Friend has a10-11 year old son that loves tanks and all things related to tanks, he eventually wants to join Army to drive tanks.

Think there will still be an MOS for tanks ?

Yes....tanks, like paratroopers are never going disappear from the US Army.

Ok, i saw someone post about USMC and tank MOS maybe going away, so wasnt sure how things might play out in the future, esp with drone technology

I concur, tanks will never be removed from the modern battlefield. They may evolve as all things do but will always be a needed asset.

I had a whole career in Armor while the tank was supposed to be 'obsolete.'  

Tanks or variations thereof will be around for decades to come.

Combined arms warfare. We have big tanks for open country and little tanks for city. Tanks support the infantry, infantry supports the tanks.
Plus helicopters.

Without armor there would be no need to seize airfields and therefore no need for paratroopers.

Beware the military industrial complex.

I am sure tanks will not go away anytime soon .

My dad went through armor school then they sent him to an infantry unit. I know another local guy who said they did the same thing to him. I've heard that's common? I don't know, I wasn't in the army.

The Abrams isn't going to go away in the Army any time soon.

And we're about to start testing light tanks at Fort Bragg.

Of course.

I hope that this new light tank is way better than the M551 Sheridan was.

They will become less relevant over time like anything else but they will likely always be there.

This thread should have pics...  Hohenfels in 1989

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Yes, China isn't building 10s of thousands of them for no reason.

Armor will still be relevant to the Army, so-long-as we are more willing to spend money (lose equipment) than lives (our more-or-less primary national weakness: a casualty averse civilian population with the power to vote in 'peace' candidates) in combat....

The Marines are getting rid of theirs because their leadership is focusing on a mission of essentially island-insurgency aimed against China: deploying small teams with short-range antiship/anti-air systems over a wide area & hoping the enemy doesn't spend the resources to clear every last island (almost seems like a 'We can do this better' approach to the Japanese strategy from WWII)....

The Army isn't having such a 'strategic change in direction' - still focused on large-scale ground combat - and that means armor sticks around... We are actively investing in improving those armored forces, buying active protection systems from Israel to fit to the M1s, giving the M8 light-tank (That was supposed to replace the M551 until... Strykers...) another shot at being purchased, and so on....

Some folks will claim the Armenia/Azerbaijan conflict 'proves' tanks can't exist in a world with drones - but what happened there is that one side had sufficient air superiority to operate drones unchallenged (the Turkish armed-drones involved, as well as the US MQ1/MQ9, are *extremely* vulnerable to high-end air-defenses and hostile aircraft). Nothing stands 'alone' in 3rd generation combat - if you lose control of the air, your armor is screwed...

All-in-all, tanks are going to be here for a while...

If you want to talk about 'obsolete' - airborne forces that aren't SOCOM, and *especially* towed artillery (which ceases to have a reason-for-existence if we don't consider airborne viable) are both obsolete.

People have been ringing the bell for tanks for decades. In a proper army that employs them correctly, the tank is still king.

For an interesting example, look at Syria. Plenty of YouTube videos of T-72s cooking off, but the fact is even in an environment they are not designed for they were the only thing that could lead an offense against FSA strongpoints. The infantry couldn't do it, the BMPs couldn't do it. The tanks could. They braved the RPG fire and got the job done. The Germans and then the Red Army learnt the same thing. Despite portable AT weapons being abundant, an armored box lobbing HE is invaluable in MOUT.

And what's the best thing to kill a properly supported tank? Another tank.

This.... All of it.

Tanks Specifically = At some time they may become obsolete.  Probably not in the next 7-8 years unless there is a sudden leap in tank killing technology that significantly makes it cheaper, easier, more available, harder to defend against, etc. . .

Mechanized Armor in General = No, there will always be "the poors" and those pesky citizens who are only armed with low tier basic firearms and minimal if any capabilities to "open the tin can" and the government will always need some kind of mechanized armor to crush such "peasants".

For government heavy power in a pere to pere competition armor may at some point become outdated if offensive capabilities far enough exceede armor capabilities to such that armor just slows you down and faster, lighter becomes a more survivable combo.  And I don't mean just tanks, or just mechanized armor, I'm talking everything from warships to personal body armor.  Infact, with warships we are pretty much already there, there is no longer a place in the modern fleet for the heavily armored "battleship".  The same could happen to the tank on land eventually.

At first I was mad, then realized you have a point. RIP 3/38 LRS.