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2 minutes ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

Can someone quickly explain to me why the curve on the left side of the Leclerc's turret right beside the gun mantlet, cutting away some of the armor?

Note: Left from crew's perspective, right from the observer's perspective. 

 

IIRC that's to leave some space for the pilot head when he's out.

 

Spoiler

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/6c/6c/ed/6c6ced26d4ad010fa3df259e9f389e41.jpg

http://forcesoperations.com/wp-content/uploads/Leclerc_1-600x400.jpg

 

Besides, that's not an armour block but just a storage box on top of it.

 

Spoiler

http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2015/39/1443346394-leclerc-sxii-turret-armor-layout.jpg

 

The fact that they moved the box around a little on the EMBT got me confused as well wether or not they did some changes on the turret armor (apparently no).

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30 minutes ago, Serge said:

With EMBT, the turret is raised 

 

I know but it got me confused initially.

Was telling myself that since the turret was raised it could have lifted some restriction about the head of the driver and that they may have extended the armor further forward, that's why when is saw the pictures I was telling myself that maybe they did some changes.

Turned out they didn't (and retrospectively I doubt they would have taken the time to do so on a demonstrator).

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2 hours ago, SH_MM said:

The FMV employee did not disclose those slides intentionally to the public, and the data is valid for an outdated variant that isn't even in service anymore. Just us not having heard about any sort of response, doesn't mean there wasn't one.

 

I have reported this "leak" to Nexter and my contacts in french army.
The feed backs I have from it are far away from what I have been able to see with some photos of the dismantlement of some Leclerc or some actual CAD been leaked on some blogs.
There is nothing because it is nothing.
 

 

2 hours ago, SH_MM said:

Oh, an anonymous engineer, what a great source! When some "engineer" tells a story that supports your ideas, you are willing to accept it without any proof that said engineer even exists, that he made such a claim and that he does know what he is talking about? This whole story stinks and could be mere fiction of the originator or - if he exists - of the engineer. This has the same quality as the usually wrong hearsay stories from sources such as "a friend of a friend" and "the brother of the boss of my uncle's second wife". 

 

"An engineer" also supposedly told Paul L. that the Challenger 1 would have turret armor providing protection against APFSDS ammunition with up to 620 mm penetration into steel. As we know nowadays based on declassified document, this was complete bullshit.

 

An engineer most likely shouldn't have access to informations such as wether GIAT send protection data to Greece or not, as this is a decision made by the management, not by an engineer. You complain about me supposedly being "the kind of guy to swallow hook, line and sinker...", yet you are willing to believe illogical and unreferenced claims based on a single footnote from a single book? Let me guess, you didn't even consider the possibility of the "engineer's" word being a bullshit excuse made so that other potential customers would not generally reject the Leclerc tank in favor for an Abrams or Leopard 2?

Not anonymous, it's Marc Chassillan. He even published in on of his article of Raids magazine.
He was not directly responsible for the Leclerc MBT but was in charge of the ARV and then became marketing director in his latest years at Nexter.
The design bureau is always well placed in terms of informations simply because engineers and marketing teams work together to achieves successful foreign sales.

Add all the claims you want to all the things you want to back your claims. Armor protection and algorythms of the FCS are THE MOST protected data and are known by a few. Things happening during international competitions are worthless.
By the way it Giat Industries not GIAT. G.I.A.T. (Groupement Industriel des Armements Terrestres) was the previous entity...
People can bullshit, other can have a deficient memory. It is just a matter of sorting them out.
In the case of Marc Chassillan, he has a good memory and don't give a damn about new customers for the Leclerc (the competition is done, the production line is disassembled and stored; and he is no longer Nexter).
 

2 hours ago, SH_MM said:

And what has been learned in Yemen? That the Leclerc is good with add-on armor (slat armor, the AZUR kit or DND's low-fragmentation ERA)? How many "naked" Leclerc tanks were hit, by what type of ammunition, at which location and from what angle? You keep asking a lot of questions, but ignore the most important ones.

 

According to a French instructor at the cavalry school of the United Arab Emirates, at least one Leclerc was penetrated at the frontal hull armor (!) by an ATGM - probably a Konkurs or Konkurs-M missile - killing the driver and wounding the commander. That suggests that the older armor package used on the Leclerc Tropicalisé does provide significantly less than 1,000 mm vs HEAT at certain points (or rather less than 800 mm vs tandem shaped charge warheads), the former was in Sweden the required level of protection for the hull against ATGMs...

 

Only 13 kits were bought by the UAE and they only protect the chassis sides and rear plus turret bustle sides and rear...
13 out of 93ish tanks sent there. The 13 belong to a mechanised infantry batallion, that is usually sent in the hot zones usually in urban environment but not only...

You can't just have 1000 RHAe KE all around. You always have weakspots because you need to make room for the driver, his hatch, his field of view, etc. Under the same circumstances (angle and location), the same result would have been seen on other tanks...

Despite the fact that the main charge pierced. It did not go through far... The commander got the spalls from the driver frontal episcope. Other than that the tank was recovered by its own means and sent back. The glacis was patched, the frontal episcope was changed, the interior cleaned and the tank got back in the ranks.

What was the point of your statement? "Oh! If the Leclerc was THAT great, there would be no losses..."
Grow up, nothing is inpenetrable nothing works without quirks.

 

2 hours ago, SH_MM said:

It is not just "some random CAD drawing", but a protection analysis done by the Swedish FMV (the government office reponsible for testing arms and other material for the Swedish military). One can easily see that this is the original armor package for various reasons: First of all, the chart shows the original armor packages of the Leopard 2 Improved and M1A2 aswell, so why would they show the Leclerc with an indigenous armor package instead? R. Lindström, who is proven to have worked for the FMV during the procurement process of the Strv 122 and the testing of the three contenders aswell as an article published on the website of the FMV, claim that when fitted with the Swedish-made MEXAS armor package, the M1A2's and Leclerc's protection increased in certain locations by 50 to 100 percent depending on ammunition, a fact that surprised French and US representatives. So France has given protection data to Sweden, otherwise they couldn't make such a statement and generate a vulnerability analysis; as a matter of fact the up-armored Leclerc with Swedish armor package was designed to meet the higher protection requirements, the "CAD" data clearly shows a tank that is not meeting the requirements. If this showed the Leclerc with Swedish armor package - as claimed by you - the contemporary French variant would have significantly lower level of armor protection.

To me this makes no difference. They can be high authorities or just random threadhead on the net, this change quite nothing.
What is the percentage of error while doing their CAD?
What is the method used to calculate the protection index under X angle?
To me they can do precise shit or just : "Ok this part if Xmm and this part is Ymm; knowing that X offers Amm RHAe against CE and Bmm RHAe against KE; so Y offers (A*Y/X)mm RHAe against CE and (B*Y/X)mm RHAe against KE"... and nobody is able to tell if it is actual facts or just BS.

They were given quotes; no armor compositions, no array layout...
You know "this tank is protected against X under Y and Z angles" backed by the kind of photos you've posted, armor modules  with semi infinite witness plates.

The new armor layout was a response from the design bureau of Satory to the FMV's high demands. Just like any project the customer gives a need and the supplier makes propositions.
 

 

2 hours ago, SH_MM said:

The armor package in the US was assessed by firing different reference projectiles (which were supplied by Sweden) from different angles against it. As we can see in the leaked data, the Swedes also measured the leftover penetration capacity (if there was any) and the leftover armor thickness (if there was any), in order to come up with protection values.

image015.jpg

The "CAD" data is a vulnerability anaylsis. These types of computer analysises have been done since the late 1970s and are still common in the AFV industry. There are numerous companies specialized on vulnerability analysis tools like Condat Scheyern and recently also IBD. The computer program takes data about the performance and physicial dimensions of the armor (the armor performance is based on tests at various angles, at some point the program has to interpolate the data in order to provide accurate readings for the complete surface and all possible angles of impact) and generates a protection coverage.

 

No shit Sherlock?!
And what happens if you input incorrect data (approximate volumes; wrong armor array)? You get wrong results.
Or what proof do we have that the assessment was done properly?
 

 

2 hours ago, SH_MM said:

When the armor package is being tested is depending on the nation's requirements, there is no general rule. Shortlisting companies without having proven that the claims made by the manufacturer's marketing team have any substance is not a good idea. The Leclerc was one of the three tanks shortlisted for Sweden, yet you seem to deny that Sweden tested the armor - despite employees of the FMV saying so. Greece might not have shortlisted the Leclerc, but they definetly assessed its protection based on testing the armor and/or data for armor protection supplied by France. That's why they came to the conclusion that it has nearly the same protection level as the Challenger 2 (at 62.5 metric tons and a much greater volume!), which happens to show that your claims about the Greek military being to dumb for understanding that a smaller/lighter tank doesn't automatically offer a lower level of protection are wrong. In fact, even if this "GIAT engineer" told the truth, Greece could simply have done a little bit of fifth grade math to calculate how well the Leclerc would perform, if its armor offered the same protection per weight/thickness as the armor fitted to the Leopard 2, Challenger 2, M1 Abrams or T-80/T-84, for which Greece received protection data and/or ballistic modules for ballistic testing. Unless the Leclerc's armor includes some super secret material, it won't outperform armor arrays from the same time in terms of efficiency.

You make sooooo many assumptions that I don't know how to handle it to give you a proper response. I'll just make a ball of it and just dump...

 

 

2 hours ago, SH_MM said:

Armor tests are mostly made using special ballistic parts rather than firing on a proper tank (you don't want to waste a few millions if the armor fails to protect it). So supposedly only two Leclerc tanks being used for armor tests is pretty much irrelevant; the amount of armor modules tested might be tenfold this number or even more. The US tested the Leopard 2AV's proteciton using armor modules only, no complete MBT was shot at. In fact the updated Leopard 2A4 armor package (from 1991) was offered to various customers that operate ex-German tanks with images showing how well armor modules performed against certain threats, no proper Leopard 2A4 tank was used to demonstrate the protection level. The same happened with the Leopard 2 Revolution, where the armor performance was shown by firing against modules, but not against a full vehicle.

 

Panzerung+AMAP+gegen+RPG.png

 

Greece tested a "full" Leopard 2 turret randomly taken from the product line to verify that their tanks were fitted with the same type of armor as used during the tender. The US used a single M1 Abrams prototype at the end of the development program to test that it matched all protection requirements, before that point, they only used armor modules for all ballistic tests. GIAT was desperate to win in Sweden and Greece, which is why they offered much better deals than required (offering 60% more parts to be made locally in Sweden than required in order to indirectly cut the price of the Leclerc) or cheated (by jamming radios of other competitors and making their tank lighter in Greece).

You fire at a full tank only once to validate the protection models elaborated previously. The number should only be one unless you have so much money that you don't know what to do with...
Greece tested a full Leopard 2 turret for the same matter validate and check if the protection was in conformity with the specs.
Giat Industries proposed to make the Leclerc been partially produced under licence to favor the votes in their favor. Giat Industries knew that the swedish industrials that were left behind by the FMV would push this offer to the top, preserving jobs and garantying a certain authonomy.
Regarding the greek trials I'm laughing my ass off with your claims as if radios was a crucial thing, no, a corner stone(!) in the assessment done...
In addition, they've used a Leclerc tropicalised prototype (a tank that is, by design heavier than the french version), so yeah lighter tank... LMAO! You're a troll aren't you?
 

 

3 hours ago, SH_MM said:

The photo is by the way showing a hull shell made in Sweden. Sweden had to made its own steel shells for testing the three main battle tanks in case of the variants with improved protection, because the manufacturers were not interested in supplying them with enough data on how the tanks would perform when fitted with the Swedish armor: "Då vi inte fick tillräckligt med underlag från leverantören lät vi bygga delskrov efter eget huvud för att kunna utföra skjutprovning mot de olika stridsvagnarna med det svenskutvecklade skyddet - något som särskilt förvånade fransmännen..."

 

And this is actually a good point. Giat Industries do NOT disclose openly about the protection level. It is defended secret. You just don't come and say "Oh! I am interested in the Leclerc can I have the armor composition, pleeease?".
If there is an actual customer, the transfert of information must comply with an actual export authorisation from the french government.
And this proves, that the swedish did their thing concerning the protection... Thus, the data you have is not "vintage" it is "swedish"! End of the story!

 

3 hours ago, SH_MM said:

Your way of arguing - "I have not heard about it, so it never happened" - is the second bullshit argument after your "anonymous engineer" statement. You knowing only of two Leclercs being used for ballistic test doesn't mean there were only two.

Think what you want of me.
I have my sources of informations. And between those and a random retard coming from who knows in the internet, I'd rather believe those coming from a source that has more credibility and that is fact checkable with my contacts.

 

 

3 hours ago, SH_MM said:

No, you are wrong. Sweden at first hoped that the MBTs planned to be tested would already meet the desired level of protection. Data provided by the manufacturers and the results of the ballistic tests were used to create a proper analysis of the protection of all contenders. However all of the three tanks failed to meet the required level of protection, which is why Åkers Krutbruk acquired the MEXAS licence from IBD and designed add-on armor kits for all tanks. With add-on armor all three tanks were meant to meet the protection requirements or at least get reasonable close to them.

 

After Sweden designed and tested its add-on armor kits on the existing armor modules, GIAT decided to offer a redesigned turret, that would incorporate the Swedish armor. This turret is not identical to the previously posted CAD image, as GIAT's new design looked like this:

gxJSCfu.png

Note that the gun shield is still the very thin one as found on the actual French models of the Leclerc. The Swedes didn't like this design, just like they wanted more armor in the area of the gunner's sight (creating a "channel" like in the Leopard 2A5's add-on armor), but GIAT prefers keeping the thin gun shield - they also kept it on the up-armored later French Leclerc models, the AZUR up-armor kit doesn't change it and the much improved Leclerc tank offered to Turkey kept the same weakspot.

Look at the base of the turret, it is the same as the other with the "so we replaced the plastic boxes..." as opposed to the other bullshit CAD made by the swedes.
So the those black and white CAD drawings come from Giat Industries; and the other one is just a some stuff put together by the FMV...
The one with the "thin shield" is most likely the first proposition made by the french before the FMV gave their feedback.

 

 

3 hours ago, SH_MM said:

Ah, I forgot that the M1 Abrams and Leopard 2 upgrades were not designed to deal with the latest threats from the Warsaw Pact, but instead were designed to defeat the alien army from outer space... :rolleyes:

You once again made the assumption that... Just forget it, you're wasting my time.
From now on to expect me to respond to your BS.

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25 minutes ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

I know it's a weird shaped storage box. The reason I asked this is because the Leclerc with wedged shaped armor throws a huge bag of fucks on the driver but still keeps that small gap for the driver.

The problem is the access to the hatch crank and the ergonomics to enter the driver station.
With the armor layout proposed to the swedes, there would be major ergonomic changes with the driver hatch in order to make things viable (position of the crank; cutout in the armor à la Leopard 2A5, etc).

 

 

28 minutes ago, SH_MM said:

 

That's not the Leclerc, but a generic MBT. Take a look at the location of the gunner's sight and the smoke grenade launchers...

0xD5HTN.png

5xE4Gtb.png

 

 

He is just BSing just to prove the point that everybody can come up with drawing and say whatever they want...

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I hate to barge into someone else's arguments, but several (almost all of his last post really) of DarkLabor's points don't really make sense.

 

On 7/1/2018 at 1:33 PM, DarkLabor said:

Not anonymous, it's Marc Chassillan. He even published in on of his article of Raids magazine.
He was not directly responsible for the Leclerc MBT but was in charge of the ARV and then became marketing director in his latest years at Nexter.
The design bureau is always well placed in terms of informations simply because engineers and marketing teams work together to achieves successful foreign sales.

Add all the claims you want to all the things you want to back your claims. Armor protection and algorythms of the FCS are THE MOST protected data and are known by a few. Things happening during international competitions are worthless.
By the way it Giat Industries not GIAT. G.I.A.T. (Groupement Industriel des Armements Terrestres) was the previous entity...
People can bullshit, other can have a deficient memory. It is just a matter of sorting them out.
In the case of Marc Chassillan, he has a good memory and don't give a damn about new customers for the Leclerc (the competition is done, the production line is disassembled and stored; and he is no longer Nexter).

 

British representatives still made exorbitant claims about Challenger after it's production run was effectively over despite the fact that we now know from leaked British documents their claims were bunk. People still believe what they want even after a project is over. And GIAT keeping FCS and Armor data "THE MOST protected data" is not unique to them either.

 

On 7/1/2018 at 1:33 PM, DarkLabor said:

Only 13 kits were bought by the UAE and they only protect the chassis sides and rear plus turret bustle sides and rear...

13 out of 93ish tanks sent there. The 13 belong to a mechanised infantry batallion, that is usually sent in the hot zones usually in urban environment but not only...

You can't just have 1000 RHAe KE all around. You always have weakspots because you need to make room for the driver, his hatch, his field of view, etc. Under the same circumstances (angle and location), the same result would have been seen on other tanks...

Despite the fact that the main charge pierced. It did not go through far... The commander got the spalls from the driver frontal episcope. Other than that the tank was recovered by its own means and sent back. The glacis was patched, the frontal episcope was changed, the interior cleaned and the tank got back in the ranks.

What was the point of your statement? "Oh! If the Leclerc was THAT great, there would be no losses..."
Grow up, nothing is inpenetrable nothing works without quirks.

 

"Weak points" are not the same weaknesses between tanks. Even assuming that hit was through a weakpoint, it doesn't say much for the LeClerc's design that it managed to get hit in one. The Abrams has a comparatively fragile hatch, and yet in all the times they got hit in the mideast, I do not recall a hit managing to be landed clean on that hatch. No Chally 2 was knocked out to a hit to the drivers' optics despite the enormous chasm that was cut in the glacis armor for it. This suggests that the weakpoint on LeClerc is relatively large.

 

On 7/1/2018 at 1:33 PM, DarkLabor said:

To me this makes no difference. They can be high authorities or just random threadhead on the net, this change quite nothing.

What is the percentage of error while doing their CAD?
What is the method used to calculate the protection index under X angle?
To me they can do precise shit or just : "Ok this part if Xmm and this part is Ymm; knowing that X offers Amm RHAe against CE and Bmm RHAe against KE; so Y offers (A*Y/X)mm RHAe against CE and (B*Y/X)mm RHAe against KE"... and nobody is able to tell if it is actual facts or just BS.
They were given quotes; no armor compositions, no array layout...
You know "this tank is protected against X under Y and Z angles" backed by the kind of photos you've posted, armor modules  with semi infinite witness plates.
The new armor layout was a response from the design bureau of Satory to the FMV's high demands. Just like any project the customer gives a need and the supplier makes propositions.

No shit Sherlock?!
And what happens if you input incorrect data (approximate volumes; wrong armor array)? You get wrong results.
Or what proof do we have that the assessment was done properly?

 

The best proof for the accuracy of the Swedish armor CAD models is the fact that neither the Germans or US (who also keep their exact data secret) complained about inaccuracies in modeling. There's also the fact that not a single outside test of LeClerc ever, has praised its armor in relation to late model Abrams or Leo 2s.

 

On 7/1/2018 at 1:33 PM, DarkLabor said:

You fire at a full tank only once to validate the protection models elaborated previously. The number should only be one unless you have so much money that you don't know what to do with...
Greece tested a full Leopard 2 turret for the same matter validate and check if the protection was in conformity with the specs.
Giat Industries proposed to make the Leclerc been partially produced under licence to favor the votes in their favor. Giat Industries knew that the swedish industrials that were left behind by the FMV would push this offer to the top, preserving jobs and garantying a certain authonomy.
Regarding the greek trials I'm laughing my ass off with your claims as if radios was a crucial thing, no, a corner stone(!) in the assessment done...
In addition, they've used a Leclerc tropicalised prototype (a tank that is, by design heavier than the french version), so yeah lighter tank... LMAO! You're a troll aren't you?

 

As to Greek trials - SH never claimed that the Radios were a crucial thing or a corner stone - just said they interfered. That they used the heavier tropical model does not stop them from reducing the weight of that relative to a normal tropical, which is what I am sure SH meant.

 

On 7/1/2018 at 1:33 PM, DarkLabor said:

And this is actually a good point. Giat Industries do NOT disclose openly about the protection level. It is defended secret. You just don't come and say "Oh! I am interested in the Leclerc can I have the armor composition, pleeease?".
If there is an actual customer, the transfert of information must comply with an actual export authorisation from the french government.
And this proves, that the swedish did their thing concerning the protection... Thus, the data you have is not "vintage" it is "swedish"! End of the story!

 

I already touched on this - KMW and GDLS do not openly discuss Abrams or Leopard 2 protection either. Literally nobody does, and SH is well aware of this. And yes, you have to get permission from the relevant export control authorities to get data on those vehicles as well. So the Swedes could jump through all the hoops with GLDS and KMW, but magically not with GIAT?

 

On 7/1/2018 at 1:33 PM, DarkLabor said:

Think what you want of me.
I have my sources of informations. And between those and a random retard coming from who knows in the internet, I'd rather believe those coming from a source that has more credibility and that is fact checkable with my contacts.

 

SH_MM is far from a "random retard", which is why I wrote this post. If your contacts are in the French army, of course they are going to say the LeClerc is the best. Everyone in the British army continued to say Challenger (both times!) was the best even after embarrassing performances that saw them lose time and again in trials. It is not in the interest of the French army to say their tank isn't the best, and it's also in their interest to tell everyone joining the armored force in France that their tank is the best. Troops in M1A1s in the late 80s were told that the vehicle could deal with every latest and greatest Soviet battlewagon without issue, and that they had armor capable of resisting whatever the Soviets could throw at them. We now know both of these to be categorically false, and that analysts at the time were aware of it in secret.

 

On 7/1/2018 at 1:33 PM, DarkLabor said:

Look at the base of the turret, it is the same as the other with the "so we replaced the plastic boxes..." as opposed to the other bullshit CAD made by the swedes.
So the those black and white CAD drawings come from Giat Industries; and the other one is just a some stuff put together by the FMV...
The one with the "thin shield" is most likely the first proposition made by the french before the FMV gave their feedback.

 

You just contradicted yourself. You said "it is the same as the other [...]" and that these drawings came from GIAT while the other is somehow "just a some stuff put together by the FMV". Which is it? Are the turret designs different, or was the FMV model correct?

 

On 7/1/2018 at 1:33 PM, DarkLabor said:

You once again made the assumption that... Just forget it, you're wasting my time.
From now on to expect me to respond to your BS.

 

That original statement you made was in fact very silly: "The engineers were not taking into account the other western MBTs when designing the Leclerc. They comply with the established specifications that took into account the latest warnings in the WarPact threats." When designing the Abrams, design specs were entirely based on hypothetical Soviet threats. Same with Leopard 2, same with Challenger. There was never a spec in Challenger that said: "we should make sure the armor is similar to Leopard 2, or better than Abrams".

 

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Don't hide behind "muh secret data" too quickly since a lot of things aren't actually that secret. You'd think that the external ballistic performance of M829A1 would be secret, but whoopsy daisy it's not.

 

Effectiveness of cage armour? We know.

APFSDS interception methods of APS and its effectiveness? We know and we can figure it out fairly accurately.

Effectiveness of Nozh? We know.

Terminal ballistics of HEAT jets? We know.

Effectiveness of ERA? We know.

 

Seriously, a lot of information is buried in papers or can be gleaned from papers. But the average military enthusiast can't be arsed to read through thousands upon thousands of pages of information to find interesting tidbits of information.

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The driver's hatch is not in any way larger on the Leclerc than on any other tank. That is, its weakspot.

Your argument is that statistically, the Leclerc had suffered penetration through the hatch more than any other tank, thus has some sort of issue there that others don't, yet then claim no other tank was hit in a similar way.

 

It makes no sense.

 

If you take all the various engagements in the past decade or so, involving modern tanks, you can see that despite there being little difference in the actual armament, every engagement can be characterized in a different way, something unique to the operators.

 

The Challenger 2 was met with poor tactics, as the only time it was in danger was when someone tried to fire an RPG through its lower glacis. It pierced (some say through the belly via shrapnel which indicates extremely poor belly protection, and some say LFP was hit directly) and the driver lost a toe or something. 

No competent fighter, especially when wielding a weapon as potent as the RPG-29, would waste it on such a target from such an angle. They would save it for a side-shot.

 

Thus it was in no real danger.

 

The Merkava in 2006 was faced with competent and well equipped enemies, but the most wide-spread and most potent weapon used against it was IEDs. ATGMs were also a threat but because of the way they were used, and the very uneven terrain of Lebanon, IEDs were more potent.

 

Statistically because more Merkavas were substantially damaged by IEDs, one could say they had a weakspot in their belly. But for a fact, their V-shaped belly plus an extra V-shaped thick applique plate, created the best passive protection a vehicle could have had at the time.

 

 

Abrams and Leopard in Iraq and Yemen, and Syria, respectively, were hit mostly in their ammo racks on the turret.

That is non-fatal damage. The operators were clearly aiming for weakspots which beforehand was practically unheard of.

But the crews were simply incompetent, or had incompetent command, and thus they bailed instead of driving away in the Abrams' case, or fighting back whilst driving away in the Leopard's case.

 

They were both destroyed in these incidents eventually, but you cannot characterize the safe ammo racks as some defect.

 

Anyway, I'll let Bronezhilet proceed here.

 

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4 minutes ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

The driver's hatch is not in any way larger on the Leclerc than on any other tank. That is, its weakspot.

Your argument is that statistically, the Leclerc had suffered penetration through the hatch more than any other tank, thus has some sort of issue there that others don't, yet then claim no other tank was hit in a similar way.

 

It makes no sense.

 

If you take all the various engagements in the past decade or so, involving modern tanks, you can see that despite there being little difference in the actual armament, every engagement can be characterized in a different way, something unique to the operators.

 

The Challenger 2 was met with poor tactics, as the only time it was in danger was when someone tried to fire an RPG through its lower glacis. It pierced (some say through the belly via shrapnel which indicates extremely poor belly protection, and some say LFP was hit directly) and the driver lost a toe or something. 

No competent fighter, especially when wielding a weapon as potent as the RPG-29, would waste it on such a target from such an angle. They would save it for a side-shot.

 

Thus it was in no real danger.

 

The Merkava in 2006 was faced with competent and well equipped enemies, but the most wide-spread and most potent weapon used against it was IEDs. ATGMs were also a threat but because of the way they were used, and the very uneven terrain of Lebanon, IEDs were more potent.

 

Statistically because more Merkavas were substantially damaged by IEDs, one could say they had a weakspot in their belly. But for a fact, their V-shaped belly plus an extra V-shaped thick applique plate, created the best passive protection a vehicle could have had at the time.

 

 

Abrams and Leopard in Iraq and Yemen, and Syria, respectively, were hit mostly in their ammo racks on the turret.

That is non-fatal damage. The operators were clearly aiming for weakspots which beforehand was practically unheard of.

But the crews were simply incompetent, or had incompetent command, and thus they bailed instead of driving away in the Abrams' case, or fighting back whilst driving away in the Leopard's case.

 

They were both destroyed in these incidents eventually, but you cannot characterize the safe ammo racks as some defect.

 

Anyway, I'll let Bronezhilet proceed here.

 

I think that statistically speaking the fire suppression system in the Abrams is its weakest point (it caused the most injuries). So clearly the best way of taking out an Abrams is to light a fire near it.

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DarkLabor, I see we won't find any agreement on this matter, so I make this short. You entered this discussion with the mindset that the professionals working for the military procurement agencies in countries that rejected the Leclerc - i.e. Sweden and Greece - are idiots incapable of measuring and doing simple math, who also lie in any about their statements made regarding the Leclerc. At the same time you seem to believe that the French engineers and state officials are more competent than people from any other country. You seem to think that France considered the UAE to be a more trustworthy partner than a NATO country and a Scandinavian member/associate of several European organizations like the WEU, OSCE, etc. That alone shows me, that we could go on for days without finding any conclusion.

 

There seem to be some French sources interested in making the Leclerc look like a "char super", that was only unsuccessful on the export market, because other people had a malevolent intent or were simply dumb. There is for example this page of a French book, which lies about the results of the Leclerc in Greece, claiming that it proved to be better in categories like C3I and firepower, where other tanks got the first place according to Greek sources.

 

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On 7/1/2018 at 10:33 PM, DarkLabor said:

I have reported this "leak" to Nexter and my contacts in french army.
The feed backs I have from it are far away from what I have been able to see with some photos of the dismantlement of some Leclerc or some actual CAD been leaked on some blogs.

 

Maybe because the leaked data is irrelevant for current Leclerc tanks, as it shows an armor package not in use anymore...

 

On 7/1/2018 at 10:33 PM, DarkLabor said:

Not anonymous, it's Marc Chassillan. He even published in on of his article of Raids magazine.
He was not directly responsible for the Leclerc MBT but was in charge of the ARV and then became marketing director in his latest years at Nexter.

 

So, he there is no reason for him knowing that stuff aside of "he should know, he was in the same company". And he is not biased, because at some point he left Nexter. Sure... :rolleyes:

 

On 7/1/2018 at 10:33 PM, DarkLabor said:

Only 13 kits were bought by the UAE and they only protect the chassis sides and rear plus turret bustle sides and rear...
13 out of 93ish tanks sent there. The 13 belong to a mechanised infantry batallion, that is usually sent in the hot zones usually in urban environment but not only...

You can't just have 1000 RHAe KE all around. You always have weakspots because you need to make room for the driver, his hatch, his field of view, etc. Under the same circumstances (angle and location), the same result would have been seen on other tanks... 

Despite the fact that the main charge pierced. It did not go through far... The commander got the spalls from the driver frontal episcope. Other than that the tank was recovered by its own means and sent back. The glacis was patched, the frontal episcope was changed, the interior cleaned and the tank got back in the ranks.

What was the point of your statement? "Oh! If the Leclerc was THAT great, there would be no losses..."
Grow up, nothing is inpenetrable nothing works without quirks.

 

You fail to see the point. I didn't say that any tank would be impenetratable; reality has shown that all tanks are vulnerable to anti-tank weaponry. What I was pointing out is that you cannot make an assessment about a tank's protection this way. To show that a tank is well protected (against the relative threats), it has to be hit by these threats and its armor has to stop the threats.

 

If only a single ATGM hit has been reported and in this case the ATGM managed to penetrate the armor, it doesn't allow us to deduct that the tank would be well protected.

 

As for the UAE and AZUR: They fitted their tanks with additional slat armor protecting the hull front after that incident:

 

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And they also bought about 200 kits of DND's low-fragementation ERA:

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On 7/1/2018 at 10:33 PM, DarkLabor said:

Regarding the greek trials I'm laughing my ass off with your claims as if radios was a crucial thing, no, a corner stone(!) in the assessment done...
In addition, they've used a Leclerc tropicalised prototype (a tank that is, by design heavier than the french version), so yeah lighter tank... LMAO! You're a troll aren't you?

 

You might laugh your ass off, because you intentionally misinterpret my words. The French delegation was accused of stripping off armor modules/weight demonstrators and internal components of their tank before the start of the mobility trials in order to make it several tons lighter. The Greek military wanted to weigh the tank following these accusations, but there was no scale within a reasonable distance that could withstand the weight of tank. They would have been required to delay the evaluation by several days, which they didn't consider feasible.

 

As for the radios: first of all, radios are an integral part of any modern MBT. They might not be a corner stone, but when you have two tanks with similar performance, you'll end up choosing the one with a working radio, rather than the one which has an unreliable radio. Secondly, there is are further implications: If a manufacturer tells you that the radios of his tank have a MTBF of 10,000 hours and then it fails to work 10 times within a two hours period, will you still believe in the other claims regardless reliability/MTBF made by the manufacturers?

Radios might play only a minor role, but Sweden at least values reliability as high as firepower, mobility or armor protection.

 

On 7/1/2018 at 10:33 PM, DarkLabor said:

Look at the base of the turret, it is the same as the other with the "so we replaced the plastic boxes..." as opposed to the other bullshit CAD made by the swedes.
So the those black and white CAD drawings come from Giat Industries; and the other one is just a some stuff put together by the FMV...
The one with the "thin shield" is most likely the first proposition made by the french before the FMV gave their feedback.

 

You keep directly contradicting with statements made by people involved in the Swedish testing program and expect us to believe you...

 

8 hours ago, TokyoMorose said:

SH_MM is far from a "random retard", which is why I wrote this post.

 

I don't think that he meant me - or at least I hope that - but rather the Swedish government worker who leaked the data.

 

1 hour ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

The driver's hatch is not in any way larger on the Leclerc than on any other tank. That is, its weakspot.

Your argument is that statistically, the Leclerc had suffered penetration through the hatch more than any other tank, thus has some sort of issue there that others don't, yet then claim no other tank was hit in a similar way. 

  

It makes no sense.

 

If you take all the various engagements in the past decade or so, involving modern tanks, you can see that despite there being little difference in the actual armament, every engagement can be characterized in a different way, something unique to the operators.

 

If that only had anything to do with the driver's hatch...

 

The original source speaks of the ATGM penetrating the hull front, which (as we can see by looking at photos) was reinforced with slat armor on UAE Leclercs over the time. That the ATGM hit the driver's hatch is a claim made by DarkLabor, who as always didn't bother to provide on of his "super sekrit" sources to support his claims.

 

The point of my original statement is that you cannot say "my favorite tank is well protected, look at that war were only one was reported to have been hit by an ATGM (which penetrated the armor)".

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17 minutes ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

Or is that a new incident? 

 

No, this is the old one; the only reported incident of a Leclerc being hit by an ATGM. Supposedly it was not Sagger, but is believed to have been Konkurs or Konkurs-M by a French instructor of the UAE's army. The driver was killed and the commander was injured.

 

The slat armor was added after this incident. I don't know wether is is capable of fuzing an ATGM warhead at an increased stand-off distance,  but Konkurs(-M) has similar penetration to modern ATGMs. So it might have been added in case of a modern RPG being fired at the hull front.

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10 hours ago, TokyoMorose said:

I hate to barge into someone else's arguments, but several (almost all of his last post really) of DarkLabor's points don't really make sense.

 

 

British representatives still made exorbitant claims about Challenger after it's production run was effectively over despite the fact that we now know from leaked British documents their claims were bunk. People still believe what they want even after a project is over. And GIAT keeping FCS and Armor data "THE MOST protected data" is not unique to them either.

Think what you want about Mr Chassillan, you don't know him and the way he is...
I NEVER said that it was a specificity of Giat Industries (again G.I.A.T. was the previous entity!  G.I.A.T. >> Giat Industries >> Nexter...)

 

10 hours ago, TokyoMorose said:

"Weak points" are not the same weaknesses between tanks. Even assuming that hit was through a weakpoint, it doesn't say much for the LeClerc's design that it managed to get hit in one. The Abrams has a comparatively fragile hatch, and yet in all the times they got hit in the mideast, I do not recall a hit managing to be landed clean on that hatch. No Chally 2 was knocked out to a hit to the drivers' optics despite the enormous chasm that was cut in the glacis armor for it. This suggests that the weakpoint on LeClerc is relatively large.

Weakpoints may vary in terms of angles. But regarding the driver station there always the fact that you'll have to make room for the driver to enter his station and have room for that said station.
Regarding the Leclerc hit in Yemen, that kill was just "lucky" coincidence that the missile hit that specific spot... Higher, it would have ended up in the hatch slab. Lower the full array of the glacis would have offered a better chance to the driver.
The weakspot is anything but big, that's just you who claims such thing...
It's Leclerc not LeClerc nor Le Clerc...
 

 

10 hours ago, TokyoMorose said:

The best proof for the accuracy of the Swedish armor CAD models is the fact that neither the Germans or US (who also keep their exact data secret) complained about inaccuracies in modeling. There's also the fact that not a single outside test of LeClerc ever, has praised its armor in relation to late model Abrams or Leo 2s.

Yeah, sure...
Data that were never returned to the constructors...
Regarding your latest sentence, I'll just skip. Just google KMW and bribe...
 

 

10 hours ago, TokyoMorose said:

As to Greek trials - SH never claimed that the Radios were a crucial thing or a corner stone - just said they interfered. That they used the heavier tropical model does not stop them from reducing the weight of that relative to a normal tropical, which is what I am sure SH meant.

Sure, sure... As if radios were inseparable of the vehicle...
In tank competitions they assess the value of the tank. If there is something elsewhere that is interesting to the customer, they just buy it and integrate it (look at the Galix system used on the STRV 122 or the CLARA on the UAE Leclerc).
The tank sent there was not lighten, at best they did not put ammo in the hull storage... And yet the tank was heavier to the regular UAE variant simply because they installed a video GAS next to the MRF laser receiver and all the instrumental tools to get a wireless monitoring of what's going on inside (see the little white antennas at the back of the turret).
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36549036_10156401683673187_4927883941710
 

 

10 hours ago, TokyoMorose said:

I already touched on this - KMW and GDLS do not openly discuss Abrams or Leopard 2 protection either. Literally nobody does, and SH is well aware of this. And yes, you have to get permission from the relevant export control authorities to get data on those vehicles as well. So the Swedes could jump through all the hoops with GLDS and KMW, but magically not with GIAT?

They simply judge the data given to them not enough and Giat Industries.
 

 

10 hours ago, TokyoMorose said:

SH_MM is far from a "random retard", which is why I wrote this post. If your contacts are in the French army, of course they are going to say the LeClerc is the best. Everyone in the British army continued to say Challenger (both times!) was the best even after embarrassing performances that saw them lose time and again in trials. It is not in the interest of the French army to say their tank isn't the best, and it's also in their interest to tell everyone joining the armored force in France that their tank is the best. Troops in M1A1s in the late 80s were told that the vehicle could deal with every latest and greatest Soviet battlewagon without issue, and that they had armor capable of resisting whatever the Soviets could throw at them. We now know both of these to be categorically false, and that analysts at the time were aware of it in secret.

I was refering to the faceless people that allows themself to comment on the Leclerc without having an actual experience with it. They just spread some random memes that others created to just to bad mouthing it.
And yet, in french army there are huge misconceptions (not to say memes) that are spread over time regarding the Leclerc. Some think Leclerc is a POS just because it can break down. The sad truth is that it is a vehicle that requires a high degree of technical know-how to operate properly in addition to decent preventive maintenance (again, just like any other tank). The current state with defence budget cuts, the fact that tankers don't tank all year long and the fact that maintenance is reduced to its simple expression make favorable conditions to break downs.
Some people think that we bough the ARV "as is" because the french powerpack was worthless. Yet they don't know that this decision was to save money because requalifying another chassis was expensive and time consuming... just for 20 vehicles...
And who said I only had contacts in french army...
 

 

10 hours ago, TokyoMorose said:

You just contradicted yourself. You said "it is the same as the other [...]" and that these drawings came from GIAT while the other is somehow "just a some stuff put together by the FMV". Which is it? Are the turret designs different, or was the FMV model correct?

The 3D models used by Giat Industries were old models of the prototype during aesthetic redrawal (you can see it with the commander sight). One has all the turret bustle roof equipment, the other not (most likely a provisional proposal to the requirements raised by FMV).
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36587381_10156401748088187_6776289406069

The FMV did a 3D model that looks similar to the Leclerc for sure. But nothing proves us that the model is "good enough" for an armor assessment as I said there is dead space that was not even taken into account on their model.
As said before, you can make drawings sign different songs depending on what your goal is. Knowing that KMW was involved in a corruption scandale in Greece doesn't exclude another one six years before hand...

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2 hours ago, SH_MM said:

DarkLabor, I see we won't find any agreement on this matter, so I make this short. You entered this discussion with the mindset that the professionals working for the military procurement agencies in countries that rejected the Leclerc - i.e. Sweden and Greece - are idiots incapable of measuring and doing simple math, who also lie in any about their statements made regarding the Leclerc. At the same time you seem to believe that the French engineers and state officials are more competent than people from any other country. You seem to think that France considered the UAE to be a more trustworthy partner than a NATO country and a Scandinavian member/associate of several European organizations like the WEU, OSCE, etc. That alone shows me, that we could go on for days without finding any conclusion.

he armor)".

Who is more qualified to talk about the actual protection of a tank than the engineers involved in the program?
As I said to your friend, there are high suspicion of corruption/lobbying in those two competitions (with actual confirmation in the case of the greek one).
The UAE trusted the data sent to them and confirmed it with live fire before the production phase entered its first step. If the tests were not confirmed they could end the contract and ask for some conterparts.

 

 

2 hours ago, SH_MM said:

You might laugh your ass off, because you intentionally misinterpret my words. The French delegation was accused of stripping off armor modules/weight demonstrators and internal components of their tank before the start of the mobility trials in order to make it several tons lighter. The Greek military wanted to weigh the tank following these accusations, but there was no scale within a reasonable distance that could withstand the weight of tank. They would have been required to delay the evaluation by several days, which they didn't consider feasible.

 

As for the radios: first of all, radios are an integral part of any modern MBT. They might not be a corner stone, but when you have two tanks with similar performance, you'll end up choosing the one with a working radio, rather than the one which has an unreliable radio. Secondly, there is are further implications: If a manufacturer tells you that the radios of his tank have a MTBF of 10,000 hours and then it fails to work 10 times within a two hours period, will you still believe in the other claims regardless reliability/MTBF made by the manufacturers?

Radios might play only a minor role, but Sweden at least values reliability as high as firepower, mobility or armor protection.

Yeah sure, stipping off armor, this is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.
If you strip off the armor you compromise the balance of the turret. If the french did such thing you could directly see it by the position of bottom line of the skirts compared to the roadwheels... duh...

Radios is just an asset within a weapon platform... If there are falty or not good enough, you just take anything else. The integration is far more easy than what we are seeing with this hybrid made by KNDS.

So yeah... pure BS either from your part or the greek authorities...

 

2 hours ago, SH_MM said:

You keep directly contradicting with statements made by people involved in the Swedish testing program and expect us to believe you...

You seem to think that weapon acquisition is fair and square "the best will be the winner".
You tend to close your eyes on the fact that lobbying is a thing and politics have their word in it also...

 

 

2 hours ago, SH_MM said:

I don't think that he meant me - or at least I hope that - but rather the Swedish government worker who leaked the data.

+1

 

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2 hours ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

The penetrated Leclerc we're talking about, is the one that a Sagger put a hole in its LFP and the driver was injured, like almost a year ago?

Don't remember slat armor there, and it probably wouldn't help anyway.

 

Or is that a new incident?

The one he is refering to is a tank hit in 2015 at the beginning of the conflict in Marib province.
 

The one you are refering to is last year assault on Mocha in Taiz province.

The SLAT were first seen end of last year alongside the new urban kit integrated by the germans.

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Quick question. Usually there are export models of MBTs with the armor downgraded when sold to other nations, to keep the design of their best armors secret. Was this not the case when the Leclercs were sold to the UAE? Did the Leclercs have indigenous armor?

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18 minutes ago, DD000 said:

Quick question. Usually there are export models of MBTs with the armor downgraded when sold to other nations, to keep the design of their best armors secret. Was this not the case when the Leclercs were sold to the UAE? Did the Leclercs have indigenous armor?

As far as we can tell, there is no such thing.
Of course the UAE doesn't have the same level of protection regarding the turret and chassis.
The turret (at the end of the production) is similar to a Leclerc serie 2 while the chassis is way more protected with the extended skirt armor.

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