Last month, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency introduced what a next-generation tank might look like. Known as the Ground X-Vehicle Technology (GXV-T) program, this experimental vehicle is less like the traditional heavily armored brutes typically on the battlefield. These are built for speed.


In a new video, DARPA shows off exactly how this new tech might work in the field. As the military research agency outlined in its initial proposal, these new "tanks," though they're more akin to an enclosed Warthog from Halo, aim to reduce the size and crew by half while also making it twice as fast and able to cover almost all terrain.


As far as new features are concerned, the two major ones are "Survivability through Agility," allowing quick bursts of speed to avoid incoming threats, and "Crew Augmentation," which DARPA describes as electronic awareness and semi-autonomous driving assistance. The video highlights the agility attributes of the GXV-T via three different scenarios: rapid acceleration, dodging, and reactive armor plating, which looks as a sci-fi as it sounds.

All three ideas seem impressive and equally difficult to achieve, not to mention the horrendous whiplash, but DARPA will be working on this concept vehicle for at least the next two years, meaning it'll be a while before we see anything concrete. For now, these digital renders will have satiate our imagination. [Defense Tech]