Investors writing off the tank may be misreading the war in Ukraine, according to Citi, which argues that NATO doctrine still leans heavily on mechanised armour.
The broker draws a sharp distinction between the fighting in Ukraine and the way the Western alliance plans to fight.
In Ukraine, it notes, the conflict has become largely static, with cheap drones displacing much of the work once done by artillery and tanks.
NATO doctrine points the other way.
Citi cites the Allied Joint Doctrine for Land Operations, which favours manoeuvre warfare: hitting the flanks and rear to shatter an enemy's cohesion rather than grinding it down piece by piece in head-on attritional battles.
That approach, the broker reasons, calls for two things.
The first is fast-moving ground forces, meaning mechanised armour rather than dug-in defensive lines.
The second is tight connection between those vehicles and other assets, from satellites and helicopters to the drones that Citi accepts will still have a role.
The upshot, in Citi's view, is that European armies will need to re-fleet their ground forces.
Such an overhaul would mean large-scale orders for new vehicles.
That, the broker suggests, could drive a rerating of shares in Rheinmetall, the German arms maker whose tanks and armoured vehicles sit at the heart of Europe's rearmament.
The argument runs against a widespread assumption that footage of drones destroying tanks in Ukraine has rendered heavy armour obsolete.
For Citi, the lesson depends entirely on whose war you are studying.
