SH_MM

MBDA has developed the Enforcer based on the requirements of the German military (or rather informal talks preceeding the official requirement). It seems to be more suited for the role, at least when all the claims from the various sources that have reported on its development are correct. Spike-SR also would be a good choice though.

Note that the Ajax for LAND 400 actually features a raised hull, as the British Ajax model doesn't provide enough space for dismounts in full combat gear on blast-proof seats in the rear compartment. If Australia had be open for IFVs with unmanned turrets, we maybe could have seen a Puma with a similiar roof design.

They have been offering this system for a few years already. https://www.rheinmetall-defence.com/en/rheinmetall_defence/systems_and_products/protection_systems/sonstige_schutzprodukte/solarshield.php

Borsuk finally starts to look like a real vehicle.

The German army has issued a tender for the "Leichtes Wirkmittel 1800+" for the special forces. It shall be a lightweight fire-and-forget ATGM with multi-purpose warhead. Currently MBDA's Enforcer and Spike-SR are confirmed competitors.

"Augmented vision" (as stated in the requirement) is not augmented reality. It could be a different way to describe the crew's task being assisted by cameras.

https://www.janes.com/article/82694/rheinmetall-to-demonstrate-its-ads-active-protection-system-on-us-army-strykers

I guess this means the Ajax IFV variant is not ready yet...

The vehicle shown in the drawings sent to the UK has air vents on both sides of the engine compartment, but none at the rear. The armor scheme shows air vents on only one side of the hull, but also at the rear of the hull. The overall width is also different. IMO that also suggests that both vehicles are related to the same design, but at different stages of development. The twin-gun casemate tank concept was being considered between 1972 and 1985 with multiple, slightly different designs (later ones I supposed with composite armor).

This is not entirely correct, because the frontal armor is only 703 mm thick instead of 727 mm. I guess it is a slightly different state of development of the same vehicle.

Czechs have not made their choice of IFV yet. Puma is officially favored, but being to expensive with their current budget.

German concept proposed during the Kampfpanzer 3 / FMBT project to the UK via https://andrei-bt.livejournal.com/928203.html Twin-gun casemat tank from Maschinenbau Kiel: Low-profile turret tank with driver in turret by Krauss-Maffei (similar to MBT-70, but with 120 mm smoothbore gun and manual loader - maybe derived from the Eber concept): Data: Armor is spaced steel plates, sometimes with fuel inbetween them. The MaK design has 727 mm thick armor, but the actual steel thickness is just 259 mm... Note that according to Krapke a third concept (AFAIK either turretless or with unmanned turret?) was proposed.

Actually PSM has said on multiple occasions that they already have CAD designs of other Puma variants (supposedly they marketed some to the German army, they also confirmed all variants for the Czech IFV tender are possible & some design already exists and they told Col. MacGregor that there would/could be a light tank variant with 120 mm gun). It's kind of similar with the Boxer, which was offered to Saudi-Arabia once in a dozen different variants (including a version with 105 mm gun, a VIP transport version, a variant with dozer blade to clear road blocks, etc.). The LAND 400 Phase 2 purchase of the Boxer by Australia is also based on numerous CAD designs (like the Boxer recovery variant with crane)... Still Puma has probably only limited chances, depending on what factors Australia considers more import. I doubt that Rheinmetall would block offering the Puma to Australia (they also offered it to the Czech Republic, where the Lynx was also offered) - for Rheinmetall offering both Puma and Lynx only increases the chances of winning the contract. The Lynx and Puma are not direct competitors based on the price, the Lynx was designed for customers who cannot afford the Puma. Personally I'd love to see a modified Puma by PSM with larger internal space (raised roof, stretched hull) and potentially a different turret (bigger gun). I think it will be more interesting to see how other vendors deal with the requirements. For Rheinmetall it is pretty straight-forward to keep the Lance turret (either Mk 1 or Mk 2), a 30/35 mm gun and a Spike-LR II launcher. But what will General Dynamics do to create an AJAX IFV variant? I have trouble believing that the Lance-based turret is available - even if it was, a 40 mm CTAS gun would hardly be optimal for Australia (introducing a new calibre is not ideal). Also using Lockheed Martin UK's turret with Javelin missiles doesn't make much sense when the Spike missile is already chosen for the Boxer. So will the Ajax be offered with an unmanned turret from Israel as showcased on the ASCOD 35 at Eurosatory and tested in the Czech Republic? The biggest changes will need to be made to the K-21 IFV though...

Out of curiosity, who is this Matthew? Does his company have any affiliation to the LAND 400 project or one contender? Or is his info just based on unofficial rumors?

Call me old fashioned, but IMO the contender with "best technology" and "best value for money" should always win. Wether this is the AJAX or another offer has yet to be decided.

Peace, finally! http://www.maz-online.de/Lokales/Potsdam-Mittelmark/Bad-Belzig/Bad-Belzig-und-Daenemark-beenden-Krieg-nach-473-Jahren The German city Bad Belzig and Denmark have decided to sign a peace treaty after being officially at war (from the perspective of the German city) for 473 years. The whole conflict was rediscovered a year ago, when the old declaration of war was found in an archive. The king of Denmark didn't pay 20,000 Thaler salary to the ruler of the city, who served as a high-ranked mercenary in the Danish army for some time. The Danish ambassador will visit the city on Sunday to sign the peace treaty.

These vehicles are all based on the CV90 Mk IIIB, the most advanced model currently in use. Some of them were created by rebuilding older vehicles (which means complete rebuilding, including cutting and welding of the basic steel structure), others are newly made. If Australia had the same "maturity" requirement for Phase 3 that was also used during Phase 2, this would be the best possible CV90 model that BAE Systems could offer. There are also several other variants based on older hulls, such as a self-propelled anti-air gun, a light/medium tank and a mortar carrier, which could be interesting for Australia. I don't think it is a far stretch to assume that all these variants could - in modernized form - be manufactured on the latest CV90 Mk IV chassis. In the end there isn't even a proper IFV variant of the AJAX... I don't see why one should say the AJAX family has an advantage in terms of being more proven offer the CV90. That the British army is still negotiating about a delivery of a first batch of ARES vehicles is indeed odd. Remember the Piranha Evolution (~ Piranha 5 prototype), the British army's primary choice as wheeled vehicle for FRES? The only reason why the British now want to buy the Boxer was the inability to negotiate a favorable contract with GDELS. A lot of vehicles are tested and never purchased. The Austrian military for example tested the Pandur II and the heavier ASCOD 2, would you consider these vehicles mature if nobody had purchased them? But in the end that doesn't matter, as maturity is not a requirement for LAND 400 Phase 3.

Yes, that was the case. The idea was to open the door only halfway, so the opening could be used as a makeshift hatch. The series production variant has a proper hatch on the roof, I don't think the pre-production variant featured that already.

Many CV90 variants are ready and operational with Norway and other customers...

...

There was a "Tactical RPG Airbag Protection System" made by Textron. It was tested.

Out of curiosity, what is the deadline for submissions?

Is known what exact parts of the tested vehicles will be part of the purchased configuration? Will they feature the SAS and the laser warning system? The model from the contract signing event also has the (mock-up) ADS:

I guess that depends on the exact circumstances of the cross country march, such as the terrain conditions and various other factors which are not that easy to predict. The Chieftain has a smaller fuel tank and an effective cross-country range of only 200 to 300 kilometres according to British writers. That would make a 300 km cross-country march rather hard to achieve. As for the Leopard 1, there is quite a bit data from the development published in various books. During the early trials in Bourges and Satory, a Leopard 1 prototype reached an average speed of 60.5 km/h on a 269 km track - the AMX-30 prototype reached only an average speed of about 50 km/h on the same track. After the trilateral trials, the testing of the Leopard 1 prototypes continuted with the best performing one managing to drive a distance of 607 kilometres in 11 hours and 48 minutes (of which 9 hours and 12 minutes were driven, the rest of the time was used for refueling and maintenance) - it reached an average speed 65.2 km/h. During the trials in Italy, the AMX-30 and Leopard 1 were equally fast, but the Leopard 1 had better acceleration and steering. How well the off-road performance of tanks is greatly depends on the terrain. Extremely uneven, muddy or harsh terrain is harder to cross, reducing speed significantly. In hard terrain (one of) the Leopard 1 protoypes reached a speed of 24 km/h. In other off-road terrain the typical speed is 40 km/h. The Chieftain's top speed (on road) is quoted as 42.7 km/h maximum by Rob Griffin (engine is governed). Therefore I'd assume that it perform quite a bit worse in light off-road terrain than the Leopard 1, though in heavy terrain both of them will be very slow, so the difference might not matter as much. If I am understanding the following Dutch graphic correctly, the Chieftain only worked for 35.7 in a 48 hour march during the Dutch tests, whereas the Leopard 1 worked for 44.2 out of the 48 hours. In the road travel section, the Leopard 1 drove 161% of the required distance in 6.9 hours. The Chieftain reached 106% in 5.4 hours, suggesting that it would have reached 135% in a time of 6.9 hours (if it would have managed to drive that long). This means the Leopard 1 was 19% faster, if realibility was equal. On terrain, if we account for the shorter time that the Chieftain worked (and pretend it had the same reliability as the Leopard 1), it would have reached only 84% of the required distance, the Leopard 1 reached 93% - a speed advantage of 10% for the Leopard 1. I don't think it makes sense to argue that the Chieftain's lower mobility made no difference (specifically if we keep the lower reliability in mind). Even the British miltiary was disastisifed according to authors like Simon Dunstan. The Canadian army rejected the Chieftain for its poor mobility and reliability, while Germany also rejected the Chieftain (both M60(A0) and Chieftain were tested by the Bundeswehr, but the Leopard 1 was - unsurprisingly given that it was tailor-made to meet the Bundeswehr's requirements and was made by the German industry - prefered). Already posted the actual article from the German army on the problem ealier in this discussion: The army did not underestimate the height of German soldiers, but intentionally lowered the compatibility of the Puma to only 75th percentile of German men (184 cm aka ~6 ft). This decision was made to allow increasing the protection level while staying within the weight limit set by the A400M transportability requirement. Without reducing the height limit for dismounts, it was not possible to achieve the required level of protection and the A400M compatibility at the same time. Back when this decision was made, a steady supply of soldiers in the matching height was guaranteed, as Germany still had conscription. After conscription was abolished, the German army asked for design changes to fit German soldiers with a height of up to the 97th percentile (191 cm). However it was not possible to investigate wether taller people than originally required would fit into the Puma, as developement was still underway and the ergonomics are only fully decided in the final design stages (after the type of seats, the arrangement of storage boxes, etc. had been decided). At this time it was also not really economical to make large changes to the Puma's design. Currently the army is investigating wether changes to the interior configuration and the seats can allow taller soldiers to fit into the Puma. From what I have heard and read (though that are only rumors, haven't seen a direct confirmation of them), the actual height limit isn't directly set by any military standard, but rather by general workplace safety regulations that also apply in the civilian sector. There have been numerous news reports on how modern German military hardware and specifically the Puma have to meet regulations, that don't make much sense from the military perspective. One of the stories that gained a lot of traction three years ago was that the army supposedly had to investigate wether being in the Puma during combat conditions (i.e. noise, fumes from the gun, driving off-road at high speeds) was dangerous for pregnant women or not... It is worth mentioning that only some of the seats appear to have a heigh limit of 184 cm, while other positions (driver, gunner, commander and potentially the two dismount seats at the other side of the turret) have a higher limit. It would be interesting to see how well other IFVs would fare, when rated by the same workplace safety regulations as the Puma (I don't believe that BMP-3, CV90, and a few others would allow 184 cm or 191 cm tall soldiers in such a case). To be fair every the manufacturers or operators of every Western main battle tank of the era looked at possible improvements to mobility. The Vergoldeter Leopard project would have kept the engine, but change the transmission and cooling for better performance. In the mdi-1970s during the Leopard 2 development, several options of Leopard 1 upgrades were considered as alternative, which would have been fitted with 1,000 or 1,200 hp engines, 105 mm or 120 mm smoothbore guns and improved armor protection. The Chieftain was offered with various engines as Chieftain 800, Chieftain 900, Chieftain 1000 and FV4030/2 Shir 1 (Khalid) tank with the same hydrogas suspension and 1,200 hp engine later fitted to the Challenger 1. The Soviet instruction manuals for the T-62 are unlikely sources for reliable data on tanks like the AMX-30 and Leopard 1.

The author of the book is pro-Chieftain, the test results are not. These tests need to be put into a context, which the author doesn't do. He just says "look, Chieftain is only 7.4 seconds slower to 500 m" distance (when driving along a certain cross-country track), but in reality it matters how often the tank will need to drive 500 m, how much will it drive less and how often more than 500 m? What is the requirement? Being exposed for 5 to 10 seconds longer to enemy fire can be the difference between life and death. And acceleration cross-country is only small part of the overall mobility. The source of the values is the Dutch exercise, in which they compared the Leopard 1 and Chieftain as potential successors for the Centurion. They ended up buying the Leopard 1 despite its lower armor protection and smaller gun calibre, because it proved to be better in several aspects such as reliability, fire control and mobility. The whole page of the book however is saying "the Dutch were wrong, their Inspector of Cavalry wanted the Leopard 1, he was so biased". It is rather common for British authors to find excuses for the poor state of British tanks. The Chieftain is unreliable? "It's the fault of NATO's multi-fuel requirements" (which were met by other, more reliable tanks at the same time). The Challenger 1 underperforms in CAT? "The rules of the event forced us to send the wrong unit to Germany, the other unit would have won the event" - meanwhile conscripts (!) in the Leopard 1 performed better. The Challenger 2E performs badly in the Greek trials? Well, they used the wrong propellant charges (even though the same propellant charges were used in Oman). Authors from other countries are biased just as well (there are lots of biased German books), but they usually don't have to invent their own theories about why their tanks didn't sell on the global MBT market.