Unmanned vehicles as protected fire support

Could an unmanned land vehicle provide a useful alternative to a tank?

Potentially: an unmanned, well-protected vehicle paired with a manned APC could supply firepower without needing crew space inside the vehicle.

One concept pairs a manned eight-wheeled APC with one or more unmanned wheeled companions. Removing the crew frees internal volume, but it does not remove the need for enough armour and redundancy to survive on a battlefield. The unmanned vehicles could carry automatic, high-velocity weapons and provide protected fire support without exposing another crew. This is less a direct tank copy than a distributed team in which the manned carrier supplies control and the robotic vehicles supply additional weapons.