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The Leopard 2 Thread


Militarysta

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  • 4 weeks later...
4 hours ago, Clan_Ghost_Bear said:

https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2018/12/defence-spending-to-be-stepped-up-more-tanks-and-f-35-jets/

The Dutch military has decided to purchase, among other things, more tanks. Are there any surplus Leo 2s left or will the Dutch have to shell out for new builds?

Just maybe it's time to look for a tank to get the job done and not tick a box. So here's hoping for new builds.

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I wondered about something... Is it possible to fit PKT into a a Leopard-2, instead of MG3? It would make sense since in the hungarian army, 7.62x51 NATO ammunition isnt used at all, so from the logistics viewpoint, replacing MG3 with PKT would be desirable. I do not even think it is such a "heresy" :D, because finns use PKT in their CV9030s. 

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In the AW forum there are some pretty sensational revelations (by the user Damian) about the characteristics of Leo 2 armor of early variants and about the chassis and AMAP-B too (Poland AFV, pg.95).

 

https://aw.my.com/en/forum/showthread.php?24934-Polands-Armored-Fighting-Vehicles&p=1869758&viewfull=1#post1869758

 

What do you think ?

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1 hour ago, rob89 said:

In the AW forum there are some pretty sensational revelations (by the user Damian) about the characteristics of Leo 2 armor of early variants and about the chassis and AMAP-B too (Poland AFV, pg.95).

 

What do you think ?

 

Well sometimes knowledge in silver but shut the fuck up is pure gold. That what I think about those on AW forum.

 

Point by point:

 

Quote

1. Most Leopard 2A4's made (also older A0-A1-A2-A3) use B technology armor. During some tests we confirmed this armor is weaker than armor of T-72M1 or our upgraded T-72M1, the PT-91. You can guess we were kinda dissappointed. Only some last production batches of Leopard 2A4 had C technology armor, and last 70 or so had D technology armor same used on Leopard 2A5 and Leopard 2A6... however we do not have these tanks.

Yes, mostly true.

PT-91M/M1 have better vs KE armour then Leopard 2A4 and as base armour - mucht more weaker then L2A4 against HEAT. But PT-91M/M1 whit ERAWA-2 is mucht better protected then Leopard 2A4. Sad, but it's fact. But from the other hand - Leopard 2A4 outdated PT-91 in all other aspects and tank crews don't event want to lisen about T-72M1/PT-91/Pendakar tank. They just want's Leo-2.

 

Quote

2. We also discovered a fatal flaw in Leopard 2A0/A4 chassis design, the bottol of the hull sides where suspension is attached have a structural weakness, which means you can't up armor tank to the weight of 60+ metric tons, otherwise after some time tanks chassis will start to crack.

 


This means that to upgrade tanks, you need to literally cut off entire hull lower sides where suspension is attached, probably also cutt off hull belly, and weld new ones that are strenghtened. This is obviously incredibly expensive, this is why Leopard 2PL do not have addon armor on the hull. And there are some rumors, we might have also problems with A5's, but I have no solid confirmation yet.

 

 

yes, it's true in case old 2A4.

 

Quote

AMAP-B armor was tested on the prototype, can't speak about it, but let's say, it was all very dissapointing, if the informations I have are all correct.

No, not true. AMAP-B is OK, "base armour" in Leopard 2A4 is shit -that's the problem.  Whole protection accoding to polish PGZ shoud be "over 2A5 level" but on test WITU dicover that is not even on this level. Rest is classify but definetly AMAP-B is not problem...in relatio to weight is very good. 

 

Quote

I can also say that Polish MoD is seeking an alternative for Leopard 2 as our premier MBT, and as a replacement for T-72M1 and PT-91. It was discovered that upgrading T-72/PT-91 will be rather expensive and result won't be that great either. So some factions in MoD and Army are pushing the idea to purchase a new tank. Not necessary a new builds but surplus with refurbishing and modernization.

wink.png I won't say where RFI was sended, but we speak here about possible purchase of ~300-400 MBT's + possible purchase of ~300-400 IFV's, or more depending on funding. Of course this might not happen due to budget cuts or other reasons, but this is what I know.

 

Part of polish MoD is working on G2G whit USA about take  300-400 M1A1 and upgrade it in Lima.  Estimated cost is ~3bln $ It's forced against polish industry (PGZ want's to deal whit Germans or mod.PT-91M) or Army (they want Leopard 2 tanks). It's just slowly doing by last year - IMHO chance are 50/50 couse nobody (despite part od MoD) want's M1A1PL in Poland. 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Militarysta said:

Part of polish MoD is working on G2G whit USA about take  300-400 M1A1 and upgrade it in Lima.  Estimated cost is ~3bln $ It's forced against polish industry (PGZ want's to deal whit Germans or mod.PT-91M) or Army (they want Leopard 2 tanks). It's just slowly doing by last year - IMHO chance are 50/50 couse nobody (despite part od MoD) want's M1A1PL in Poland. 

 

 

Would this be taking the place of the K-2 procurement?

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K-2 is not possible IMHO in polish condition. One factory in Poland want to have cooperation whit South Korea and K2 but it's only marketing proposition. This factory (Cegielski) haven't know-how, politican support, MoD offciall support etc. IMHO no chance to real K-2 in Poland. Not whit this goverment and MoD. Seriously doubt. So despite the fact that K-2 is very good tank - not this time.

And brown nose MoD want any possible weapons system from USA so, despite Leopard 2 in Poland, M1A1PL have some chanses to become real.  And it's very good tank too -depiste 40% bigger  LCC then Leopard's 2 and...lack panoramic thermal viewer for Tc in most verison. And M1A2 will be to expensive for my country.

 

 

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20 hours ago, Militarysta said:

2. We also discovered a fatal flaw in Leopard 2A0/A4 chassis design, the bottol of the hull sides where suspension is attached have a structural weakness, which means you can't up armor tank to the weight of 60+ metric tons, otherwise after some time tanks chassis will start to crack.

 

yes, it's true in case old 2A4.

 

 

Does it mean that all the 2A5 converted from old 2A4 (for ex. the ex-Netherland ones, now in Finland) have these structural weakness and risk to crack, due to their upgraded weight, now above 60 tons ? It seems quite unbelievable ...

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@UP

no, definetly not - late 2A4 haven't this problem as I know, but still suspension  limited weight to circa 60,5t.  The next problem that not exatly all Loeben users can had problem whit "old" 2A4 chassis - many depend on how is used tanks. And this polish ones have hard life couse they are used a lot - sevral are send to Germany between 2006-2015 to welded again the bottol of the hull sides couse it was cracing - but it's mostly cased by stupid-estern cowboys jumping whole tank style. But there where some problems whit cracking - old hulls, "tired", used a lot. And now whole problem blow up during Leopard 2PL program - weight limits,  $ limits, etc.  

Intresting case are Indonesian and Singapour tanks - maybe they armour is mucht lighter then we think or they have upgreaded suspension. Or finall user doesnt care about microcracking chassis mounts. No idea.

 

Oh, the last but not least - almoust all informations about problems whit Leopard 2PL or doubfull balistic test are rumors from OBRUM and HSW factories - co competitors of Bumar - Łabędy SA. Polish Rheinmettal of course doesen't coment, WITU too.  There are some rumors from army side but they are rather suport IBD/Rheinemttal then blame them. And all is theory OPSPEC so I would be very cerfull whit some "hard" statsments.

 

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On 12/22/2018 at 1:57 PM, rob89 said:

In the AW forum there are some pretty sensational revelations (by the user Damian) about the characteristics of Leo 2 armor of early variants and about the chassis and AMAP-B too (Poland AFV, pg.95). 

  

https://aw.my.com/en/forum/showthread.php?24934-Polands-Armored-Fighting-Vehicles&p=1869758&viewfull=1#post1869758 

  

What do you think ? 

 

This is just classical for Damian. He always likes to criticize every piece of military gear made in Germany for some of the most nonsensical reasons, but he loves the United States and will pretend everything made in the USA is better and flawless. He has directly admitted his bias in the past and kept making incorrect claims for his own agenda. Before armor measurements for the Leopard 2 were made, there was a time where he claimed its maximum physical armor thickness was just 500 mm, while the original Abrams would have had 900 mm. Now we know that the Leopard 2 has up to ~860 mm at the turret front, while the M1 Abrams untilm 1984 had only ~730 mm physical armor thickness at the turret.

 

1. He is correct by saying that the Leopard 2A4 tanks of Poland only have "B" technology armor. A few years ago, there was a Polish article claiming that the PT-91 and Leopard 2 had comparable armor protection, but based on documents from the Swedish tests, it might provide a bit lower protection against (modern) KE penetrators than the T-72 and T-72M1. As always there are many different factors to consider (such as: What rounds are used in the comparison? Older Soviet ammo should perform worse against multi-layered Chobham-style armor. What ammunition and steel alloy has been used for the armor values in the Swedish leaks?) , maybe militarysta knows something about "some tests" mentioned by Damian.

The T-72 has a cast turret with up to 500 mm thickness at the thickest points, the T-72M1 has roughly the same amount of steel armor, but with a kvartz filler added to that. The armor protection has been claimed to be more than 450 mm steel-equivalent protection vs KE, sometimes as high as 500 mm RHAe vs KE. The Leopard 2 has roughly 400-450 mm at the turret front.

 

However the cast-turrets of the Soviet tanks had rather heterogenous thickness, in some places the T-72M1 is only ~370 mm thick. Even the T-72B with at least ~550 mm RHAe vs KE, was vulnerable to the 120 mm DM13 and comparable Soviet rounds according to a Soviet analysis due to the cast turret being thinner at the upper and lower edges and around the gun mount.

 

What Damian ignores is that is the fact that the M1 Abrams and the M1IP/M1A1 also had a lower protection level than the T-72/T-72M1 against KE based on available sources. He pretends that the Leopard 2 is poorly armored, yet it was better or equal to its NATO contemporaries at a lower weight (thanks to minimizing the protected volume). Based on Swedish data, the hull of the M1A2 from 1992 is worse against KE than the hull of the T-72M1!

 

2. According to Frank Haun, the CEO of KMW, micro-cracking of the Leopard 2's welded steel armor would occur after about 50 to 60 years when the tank is consistently used (he mentioned that in an article, where he forecasted lots of sales for the Leopard 2's follow-up tank, the MGCS). The Polish Leopard 2 tanks should not suffer from micro-cracks and only the suspension should be the limiting factor for the weight. I've never heard or read anything about similar issues from any other country (and plenty other have upgraded old generation hulls with new armor - Denmark, Singapore, Indonesia, Germany), so maybe it is a problem unique to Poland related to how they use the tank and how it is maintained? Maybe Damian is mixing up two different things?

 

3. The Leopard 2PL uses a combination of different AMAP solutions, there are only rumors about troubles in the tests (and these might be a result of the testing procedure). I couldn't find any confirmation from my sources, but that does not directly mean that there weren't any issues.

 

On 12/22/2018 at 3:12 PM, Militarysta said:

Part of polish MoD is working on G2G whit USA about take  300-400 M1A1 and upgrade it in Lima.  Estimated cost is ~3bln $

 

That's between $7.5 and $10 million per tank! I've heard rumors that the new built Leopard 2A7 tanks for Hungary might be cheaper (thanks to help from the EU).

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The earlier mentioned P5050 lives on, but it’s been reduced in scope, and is now a technical lifetime extension (instead of a proper MLU). This was to be expected considering the age and state of the tanks, the fact that certain parts are out of/has been replaced in production, and that there will be no replacement tank before 2025.

 

More details here:

https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:572045-2018:TEXT:EN:HTML&src=0

https://kgv.doffin.no/ctm/Supplier/Documents/Folder/163257

 

In other somewhat Leo 2 related news, the new Wisent 2 ARVs have begun entering service with Norwegian Army units, so there is some neat footage of the beasts out there:

 

fxNumAf.jpg

 

7iDI22T.jpg

 

"There is always a bigger fish"

 

FqVhLz5.jpg

https://forsvaret.no/forsvarsmateriell/presserom/de-første-bergingspanservognene-er-overført-til-hæren

 

I also recall mentioning that the Norway was interested in acquiring new AEVs a few months ago, and it’s been announced that we have opted to buy another 6 Wisent 2s in the AEV and mine breeching configurations: https://forsvaret.no/forsvarsmateriell/presserom/forsvarsmateriell-møter-studentene/hæren-får-pansret-ingeniørpanservogn

 

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1 hour ago, SH_MM said:

The T-72 has a cast turret with up to 500 mm thickness at the thickest points, the T-72M1 has roughly the same amount of steel armor,

like "850mm" for Leo2A4 turret is a LOS thickness of left(loader side) "cheek" only (physical will be something like 680-700mm, right will be even less ) "500" is  a physical thickness of T-72A turret, which became 650-950 LOS depending of how far from center line of turret you measure it.

 

1 hour ago, SH_MM said:

However the cast-turrets of the Soviet tanks had rather heterogenous thickness, in some places the T-72M1 is only ~370 mm thick

in some places Leo2 turret have protection only against HMG 

 

1 hour ago, SH_MM said:

was vulnerable to the 120 mm DM13 and

and the source of this claim ?

 

1 hour ago, SH_MM said:

analysis due to the cast turret being thinner at the upper and lower edges and around the gun mount.

guess what, if turret RHA roof 45mm/78° is vulnerable  for old soviet APFSDS, what will be if you hit hull roof of Leo2 which is 30mm/79-80° ?

 

 

1 hour ago, SH_MM said:

According to Frank Haun, the CEO of KMW, micro-cracking of the Leopard 2's welded steel armor would occur after about 50 to 60 years when the tank

Leo AS1 as far as i remember started to cracking without "50-60 years" ? 

 

i'm not trying to defend someone or start hollywar, but all this "we have better tank A, and ugly tank B" is a waste of time and words if you/or someone doesn't have reports(and preferably from different sides of "conflict", to get the least biased assessment) proving some sentences 

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1 minute ago, Wiedzmin said:

like "850mm" for Leo2A4 turret is a LOS thickness of left(loader side) "cheek" only (physical will be something like 680-700mm, right will be even less )

 

This is the physical thickness along the line of sight. That was the context in which it was meant, the old statement previously mentioned also compared the physical thickness along the LOS of the two tanks.

 

1 minute ago, Wiedzmin said:

in some places Leo2 turret have protection only against HMG  

 

In the frontal projection of the crew compartment?

 

1 minute ago, Wiedzmin said:

and the source of this claim ? 

 

rIAiJOh.jpg

This is based on an old article published on Andrei's blog, which claimed that the T-72B is vulnerable to APFSDS ammo with a penetration capability of 200 mm /60° at the places above. It doesn't mention an exact round and it is obivously rather simplified (see sloped roof being a weakspot), but  so depending on range DM13 will still pose a threat to a T-72B.

 

My point is not to pretend that the Soviet tanks were bad - they clearly provided very competitive levels of protection and even outperformed their NATO adversaries in terms of KE protection for most (nearly all) of the Cold War. There were however some drawbacks resulting from minimizing the volume and surface area of the tank. Think of the reduced thickness near the gun mount - ~370 mm instead of ~700-800 mm for the T-72M1, while the Leopard 2 has 420 mm mantlet armor + 230-280 mm steel at the edge of the gun mount (still a weakened zone, but not as weakened as in case of the T-72).

 

8 minutes ago, Wiedzmin said:

guess what, if turret RHA roof 45mm/78° is vulnerable  for old soviet APFSDS, what will be if you hit hull roof of Leo2 which is 30mm/79-80° ? 

 

I wasn't talking about the highly sloped roof of the tank, but the uppermost and lowermost edges of the turret front. In Sweden for example, the upper edge of the T-80U turret was considered a weakspot. In the Swedish 3D model of the T-80U's turret armor, the composite armor (polymer-filled cells) do not reach the upper edge of the cavity.

 

820329_600.jpg

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1 minute ago, SH_MM said:

n the frontal projection of the crew compartment?

and T-72 ? 

  

turret designed to protect in +-30° arc

 

2 minutes ago, SH_MM said:

ndrei's blog

it was posted by Khlopotov

3 minutes ago, SH_MM said:

It doesn't mention an exact round and it is obivously

it does mention exact round and distances, and it's problem not for T-72B itself, but for all soviet tanks with 78degree roof.

 

6 minutes ago, SH_MM said:

  so depending on range DM13 will still pose a threat to a T-72B.

depending on point of hit, 25-30mm APFSDS can disable any tank from the front, so ?

 

7 minutes ago, SH_MM said:

Soviet tanks were bad

i'm not trying to say that soviet or any other tank "good/bad" most of tanks - shitty steel boxes designed in a way to get profit for factory which is making this junk, not for "saving crew lives" or something like this.

 

9 minutes ago, SH_MM said:

of the reduced thickness near the gun mount - ~370 mm instead of ~700-800 mm for the T-72M1, while the Leopard 2 has 420 mm mantlet armor + 230-280 mm steel at the edge

 

and what protection does it gives? mantlet itself can't stop anything, it's 650kg box with speical armor insert in it,(and it's not 420mm los btw), so even it it gives 150-200 mm vs APFSDS(or you think mantlet itself gives 400 vs APFSDS?) and you add this to 230-280mm(which is have thinner parts) you will have what ? 380-480mm vs APFDS vs 370 ?  is "not so weakened" or ? all this statements about "oh this mantlet is 100% better than this solution on Tseries/Mseries) based on what ? 

 

17 minutes ago, SH_MM said:

wasn't talking about the highly sloped roof of the tank, but the uppermost and lowermost edges of the turret front.

look at uppermost and lowermost edges of any tank, western or eastern...

 

my main point that there is a tons of myths about any tank, but no one wants to get the truth about them because truth can be very dangerous for mental health of arguing people lol(take M60A1 for example) 

 

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