What? if anything, will ever make the tank obsolete?

New guy adding his two penn'orth

Sorry guys, just found you and joined today so I'm ploughing through every post and adding my own inimitable contribution to topics that interest me.

Tanks obsolete? The job of a tank is to get firepower to where it is needed, with a certain probability of it getting there. Only a tank (currently) can do this. Armoured cars can, but only under much, much lower threat conditions.

Aircraft killing tanks - nice if you can afford aircraft and pilots. Not many nations can - typically an aircraft costs about 17 times what a tank does, but can only be in one place at a time, and has its own vulnerabilities. (ZSU-23-4 is a radar emitter, therefore is a valid ARM target, HE and splinters will rip the radar scanner to bits even if the vehicle isn't penetrated - a tank isn't an emitter, and is invulnerable (relatively) to HE and splinters.

If tthe tank is dead why are most (all) tank forces now switching to active protection systems? To keep them ahead of the game. Try Googling for ARENA, FCLAS, AWiSS, TAMS and see what comes up. Russia, Germany, USA and Israel are all looking at, or have already demonstrated these systems, with, I think GB catching up.
Originally designed as an anti ATGM system (TAMS was proposed by the UK about 25 years ago but didn't get followed up, and now the German one (AWiSS - look for Defense Update (use that spelling - online US defence magazine, free subscription, full section on Active Protection Systems)) is supposedly capable of bending APFSDS in flight to reduce its perfgormance upon impact.
Oli