The famous bunker-busting smart-bombs circa first gulf-war were fin stabilized old tank barrels packed with explosives. It is their weight, owing to the high density metals used in the barrels and their small cross section (and hence extremely high terminal velocity) that gave them their extreme penetrative punch. Enough to pierce through tens of layers of strengthened concrete, each several feet thick and explode with devastating effects underneath. It was very important that they did not topple in flight though. So stabilization was critical.
Even the modern anti-tank weapons are essentially glorified darts, but much, much heavier. They kill tanks by sheer kinetic energy alone. They have been found to be harder to defend against, compared to other variants like HEAT that penetrate tank armor by the use of a high speed, dense jet of liquid metal, or HESH which are sort of like cow-pies made of high explosives that set off spalling bending moments inside the tank 'hull'.
the main benefit of the small cross section is not increased terminal velocity through the air but rather to maintain velocity through the bunker (or armor in the case of the "sabot" or APFSDS anti-tank round you mention)
It takes a fraction of this to dent a tank out of commission, provided you're accurate. The overpressure wave bouncing around inside the tank cabin created by a direct hit probably has stunning effects on the crew and may not kill them if the cabin isn't crushed - although it could do terrible damage to the ears, lungs and stomach.
v^2 = u^2 + 2as = 0 + 2 x 9.81 x 2,000 = 39,000
KE = 0.5mv^2 = 0.5 * 300 * 39,000 = 6MJ
I.e. about 1kg of TNT. "Crush"?? I'm with you on this one, mmaunder
Also... as a cost comparison, JDAM (the US GPS guidance) kits cost 20-30k per kit (you strap them onto 'dumb' bombs). For the actual bomb itself, you're talking on the range of a buck or two per pound... the inert training versions are much cheaper than that. Explosives are cheeapp. Silicon is pricey.
See link below for pricing information! (The Mk-84 is the 2000lb 'dumb' bomb, it's listed along with its training/concrete version).
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/usaf/docs/munition-cost-11-1....
That leaves laser guidance kits, which tend to be pretty expensive. Probably takes more than one attempt on average, too.
On the other hand, you probably don't need to worry much about temperature and humidity when you store concrete munitions. Or maybe they mix up a batch of bombs before the sortie - "You can't launch yet. The concrete isn't dry."
The US seems to have started using concrete bombs in 1999 (against Iraq, but not during either gulf war).
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/07/world/us-wields-defter-wea...
Laser guided bombs made their debut for the US in Vietnam [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOLT-117]
They were stars of the bombing campaign prior to the ground attack during the first Gulf War. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md00oEyn6kg]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment#Project_Tho...
Lifting that much mass into orbit is pricy though.