Zyklon

Photo dump
 
Photos of the Strv Ny contenders + Leopard 2 TVM Max that participated in the competition.

 
Strv 2000 mockup + photos of the dummy 140mm round proposed for the Strv 2000

 
Strv 105

 
Initial deliveries of Leopard 2A4s, Strv 121s, to the P4 Garrison. They still retain their German Army camouflage and markings in most of the pictures.

 

A rare picture: an overhead shot of the M1 Thumper, used to test the XM291 ATAC gun (sometimes referred to as LW120) in conjunction with the XM91 cassette autoloader.
 

 
The Thumper, which was built out of a M1A1 at Anniston Depot, used a 120mm XM291 in three different barrel lengths, one 265in/6.75m long (the standard, "long tube" XM291), a second one cut the same length as the M256 ("short tube", 5.3m) and a third, intermediary one ("medium tube") that stands somewhere between 6.75m and 5.3m.

On-the-move test fires done at speeds of 10, 15 and 20mph showed that the target impact dispersion (TID) was bigger (read: lower accuracy) with the "long tube" XM291 compared to the "short tube" or EVEN the M256, which was problematic. To support the increased barrel length, Benét Labs also had to create a 415lbs and 22in-long extension for the gun cradle...which was later reused in the proposed installation of a XM360E1 inside the notional M1A3...and, quite likely, inside the M1 AbramsX demonstrator showcased at AUSA 2022.
 
 
 
The 1988 M1 Thumper was only fitted with the 120mm ATAC gun, but the XM291 installed on the 1993 M1 CATTB, on the other hand, went on to trial a 120mm and a 140mm barrel. At one point, the ATAC prototype pool was noted to have successfully fired 1,300 rounds, 150 of which were of the 140mm variety. The latter (at least the KE part) was even judged capable of defeating the armor of what was tentatively described as the FST-3 (Future Soviet Tank 3, essentially a Obj.477/477A); there are no known numbers for the 140mm XM964's performance, but the 140mm ATAC itself was expected to produce a great maximum of 25MJ of muzzle energy. The ammunition for the ATAC was developed by Valentec International and Hercules.
 
 
 
While the Thumper was originally meant to trial the 120mm ATAC, some of the official literature indicates it may have also undergone the 120-to-140mm tube conversion and done static test firings at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, where it showed precision equal to a M1A1 but "with greater penetration".
 

>> Source document for the two above scans <<
 
Also, a common mistake (one I've also been guilty of, mea culpa) I often see around in forums and milblogs is that the Thumper is a derivative of the CATTB, which is false, as the Thumper (AKA the ATAC Demonstration System) predates the CATTB Phase I by at least five years.
 
M1 CATTB Phase I (using a M1 hull as basis), in 93/94, about to be shipped to Aberdeen Proving Grounds for testing:
 

 
Picture of the CATTB Phase II (ATTD?) hull under construction, completed in 1994. Note the closed back with no exhaust grille, the absence of apertures for torsion bars (replaced by a hydro-pneumatic suspension system) and the smaller engine compartment designed to receive a Cummins XAV-1000 AIPS instead of a Honeywell AGT-1500. The freed-up volume between the XAV and the turret basket was reclaimed to accept two vertically-stacked non-ready cassettes housing a total of 22 rounds (either single-piece 120mm or two-piece 140mm), which would have given the CATTB Phase II a maximum loadout of 39 rounds (either 120mm or 140mm), just five less than a M1A2. The huge tradeoff, of course, was that all this made the CATTB massively overweight.
 

 
Apparently, at least one of the two CATTB testbeds is currently sitting at the Sierra Army Depot in Herlong, California, but one has to wonder if it's not a case of mistaken identity; the Thumper was, after all, spotted in 2010/09/30, in Ohio, as it was being relocated by train to parts unknown. Here's to hoping any of these big bois shall make their way to a museum one day, as did the TTB, the Crusader and many others before them.
 
XM291 ATAC with its 17-round Benét Labs XM91 bustle autoloader:
 

Kind of sort of a Korean tank but also not really. The Chieftain posted a few pictures this past weekend of an interesting proposal by AAI to the South Koreans for the ROKIT program. As with everything AAI there's nothing online that I could find outside of what The Chieftain posted so I'm not sure of any details beyond what his Facebook post says. I'll keep looking for info but I'm doubtful I'll find anything online.
Facebook post text:
 

 

Japan should be selecting between the AMV XP and MAV very soon. In the preliminary request, there was a request for 29 vehicles of either type to begin replacing the Type 96. The winner of the program will have to be decided too before the budget request is sent out because they need to know the unit cost to know how much to request.

More technical details on the ASCALON :
 
https://www.forcesoperations.com/ascalon-du-concept-aux-champs-de-tirs-portugais/
 
Energy of an APFSDS rod at the muzzle of 17 to 20 MJ Increased energy attained by increasing the volume of the chamber which is doubled compared to the Leclerc. For comparaison Rhm went the other way with their 130 mm, they kept a small chamber volume (15L) and increased the peak pressure, so we can assume the volume of the ASCALON's chamber is probably around 30L 20L (thanks @SH_MMfor the correction). Lower peak pressure in the ASCALON may (if the gun can handle it) indicate more growth potential by increasing the peak pressure in the future. Peak pressure in the ASCALON's chamber is lower than in the Leclerc (GIAT CN120-26). For comparaison the nominal pressure for the Leclerc firing an OFL 120 F1/DM43 at 21°C is around 4160 bars (don't know the peak value associated). Gun lenght of 7,3 m (40 cm more than the Leclerc's 120 mm L52 and 10 cm more than Rhm's 130 mm) Mass of around 3 tons (roughly the same than Rhm's 130 mm) The semi-telescoped APFSDS round is 1,3 m long for a mass around 30 kg.

It doesn't matter for whom Oryx works or whom he supports. The point is that majority of the documented losses on his blog are real. Most of them have gigantic letters Z and V written on them and a large part of the machinery is also exclusively used only by Russia. There is certainly a grey zone in which certain losses can be attributed to both sides (lostarmour.info for comparison) but that doesn't make the list useless because there is still a lot of undisputable facts which one can take from the database. See, the 4th Guards Kantemirovskaya tank division is the only unit in this war using T-80U family of tanks. Those can't be mixed with Ukrainean. They are Russian and they are of 4th division. That's a fact. This division which was considered one of the best in the Russian army beyond any doubt lost more than 1/3 of its tanks. It doesn't mattter who delivered the message but without Oryx's list we would hardly know that because lostarmour doesn't show Russian losses at all (perhaps is not allowed to do so). 
 
My previous point that there are most likely numerous Ukrainean losses missing in the database was not about the databse per se. It's natural thing done by the side which controls the territory where losses occur. See how many Azeri losses surfaces only after the 2019 war? We will never know how many never got on public. That's simply the advantage of the side which controls the battlefield and it will continue to be like that in any future conflict.  

Two incredibly early K2 full scale mock ups from a documentary series that I dug up on the development of Korean weapons. 
 

 

It seems that a K2NO has made it to Norway for trials. Not sure if the two K2NOs were offloaded or if it was just the one but I guess we'll see more soon.
 

Swiss 140 mm HEAT-MP-T :
 

Some bits of information about Armata-based vehicles from article at VPK news.
https://vpk-news.ru/articles/65070
   About start of deliveries of Armatas:
 
About Syrian trip:
 

1. Introduction
 
Stealth is one of those buzz-words that everyone knows. Stealth makes aircraft invisible to radar, allowing a stealth plane to sneak up and punch other aircraft or SAM sites with impunity. Stealth is widely acknowledged as one of the most fundamental technologies that all new combat aircraft need to have. Stealth is also, like SH's old friend NERA, mostly completely misunderstood. This thread will attempt to change that, at least a little.
 
HUGE DISCLAIMER: I know, at best, the basics of what is essentially one of the darkest arts in an already black magic-heavy field (radio and radar engineering). I'll be relying heavily on others to correct my obvious mistakes, but this is and will be the lies-to-children version of the field, as told by another child. Still, given the state of knowledge out there, it's probably better than nothing.
 
2. The most basic basics
 
Okay, you ask, what is stealth then if we're all misunderstanding it? Here I think that the best analogy is that stealth is like camouflage, but for aliens. Camouflage famously entails the 5 (sometimes expanded to 7 with speed and spacing) S's: Shape, Shine, Shadow, Silhouette and Sound. Each operates on somewhat different principles, and can be more or less important in different scenarios, but are united in terms of how human senses work. We are pattern-finding creatures with passive senses, so anything that breaks up visual or auditory patterns, blends one into the background, or limits the amount of noise or reflected light one gives off will make you harder for another human to spot.
 
Radar, however, is generally not passive. Instead, a radar set sends out a beam of electromagnetic energy and looks for an echo. There's a huge amount of complexity in how this can be done (what frequency to use, how to generate and send the beam, how to track the returns and so on), but that's radar at it's most basic. So, like camouflage, ways to avoid radar will be united in trying to trick or defeat this basic mechanism. These principles are, roughly: Absorption, Redirection, Scattering and Emissions. Finally, and just to complete a fun acronym, there's also the side issue of radio-related Shenanigans. Taken together, these measures can significantly reduce how easy an aircraft is for a radar to "see" from certain angles.
 
Absorption is simple in concept: if something eats up the radar waves before it can get reflected, then the receiver doesn't get to pick up a signal and the plane doesn't get found. There's a whole realm of sneaky material science that goes into this, but from my understanding the two most common techniques currently being used are non-metallic structural components (which can be more or less transparent to radar) and foams or paints with nanomaterials in them (the famous grey stealth paint job generally being a weather coating instead of the magic material itself). These can be used in all sorts of clever ways: for instance, by making the forward edge of your wing out of radar transparent composite and then packing the area behind it with cones made out of radar-absorbing foam. Absorption can't make a non-stealthy design stealthy, however. It's more of a "cut 10% off our already-low radar return" sort of strategy.
 
Redirection is one of the single biggest reasons why stealth aircraft have their characteristic look. Generally the principle here is to make as many surfaces on the aircraft as parallel as possible, in order to direct the majority of your return to one or two places rather than scattering it all over the sky. Since the most common place you don't want returns to come back to is directly to the front, this also means that swept wings and tails are a must. It's also why flat bottoms are preferred: if someone is looking at your aircraft from below, then a flat bottom is the one shape guaranteed not to provide a good return until you are right above them.
 
The major enemy of this approach is the dreaded corner reflector, which is where any right-angled surface will reflect a return straight back to it's source. This is why stealth aircraft all have angled fuselages, hard chines and cranked tailplanes, and also why even things like landing gear hatches and bomb bay doors end up with saw-tooth profiles (note: not 90-degree saw teeth if you can help it, because corner reflector). The other major enemy of this approach is aerodynamics, which inherently prefers rounded frontal profiles that are great at reflecting returns back along an entire wing or fuselage segment. So stealth aircraft also tend to have aerodynamic features (sharp-nosed, flat-bottomed airfoil profiles, for instance) that make them a bastard to fly.
 
Scattering: if you're doomed to reflect something in an unwanted direction, then it helps to make the surface convex in order to disperse the return. This is seen in the shallow, curved fuselage profiles of stealthy aircraft which, along with their beaky fronts and hard chines, gives them a sort of alien bird quality. It's also really useful when designing air intakes for the engines you've sensibly buried inside the fuselage (seriously, the front of a jet engine is like a disco ball for creating noticeable radar returns): an S-shaped intake reflects about half as much energy as a straight intake with a similar profile.
 
Emissions are more or less self-explanatory: if you're trying to hide in the dark, then don't bring a flashlight with you. This means no big radio sources or old-school radar sets that a receiver can easily pick up on. I've heard that modern AESA radars are harder to spot for {electronic black magic} reasons, but the principle still stands.
 
Shenanigans are what you resort to in the corner cases where one or the other approaches described above are not possible. These usually make use of unintuitive electromagnetic wave-specific physics like half-wave resonance. The intake screens on the F117, for instance, seem to be sized so that the radar wave "sees" it as a solid surface and bounces off while still allowing at least a trickle of air in to feed the engines. These tricks tend to be fiddly, however, and can go very wrong when faced with radar systems that use frequencies much higher or lower than the ones that they were designed to counter.
 
3. Artists are dumb and wrong
 
So, having learned the barest minimum about how stealth works, let's point and laugh at the mistakes of artists who ape the form of stealth without understanding the content. Note: it's now almost impossible to grab high-resolution images off of websites, so you'll just have to google these things if you want to see them in any sort of level of detail.
 
Example 1: the F-19 from model kits in the late 80s
 
A fictional stealth plane from the time where people could be forgiven for not knowing a damn thing about stealth. The top-mounted air intake and engines are a good idea, but the rounded wings/fuselage profile and anhedral wingtips look like a great way to get returns from every direction. 5/10 for effort at a time when nobody knew what stealth really was.
 
Example 2: F/A-37 Talon from the movie Stealth
 
Considering that the damn movie is called "Stealth", the Talon is a remarkable example of a bunch of artists googling stealth aircraft and then adding enough greebles so that the result is neither stealthy nor much of an aircraft. It has intakes everywhere, a bunch of curves but few parallel lines, a swing-wing setup that I can only imagine puts a bunch of nooks and crannies into the airframe that reflect well, random greebles off at right angles and on and on. 0/10, the aircraft plays Incubus when it's angry and is therefore canonically a moody teenager.
 
Example 3: XA-20 Razorback from Tom Clancy's giant, throbbing brain
 
It's an F-20 that's inexplicably been converted into a CAS aircraft (presumably because, in the dark future of 2020, transaircraft rights are now government policy). That idiocy aside, it's more or less fine. Turns out that when you crib directly off of someone else's work you won't fuck things up too badly.

Some high-res K2NO photos:
 

 

 

 
Source: https://www.tu.no/artikler/slik-vil-nye-norske-stridsvogner-se-ut-dersom-de-bestilles-fra-sor-korea/514315#

The possible K2NO
 
Fitted with Trophy radars and Norwegian camo. It's said that this K2 will be spotted at the upcoming ADEX 2021 (along with the Desert K2 we've seen at expos in the past) so we may get more pictures and details then.
 

I wish I was given 85 million pounds to think about boats.

Some photos from the ROK Army Tank Competition currently under way. This competition is being held by the ROK Army Armor School with various vehicles (M48A5K, K1E1, K1A2, K2, K21, and K200) and the winning team will participate in the US Army Sullivan Cup.
 

 

K1A2 tanks of the Capital Mechanized Infantry Division during a live fire exercise at Nightmare Range.
 

 

This is FUTURE TEXAS, son. We measure our armour in fractions of 16ths of a mile and like it.

Stolen from otvaga, tankoff did a summary post on Arena systems.
 
   Arena (1993) patent:

   1 are countermunitions in their launchers, placed around turret. 2 is radar station on top of the turret.
 
 
   Arena-M APS with correctable trajectory countermunitions:

   Compared to previous version much less countermunitions and launchers are used, subsystems are more compact. Less weight, statistically less vulnerable to fragmentation damage.
 
 
   Countermunition schematics. CM is connected to launcher with a wire, BTW.

 
 
   Patent for BMP-3 equipped with Arena, pic showing possible use of APS as a system to automatically turn turret of AFV in the direction from which AFV was shot at.

 
   Looks like Arena was offered to Germans in 90s. Pics from Wehrtechnisches Symposium, 1995.

 
 
   One of first article about Arena, 1996.

 
 
   2012 - model of Arena-M (or Arena with correctable countermunitions) was shown.

 
   At RAE-2013 T-72 with shown with similar system, but with some additional changes.

 
 
   Arena-E with correctable countermunitions, video by KBM.
 
50m detection range, minimal reaction time - 0.04s, same direction is covered by at least 2 countermunitions, can intercept incoming projectiles with speeds of 70 to 1000 m/s. Can work of 8 hours without stops, weight - up to 900kg.
   Laser sensors (same as on Shtora) can be part of Arena. APS can be intergrated into BMS.
 

   Countermunition launch. Small holes just under cap/cover probably are impulse jets to rotate countermunition after launch.
 

   Upper schematics proably shows those impulse jets.
 

   Launch.
 
 
   Question if it is actually capable of intercepting top attack threats in configurations shown to public is still open. Max detection range is 50 meters, but how much radars can see "up" is question that i don't know answer for. Vertically aimed launchers suggest that at least ATGM that "overfly" target (like Bill 2 or TOW-2B) are covered by modernised system. Original Arena (at least in 1995 config) was not capable of intercepting overfly ATGMs.   
   Another question without answer is how much "correction" measures can change facing of countermunition. 
 
   Against top attack threats there were ideas to place CMs nearly horizontaly and aim them upwards.

 

Poland did not look to the K2PL; the K2PL was an unsolicited offer by H. CEGIELSKI-POZNAŃ S.A. (a company with no experiences in making tanks or other forms of AFV) and Hyundai-Rotem. It was not an initative of the Polish government/army.
 
 
It is by all measures a bad deal for Poland. The whole deal is contradictory to the previous decades of Polish defence spending/doctrine.
total contract value is supposedly up to $6 billion USD or up to $24 million per tank. Obviously in reality it doesn't work like that, because the contract also contains lots of other items (training equipment, simulators, spare parts, technical documentation, etc.) - but the only reason all of that is needed is the fact that the Abrams is a new type of tank for the Polish Army local industry involvement in M1A2 SEP v3 is apparently terribly low, at least according to Polish Twitter users. Currently it seems to be zero (all tanks refurbished and upgraded in the US with US standard parts, no "polonization"), but there is hope that support/maintenance contracts and production of spare parts could be taken over by Polish industry the M1A2 SEP v3's weight exceeds the maximum weight limit of many Polish bridges. Aside of the costs involved with fitting new torsion bars and running gear elements to the Leopard 2, the capacity of Polish bridges and AVLBs was cited by the Polish Army is a reason for the 60 tonnes weight limit of the Leopard 2PL tank. Poland has reportedly ordered up to 250 tanks, which is enough for four tank bataillons (which in the Polish Army have 58 tanks each), but there is a declared need (based on Polish MoDs plan) for twelve tank bataillons (4 Leopard 2 + 8 other) the Polish Army already had a program for a new generation of MBT as part of the Wilk program. The Polish industry had been working on a new design with unmanned turret and autoloader (basically a Polish Armata-lite) to fulfill the requiremenet in previous tank procurement/upgrade programs such as the Leopard 2PL, Poland handicapped itself (paying more, demanding less) in order to involve the local industry in the program. That also includes the transfer-of-technology and rights to a certain degree. All of this was useless with Wilk being essentially canceled thanks to the Abrams purchase the M1A2 SEP v3 is purchased using a "special budget" that is not part of the defence budget - where the money exactly comes remains unknown. There are rumors that PiS wants to use EU's Covid relief fund for the purchased, but that is tied to certain uses. There are also speculations that this special budget needs to be created by cutting other budgets the Polish military has a much more urgent need for other weapons than tanks the Polish MoD declared that Abrams tanks were needed to counter the T-14 Armata, which has yet to enter production With the $6 bn USD, Poland could have spent one billion on modernizing OBRUM's tank plant and buy the licence to make 250 Leopard 2A7+ tanks, which would have been brand new rather than refurbished, upgraded old tanks. They even could have saved some money, as they wouldn't have the need to set up a complete new infrastructure for a new Leopard 2 variant. Or - which would be even better - a lot of other military projects could have been funded.
 
In terms of combat capabilities, the Abrams is obviously a lot better than the old T-72M1R and PT-91 - with the exception of the gunner's sight; even T-72M1R has third generation thermals by now.
 
 
Poland already has four tank batallions with Leopard 2 tanks; half of them have the Leopard 2A5 (which is/will be modernized with new third generation thermal imagers made by PCO S.A.) and the other half receiving the Leopard 2PL (which was delayed due to the wish for a greater involvement of the Polish industry). In total there are 249 Leopard 2 tanks in the Polish inventory of which 142 are going to be Leopard 2PLs; not sure where you got the "5 times the number".
 
As for the Polish tank force: it is too large. After the Cold War, Poland kept a huge tank force mostly for industry-political reasons - state-owned workers of OBRUM/Bumar-Łabędy needed to be kept employed. There also was the hope to gain a boost in foreign relations with the sale of Polish-made tanks. From a military perspective, this was a bad decision, as other - more important - capabalities received a lower priority or where even canceled.
In reality the obsolete T-72s (and even the PT-91s) had extremely bad avialability rates, broke down often and costed more money than they were worth. Poland should have downsized its tank fleet to a "normal" level (by post-Cold War standards) and modernized the rest of its military. That would have been a lot more reasonable than replacing obsolete tanks that were never needed in the first place.
 
 
I didn't know that Greece operates the M1A2 SEP v3

Some photos from the same event that vid was taken at
 

 

Results of mine detonation under it.

 
   Also, interesting bit - BMP-2 vs BMD-4 suspension:

   Smoothly going over bumps.
 

   A NU SUKA BLYAD

Based on what? Did South Korea somehow get access to better CPUs and circuit boards in 2008 than Germany did in 2014? Did they somehow produce better thermals years before Germany? How did they end up with a better BMS?
 
The Leopard 2 doesn't have one BMS, it has nearly a dozen. While the South Korean BMS might be better than 1990s IFIS and the old FüInfoSys Heer, there are many different types of BMS integrated into the Leopard 2. Greece uses Rheinmetall's INCHINOS on the Leopard 2A6 HEL, Sweden has the TCCS (Tank Command and Control System), Spain has LINCE integrated into the Leopardo 2E, the German-Dutch Panzerbataillon 414 has tanks capable of operating either with IFIS or with the Dutch ELIAS, Switzerland has a RUAG-made BMS integrated into the Panzer 87WE, Singapore has integrated an Elbit BMS into its Leopard 2SG... the list is long. For the VJTF 2023, Germany has purchased new software from SitaWare... AFAIK the same system is used on the Leopard 2A7DK.
 
 
In terms of technology, I don't see how KMW's offer should be inferior to what Hyundai-Rotem can offer. The Leopard 2A7 is fitted with a Centurion i7 and a KommServer by ATM Computer (a subsidiary of KMW)... that's already overkill for a BMS. Combined these two computers have basically 100 times (or more) the computational power found on M1A2 Abrams and Stridsvagn 122 (pre-upgrade), which already had working types of BMS.
 
Given that Norway was one of the backers of NGVA, they probably demand a solution compliant with STANAG 4754; this would mean that both hardware and software of the current Korean BMS would be incompatible with the Norwegian requirements, whereas KMW already has a fully compliant solution. Software-wise I am 90% sure, that Norway will demand the incorpation of its own Kongsberg ISC, that has already been fielded on the recently upgraded Norwegian CV9030s.
 
 
Two things would need to happen before that:
KSTAM I or KSTAM II would have to enter production KSTAM I or KSTAM II would have to enter service with the ROKA While KSTAM sounds cool, neither KSTAM I nor KSTAM II has evolved beyond the prototype stage. KSTAM II btw. was developed in cooperation with Diehl Defence of Germany, which would have offered the solution on the European market, if development had ever finished.
 
In terms of firepower, K2 is at a disadvantage. Four NATO countries have already committed to the improved L/55A1 smoothbore gun (with two having already taken delivery of tanks with it), the older L/55 gun of the K2 won't allow firing the same high pressure ammunition. The K2 also lacks an ammunition data link to fire programmable ammunition; currently the ROKA uses the K280 HEAT-MP-T round, a conceptual copy of the American M830A1 MPAT round. This cannot compete against the DM11 HE-ABM round.
 
 
That is true, but only if equate "future proofing" with "weight until the GVW is reached". In reality, there are a lot of other factors to consider. Who will pay for the development of upgrades for the K2NO, if it was selected by Norway? Thanks to the LEOBEN community and the shared IP, the Leopard 2 will see upgrade options even once phased out by Germany. Rheinmetall already has showcased a new turret design with 130 mm gun and autoloader, which Germany will not adopt. Rheinmetall's Leopard 2 ATD and RUAG Leopard 2 MLU are great examples regarding how there will be upgrade options fo the Leopard 2, that haven't been paid by Germany or any other Leopard 2 user nation.
 
Growth potential will also be dependent on user base (a larger number of user is more likely to fund upgrades or to make the market attractive for third-party upgrade options like the Leopard 2 ATD and MLU) and on compability with the existing architecture. The NGVA is a big improvement for that.
 
In the end the weight will also depend on the configuration selected by Norway. Maybe they'll opt for a Swedish-style configuration with only a few tanks having mine protection kits (for use in peace-keeping missions) and the rest of them being 2-3 tonnes lighter.
 
 
A lot of claims, but many of them are hardly relevant. Radar/Laser warning systems are available for any tank as retro-fit option, most militaries however do not consider them cost-effective (I'd personally love to see them on every AFV). There are also RWS/LWS available for the Leopard 2.
 
Having a radar integrated into the turret has up- and downsides. A radar actively emitts radio waves that can be detected by the enemy from huge distances (depending on equipment) - that might be less relevant against North Korea, but against Russia Norway might be interested in a less emissive system.
 
The "better placement of the radar" is also a silly argument - then you are comparing a Leopard 2A7A1 with Trophy APS to a K2 Black Panther - without any APS. KAPS is immature and unproven; it is still in the prototype stage. It also likely would fail to be fully compliant with NATO STANAG 4822 and STANG 4686.
 
Auto-tracking is being incorporated into the Leopard 2Ax's FCS (it is also already available on the Leopard 2 ATD), it will be available in time of the Norwegian tank procurement program. I doubt that the hydropneumatic suspension of the K2 offers better recoil dampening than the hydraulic shock-absorbers of the Leopard 2, specifically given that the latter tank has greater suspension travel.
 
The funny thing about the EuroPowerPack is that it might have "Euro" in its name, but it is not used in Europe. There are no spare parts for it in Europe, they would be build-to-order. The Merkava 4's EPP is built in the United States (so that it can be paid with the money of American tax payers), the UAE's Leclerc tanks (contract finished more than a decade ago) and the South Korean K2 tanks (contract handled by an Asian MTU subsidiary) do not warrant a production line of the EEP in Europe. The latest K2 batch still keeps a Renk transmission btw.
 
 
That is not true, electronic systems can have a massive impact on weight and system complexity, specifically given the usually small power budget available in AFVs. The K2 only has a - rather poor - softkill APS. KAPS development has never been finished, the system is not ready for production.
 
 
Because Trophy is mature and cheap.
 
 
You cannot simply look at total contract value and then assume that this is identical to vehicle price. Hungary pays a lot more money, because they also want training of their crews (something that would be cheaper when switching from Leopard 2A4 to 2A7+), spare parts (which in some regards already exist in Norway thanks to the Leopard 2A4, Wisent and Leguan Leopard 2), infrastructure (already existing in Norway), ammunition, technical documentation, used tanks for training, etc.
 
The real costs of a tank become apparent through its lifetime. Developing upgrades, ordering spare parts, training and exercies. The Leopard 2 is the king in this regard, specifically for a country like Norway, which is part of NATO and is located next to its closest - Leopard 2 operating - allies. It might not be common in Asia, but NATO countries have very deep cooperation. Spare parts, ammunition and even new vehicles are often ordered either through OCCAR (a NATO agency) or as part of bi-/multi-national procurement programs in order to drive down costs. Training together with foreign soldiers or even in different countries is common, just like exchanging knowledge and - if required - spare parts.
 
Buying the K2 would mean major disadvantages for Norway.
 
 
Aside of the fact that KSTAM II only exists as showcase models for old expositions, it would not be able to penetrate the roof armor of the T-14. The T-14 does not have "soft ERA" on the roof. SMArt 155 has a 155 mm diameter warhead and can only penetrate 120-150 mm of steel armor; many modern MBTs can be fitted with add-on armor to stop that (including the Leopard 2). KSTAM II with its even smaller warhead is easy to counter. Defeating TOW-2B is possible with light-weight add-on armor (Roof-PRO and AMAP-R).
 
The T-14 is probably the tank with the best roof armor available today.