Tanks do not fight alone: ordinarily, they are accompanied by lightlty armoured fighting vehicles, infantry carriers, helicopter gunships, engineers, mobile artillery, and other complimentary forces. Nor do they thrive everywhere. M48 Patton tanks and M113 armoured cavalry assault vehicles could be formidable in sweep operations in Vietnam but their scope was limited. Mush of the country's jungled terrain deterred armour. In the bloody territorial struggle fought by Iraq and Iran from 1980 to 1988, armour was sometimes thwarted by a marshy battle zone. Nonetheless, the tank and its deadly retinue have remained at the centre of modern land warfare, demonstrating their primacy in arenas ranging from the deserts of the Middle East to the urban battlefields of Bucharest and Beijing.