tanks becoming hopelessly obsolete?

The invention of the British Mark IV tank in World War I along with its little brothers gave soldiers on the battlefield something they long desired, these tanks were bulletproof and able to crash through infantry on the trenches, it for a time revolutionized battlefield thinking.

For a time that is, but how relevant are tanks to winning these days wars, wars aren't as nearly conventional as they were back in the war years, the latter World War II posed a new threat to the tank.



New anti tank weapons were developed on the Eastern Front around 1943 and 1944, (such as Panzerfaust, the Bazooka, Panzerschreck and Piat). These proved that tanks wouldn't be able to run over infantry easily without a large amount of losses.

During the Cold War (around the 1970's, early 1980's) the Soviets depended on a vast amount of armour to crush Europe if it was going to be taken over conventionally, aircraft such as the MiG-23 Flogger were made so in theory they would cause a lot of damage in large number while supporting even a larger number of tanks.



The IrAF (Iraqi Air Force) in the 1980's used these against the Iranians and lost dozens of them at the hand of American made Iranian F-4's and F-14's, the MiG-23 concept was never proven in its lifetime, and for the tanks on the ground a new American plane was made that would be the biggest development and threat to tank warfare since the development of anti-tank weapons in the 1940's.



The A-10 Warthog is one of my favorite planes if not my favorite (and I very seldom say that), it may not look as sleek as its fellow fighter jets but it kicks a lot more ass on the ground then any of them, the A-10 was put forward in Bitsburg AFB in West Germany during the height of the Cold War in the 1980's.
Just to give some background information, the plane is built around a massive Avenger gattling gun which spews out more up to 70 amour piercing bullets a second!

It also has fire and forget AGM-65 missiles that will turn any tank into a great big fireball;
In West Germany (and in South Korea today) the pilots of the plane often worked in groups of two to attack enemy tanks that would be crossing the border in minutes, after each attack run when returning to base the A-10 only takes minutes to rearm and refuel before getting back out to engage more tanks on the battlefield.

So the Soviets weren't going to have a very good chance being covered by armour if they were going to invade Western Europe, but with this kind of weapon why are tanks still being reconfigured by the west in wars?

Well simply because tanks are good to have in a conventional war!

Although modern tanks such as the British Challenger 2 and the American M1 Abrams are still used today in wars, (most notably the two wars in Iraq), the Republican Guard took out a handful of these tanks in the Battle for Baghdad in 2003 but not many.



Finally on the invasion of Iraq once again, the Iraqi Army then still had several tanks, US soldiers during the invasion used the FGM-148 Javelin missile, the first anti tank weapons that allowed soldiers in combat to destroy a tank from any angle.



The missile even though it was fat and heavy once fired could stay locked on to destroy enemy tanks head on; after that the launcher can be reloaded in a mere 30 seconds to be used again!

With this kind of whoop ass technology available to infantry on today's battlefield its a wonder if tanks are really needed in war.