smarter about hiding, and surrounded by its own air defense. The economics forced it.