Also there are newer active protection systems that can defeat missiles like the ones being used, the Russian tanks in the invasion either don't have them or don't have the ones that can detect threats from above.
Can you reference the relevant active protection systems?
The Russian active protection system is called Arena [1]
Certainly things are going to change in the future. Active protection systems (APSs) are going to be basically required, and I wouldn't be surprised if APSs became the main armor. After WWII the effectiveness of HEAT made designers believe armor was ineffective, so many post-war designs sacrificed armor for speed, such as the Leopard 1, so something similar could happen again.
But an important part of the equation is tactics. A very similar question to "why do we still need MBTs" is "why do we still need infantry" and the answer is the same: they synergise[1]. Infantry need tanks to blow up hard points, and tanks need infantry to keep an eye on the surroundings, suppress and occupy potential firing points, take buildings to prevent them from being used to fire ATGMs and to use to look out for enemy ATGMs, etc. Infantry itself doesn't do anything to reduce the threat of missiles, but infantry-tank coordination tactics do.
[0] For example, the Stryker MGS is a wheeled vehicle carrying a gun. It's widely regarded to suck badly, but in principle there's no reason you couldn't have a good wheeled gun carrier.
[1] Also you need infantry to go places tanks can't go and root out defenders, plus actually do the work of holding enemy territory like talking to local leaders, clearing the radio station of hostile DJs, etc
Don't know, but that is a different question.
BTW some/many of the MBT in this war are already equipped with active protection systems e.g Shtora ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtora-1 ).
See the T-80 and T-90 sections here: https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-docum...
APS is more along the lines of Trophy (Israeli and eventually US), or Drozd/Arena (RU) where radar senses projectiles, and fires counter projectiles at the incoming round/missile.
Drozd was never really implemented; partially due to cost, but also because it tended to kill any infantry accompanying the tanks. Arena appears to be much of the same tech, focused on RPG type weapons as well as ATGMs. I think the reason we don't see much of it on the Russian tanks is again, cost. The export version was pitched to South Korea at $300k per unit. And compared to the cost of a T-72B3, that's a significant amount to add. Or it could be the typical Russian military corruption we've been seeing in Ukraine.
Of course regardless of efficiency, an APS system has to be installed in the first place and it is possible that that is not the common case in Ukraine.
For taking out hard targets: precision artillery firing guided munitions from further behind the front lines, with minimal armor but protected by APS, and highly mobile to shoot and scoot?
Powered armour?
Both the US and Germany bought Trophy, the Dutch bought Iron Fist (another Israeli APS), a few other NATO members are evaluating Trophy and also working on their own APS.
So MBTs are going no where, APS would become more common and more important and the doctrine of now not having your tanks alone without infantry and ISR proving support would be even more solidified.
Trophy has a +- 38 degrees of elevation firing, Iron Fist can do -40-+60.
At least against something like an NLAW that flys above the tank both would have a firing solution.
The US when evaluating the system for both the Bradley and the Abrams tested it against the Javelin and other modern anti tank threats.
As far as non-western weapon go Trophy has intercepted fairly modern ATGMs like the Russian Kornet-E and it’s licensed Iranian clones which also employ a top-attack attack profile.
We're able to detect an incoming round and automatically kill it with a directed explosion, all faster than you can blink. What, are we going to see munitions that has submunitions of its own to counter the countermeasure next? (That might be a reasonable development actually)
Either way I'm fortunate that these things aren't used around me, and I'm not in any danger. I would love to one day see those C-beams glitter, as a spectator in safety
At the 2m20s mark, they claim this leaves personnel 10m away unharmed. So, it seems you can watch from quite nearby. You’d have to avoid being hit by the incoming stuff, though, and I guess wearing hearing protection is strongly advised, too.
As to countermeasures, I would guess this doesn’t work well against kinetic energy projectiles that don’t explode but depend on mass and velocity to do damage. Or would it?
Many of the videos from Ukraine have been ambushes (sort of a separate matter) or of AFVs operating without close infantry support. That's not a good way to do things.
The Russian armed forces are still prone to inter branch fighting and intra branch infighting between officers.
Basically they still operate like the military of some el presidente banana republic.
And currently there is no larger than life actually competent field marshal Zhukov like leadership to make all of them fall in line.