"Decisive and determined" doesn't sound as if I would ever write it. Sounds too superficial. No, mechanised forces will have great opportunities and the loss of 100 or 200 infantrymen will be risked and acceptable to their commander in such a situation. The most successful ones will be reckless and focused on an objective. Mechanised forces need to be the realm of officers who provoke the HQ to frantically try to hold them back, not to push them forward.
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Yeah sure, armour battles period is over. That's why the regions with a combination of decent economic output and high perceived risk of war are bristling with main battle tanks...
Mechanised forces are still the only ones which can advance swiftly and bring decision by operational manoeuvre.
Helicopter-mobile armies are too flimsy and too expensive. Airborne is similar. Motorised forces with focus on dismounted fight and support fires are slow in combat and easily slowed down by delaying actions when on the move.
The only exception is the desert; a place where ambushes are extremely difficult and where wheeled AFV-motorised columns can roam quickly over vast distances.
I agree that assault gun tactics experience a revival and have a reason fro their existence despite portable infantry guns (bazookas) and despite portable radios for calling in mortar support.
Nevertheless, that's an application in small wars and for older MBTs in great wars. The unique selling proposition of tanks is still the operational manoeuvre, even if it's down to battlegroup (~between Bn and Bde) scale.
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The European 8x8 trend isn't really about quick fast and long marches; the Strykers are about that.
The Europeans had wheeled AFVs in quantity even during the Cold War (Italy, Germany), purchased them because of tiny budgets and lack of alternatives etc. The Boxer MRAV is pretty much a Cold War concept, including DPICM protection requirement.
The Piranha vehicle range comes from a country that doesn't think about deploying its forces to the European frontiers the slightest (Switzerland).
The Finns use wheeled AFVs apparently because even tracked vehicles have only minimal off-road capability on their terrain.
The Stryker mess created the fashion and was the primary driver of it. The other factors enabled the spreading of the fashion in the entire Western world, with some influence even in E/SE Asia.
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