Countries With The Most Tanks in 2023

The war in Ukraine is poised to enter a new phase of escalation as Moscow is believed to be planning a major offensive that could begin as early as Feb. 24, on the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of its largest European neighbor.

Meanwhile, the West is expected to begin sending some of its most advanced battle tanks that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says would be vital to helping his forces fight back against its much larger adversary.

The plan is for Germany and other countries to send Leopard tanks, while the U.S. and the U.K. have committed to sending their most advanced battle tanks: the British Challenger 2 and the American M1A2 Abrams.

On its part, Russia has sent a few dozen of its newer T-90 tanks to Ukraine, but most of the tanks Moscow has deployed are the smaller and less capable T-72s, which are also used by Ukraine, according to retired Col. Robert E. Hamilton, an associate professor at the U.S. Army War College who wrote for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. (Here is how Ukraine’s newly bolstered tank army compares to Russia’s.)

Since the advent of mechanized warfare in World War I, tanks have become an integral part of modern warfare. In 2020, British military consultant Nicholas Drummond estimated the world has about 73,000 tanks, including 20,000 in storage and 10,000 that have been modernized since 2010.

To determine the countries with the most tanks, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed defense statistics website GlobalFirepower’s Combat Tank Fleet Strength by Country (2023) dataset with information about 145 countries’ militaries. We ranked countries by the number of tanks in service and listed only countries with at least 1,000 tanks. 

The largest number of tanks are currently held by Russia, with a fleet of nearly 12,600, compared to Ukraine’s meager 1,890 tanks. The other leading tank arsenals are held by North Korea, with 6,645 tanks, the United States at 5,500 tanks, and China with 4,950 tanks. (While it may not have the most tanks, the U.S. has the largest air force in the world.)

Advanced battle tanks have better capabilities, but a large number of older tanks like the T-72 can still inflict immense damage through attrition, as we are witnessing in Ukraine.

Here are the countries with the most tanks.

Click here to see our detailed methodology.

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