Main battle tanks · GFP 2026 · Global Firepower
The main battle tank inventory. The count includes stored equipment, often old, which weighs heavily in the totals.
Global Firepower 2026, 145 countries. Declared inventory, with no distinction of generation or condition: a T-55 pulled from a depot and a Leopard 2A7 count the same.
Ukraine has confirmed two contradictory things: the tank remains indispensable for holding ground, and it has become highly vulnerable to drones and loitering munitions. Numbers matter less than the tank-infantry-artillery-drone combination.
Russia has offset its losses by reactivating Soviet stocks — an abundant but finite resource. European armies have cut their inventories by more than 80% since 1990: Germany fielded some 5,000 tanks in 1989, a few hundred today.