SH_MM

That is true for APS using HE-blast grenades who work by tilting the projectile in flight. There are different ways to defeat long-rod penetrators, some of which don't require much space. Dr. Manfred Held designed an APS that essentially launched heavy ERA tiles against the incoming projectile, which worked extremely well against APFSDS ammunition (reduction to less than 10% penetration power). However the weight efficiency is strongly decreased by such a system.

The author clearly wrote that he is comparing the very first version of the Leopard 2 to the T-72M, because both tanks entered service in Germany (in the Federal Republic of Germany and German Democratic Republic respectively) in the same year. He makes a mistake by including photos and descriptions of the original T-72 hull armor though. No, you are making assumptions for which you have no source. That is a very unscientific approach. As mentioned previously, the German military used a 105 mm APFSDS fired from a smoothbore gun prototype to simulate the performance of Soviet 115 mm APFSDS during the development of the Leopard 2AV. This is mentioned in official documents from the time of the development. So why do you ignore that and simply assume that the German Army had exact information of all Soviet ammo types in the middle of the Cold War? That makes no sense. You also make a big mistake when it comes to graph from Krapke's book. You are assuming that "frontal" means "directly hit head-on" rather than it being a reference to the frontal arc. In fact in the second edition of his book (with addendum by R. Hilmes), the graph is located on page 59. On page 60 is a graphic showing the protected frontal arc of the Leopard 2! You are assuming too much, which negatively affects the value of your result. Furthermore you assume that he meant a very specific spot (with small overall size) on the tank's surface, when talking about the "am stärksten gepanzerte Stelle am Turm". This is extremely unlikely, because such information holds little to no military value other than giving the enemy an idea what is needed to defeat your tank. I'd rather assume that his graph is showing the required level of armor protection and the description is meant to reflect that weakspots (maybe the gunner's sight or the gun mantlet, definetly the openings for the auxiliary sight and the MG) are not protected to the same level. It is possible that this graph means "the German Army demanded protection against a 125 mm APFSDS fired from 1,500 m distance along the frontal 60° arc". I am sorry, but this is just wrong and ridiculous. First of all, the thickest armored part of the tank is just below the gunner's sight, the orange area that you labelled with 320 mm protection. This armor is a lot thicker than the left turret cheek in order to negate the empty section in the center for the EMES-15 sight. I.e. excluding the gap for this optical device, both cheeks might have the same armor thickness. All your values are based on your personal opinion and invented without a source, I assume. How do you know that the armor composition behind the EMES-15 is identical to the armor composition at the left/right turret cheeks? In the end the engineers could have opted to design a different armor package (knowing that there is less volume), which is denser and provides more protection per volume (but is less weight efficient). That is a simple option you (and most people who want to pin-point exact values towards a tank for which they don't know the armor composition) ignore without even thinking about it. The fact that the gun shield has avalue of 260 mm, but the steel element holding the gun-trunion already exceeds this thickness at place is also highly amusing. I don't know what to make of you. You ignore the most important sources (please tell me how an armor package weighing as much as a 446 mm thick steel plate will offer only 320-420 mm steel-equivalent protection. That makes no sense), ignore the armor composition (both Hilmes and Krapke, who worked for the German government office responsible for tank development, claim that the tank's armor increases high-hardness steel that provides more protection per weight vs APFSDS ammo) and are very easy to come up with your interpretation of statements that are not clear. What is your motivation? Do you want to generate some armor chart for a video game? Is there are need for the Leopard 2 to be under-armored just for you to win an argument? Your drawing not satisfy the Leopard 2 protection requirements, nor Krapke's drawing, nor Hilmes comments. In fact @Militarysta estimated the protection as 410 mm RHA for the turret side when hit at 30°. The frontal armor is 570 mm according to his older estimate (510 mm when hit at 30°). His later estimate is at least 450 mm, but possibly 500 to 540 mm from the front. The Leopard 2 has thicker armor than the M1 Abrams, it has heavier armor than the M1 Abrams, it is a smaller tank while weighing overall more. Still the M1 Abrams is confirmed to have 400 mm steel equivalent protection against KE (declassified US document). It is pretty much physically impossible that the Leopard 2 has less than that. The US statements regarding the Leopard 2's armor are based on the Leopard 2AV prototype, which was bad. It didn't have a NERA array in the hull, but rather spaced steel armor layers with an integrated fuel tank (a suggestion made by the US Army) and it had no heavy ballistic skirts. The Leopard 2 hull was subsequently redesigned in 1977. I'd like to see a source regarding any statements from the US and UK regarding an "uneven armor distribution of the Leopard 2". Because I've never read about this, it smells like unreferenced internet forum discussion myths. The actual statements of the US defence comptroller regarding the Leopard 2AV's armor (based on the findings of the US evaluation in 1976) are: both countries perceive threats differnetly, thus they focus their armor development on different threats (implying the Leopard 2AV has better KE protection and the XM1 Abrams has better CE protection, based on the available sources such as the 125 mm APFSDS in Krapke's chart and the mentions of HHS) and that the Leopard 2AV was a rushed tank with bad armor implementation (there was an "haste with which the type of armor used on earlier versions of Leopard was modified to the special armor"). The XM1 Abrams had a greater portion of its surface protected by special armor, which is why it managed to take a greater amount of hits without serious damage.

Depends on location. The upper part has a thicker backplate, but only one or two layers. Three layers seems to be used on the lower/mid section.

I guess you made a small mistake @Collimatrix, because now the general Leopard 2 topic is called "Leopard 2A1- 2A3 protection estimates"!

I usually don't mind people creating new topics, but there were the German military vehicles topic and a Leopard 2 topic in the top four at the time this thread was started. There already have been places to ask your question! Given that half the photos have been posted in these topics, some of them for the first time (like my screenshot of Dipl.-Ing. R. Hilmes' presentation at the Panzermuseum in Munster), and the armor protection level of the Leopard 2 has already been discussed in these, you probably could have saved a few Bytes of database space. Reading the topics might have taken some time, but you might have learned something new in there. Rolf Hilmes doesn't estimate any protection level, his values represent the weight of the tank's armor (roughly 3.5 metric tons per square-metre or about as much as 450 mm thick steel plate would weigh). That's why his presentation only includes one value rather than two values (i.e. for KE and CE). As composite armor is designed to provide more protection per weight, one should assume that a higher level of protection might be achieved. In one of his books, he mentions that the much newer M1A2 Abrams' armor might have a mass efficiency of 1.35 to 1.88 versus kinetic energy penetrators (APDS, APFSDS) and 2.7 to 3.7 agianst shaped charges; in this case he estimated the values based on the armor weight, size and an estimated protectiton level. When it comes to the Leopard 2's armor protection, he cites "estimates from the internet": 570-630 mm steel-equivalent protection (RHAe) at the turret front, 500-550 mm steel-equivalent protection at the UFP, and 350 mm at the LFP. The protection against shaped charges is equivalent from 350 to 1,100 mm of steel armor depending on location. It is worth mentioning that Hilmes studied engineering and worked at the German Army office for military acquisition (BWB, nowadays BAAINBW) as a referent for tank technology before retiring. Paul-Werner Krapke also worket at the BWB, but several years before R. Hilmes. He was the leitender Baudirektor (sometimes translated as construction director or project manager) during the Leopard 2's development. The graphic showing how the Leopard tanks would compare to the T-62 and T-72 is taken from his 1986 book and has no further explanation about the utilized ammunition. In theory it might be based on any Soviet APFSDS until the 3BM-32 Vant with a cited average penetration of 560 mm steel at 0° and 2,000 metres distance and the 3BM-42 Mango with an average penetration of 500 mm under the same circumstances. It is also possible, that the 125 mm APFSDS was simulated using German ammunition (either the 120 mm DM13 or DM23). At least the Leopard 2AV's armor was apparently tested using a 105 mm smoothbore gun (as used on the earlist ten Leopard 2 prototypes). The Leopard 2AV was also tested against the MILAN ATGM (~650 mm penetration). Paul Lakowski's whole concept for estimating armor protection is flawed, starting by the input data and the arbitrarily imagined armor array. His values and the hypothetical armor arrays used to generate these, have been proven to be false. He supposedly made a newer version of all/most his armor estimates, but they are not available to public. PS: The Leopard 2K's spaced armor has little to do with the later tank.

That French accent...

I disagree. The Boxer is the vehicle with the biggest need for an APS. It carries the biggest amount of soldier, has the thinnest armor of the previously mentioned vehicles and no other APS. The Puma has thicker armor, ERA and AMAP-SC NERA against RPGs and the MUSS softkill APS against ATGMs. Depending on how effective MUSS is - but I don't think there is any public source on this matter - there is no need for a hardkill APS. The Leopard 2 on the other hand has interfaces to mount thick anti-shaped charge armor on the sides, while the front should be immune to all existing ATGMs. The Turkish losses showed that armor alone is not enough, but when a tank crew doesn't react to the two tanks on the left and right side being blown up by ATGMs, then the issues probably won't be solved with sticking an APS onto it. As the probability of a war in Europe is close to zero, the Boxer is the most likely to see combat. It is the lightest of the three vehicles both in terms of weight (meaning it will be airlifted into operation theaters earlier) and political baggage (the bigger the gun of the vehicle, the more thoughts do politicians spend on "Will we remind someone of the Nazis, when we send over this vehicle?"). The Boxer is a front-line vehicle - that of the motorized/light infantry (Jäger), while the Puma is operated by the mechanized infantry (Panzergrenadiere). That doesn't mean I that I'd be against adopting additional active protection systems or further passive armor on the vehicles. Personally I'd stick three different types of APS on the AFVs to maximize protection. But when there is a limit to budget, time and electrical power on some existing vehicles, I'd start to add an APS to the vehicle with the biggest need. If there weren't any limitations, I'd put a combination of MUSS and a grenade-based system (AVePS, Iron Fist, LEDS-150) ontop of the turret, while the sides would be fitted with the ADS hardkill system.

Interessting that they still work on anti-KE performance, given that the ADS managed to defeat certain types of (simulated) APFSDS during tests already in 2007 according to German and Swedish sources.

The CV9030Cz is based on the latest Norwegian configuration, which utilizes AMAP armor. The skirts might therefore consist of a ceramic/aramad mix confined in steel or another metal. On the previous CV9030 models the MEXAS armor had a maximum thickness of 70 mm.

That's ugly... Btw. latest Boxer is available with 800 hp engine and 38.5 metric tons maximum gross vehicle weight.

According to German defence newspaper Europäische Sicherheit und Technik (ESUT), a version of the MELLS will be adopted onto the Marder - this would imply the same dual-missile launcher as used on the Puma. However I am not sure if the author doesn't use MELLS as synonym for Spike-LR in this case... I haven't been following the Marder upgrade project in the past, but as far as I know the German government has not awarded any contracts yet. T. Wiegold from the blog Augengeradeaus.net compiled a list of all projects planned to be be awarded/funded before the German elections (24.09.2017), the Marder upgrade wasn't mentioned there. It is possible that the final layout of the future Spike-LR launcher has yet to be decided. Well, first of all the main problem was the lack of a contract. The government had not awarded a contract for the MELLS launcher before 2017, because there was not enough money within the Bundeswehr's budget to deal with all projects at the same time. Before that, there also were some issues with the Spike missile itself. I remember having read a report (IIRC from 2011), which mentioned that during the first series of tests the Spike-LR ATGM failed to meet the performance requirements in regards to accuracy, therefore EuroSpike and Rafael had to touch up some aspects of the missile (or the quality control at the manufacturing plant). There also were rumors about the electronic interfaces of the Puma and the Spike-LR being somewhat incompatible and requiring some work-arounds, but I cannot say if these rumors are correct. The Puma uses a very different turret than the Lynx. The Puma is fitted with an unmanned turret made by KMW, which has been marketed as Remote Controlled Turret 30 (RCT-30). It is not available in a manned version. The Lynx and the Boxer CRV are fitted with the Lance modular turret system from Rheinmetall. This turret is manned (though an unmanned variant called Lance-RC exists). The Lynx is fitted with a missile launcher made by Rheinmetall, were both missiles are arranged in the vertical plane: one missile is located above the other. The Puma's MELLS on the other hand will have both missiles arranged int he same horizontal plane, i.e. one missile located at the left of the other one. To be fair Rheinmetall is also responsible for developing the Puma's launcher. There is also a version with vertically arranged missiles for the Lynx turret. According to the Australian Defence Technology Review magazine, this might be a simplified/downgraded version of the MELLS launcher for the Puma. Another Boxer CRV prototype has the same missile launcher as the Lynx prototype(s). I don't know all differences, but I understand that the MELLS launcher has additional capabilities over the simpler design fielded on the Lynx prototype. One could be the different protectiton level, as the Puma's launcher seems to be a lot thicker. There also might be different supported software functionalities (maybe) or other aspects.

Hello and welcome to Sturgeon's House. The second batch of Puma IFVs for the German Army is planned since at least 2015. The German Federal Audit Office however wants to postpone any further Puma to after 2022. Until 2025 the Marder IFV will remain in service, about 200 of these will be upgraded with new night vision sights for the driver, third generation thermal sights replacing the old WBG-X and Spike-LR replacing the Milan ATGM. The other Puma variants for the German Army are to my knowledge limited to driver training vehicles and command vehicles (i.e. normal IFVs with better radios, like the Marder 1A4).

This exact info was released in a news article on the Puma IFV, but there are numerous other sources containing small snippets of information. First of all, the Czech Ministry of Defence invited nine companies to participate in the tender, but only seven reacted: GDELS with the ASCOD 2 BAE Systems with the CV90 PSM with the Puma Rheinmetall with the Lynx FFG with the G5 FNSS with the Kaplan 20 Otokar with the Tulpar The Italian Dardo was also requested, but the Italians did not react before the deadline was over. The same happened with Isreal, which did not offer the Namer despite the official request from the Czech MoD to participate in the tender. (Btw. the Merkava 1 or 2 was offered to Switzerland, but rejected; do you know more about that?) Out of these seven vehicles, only four (the first four in the list) were tested at the Libava facility. This might mean that only four vehicles were shortlisted, or the other vehicles will be tested on a later stage (maybe they need to design a proper variant for the Czech Army or are testing the vehicle at other places to avoid high transport costs). Based on a news report from General Dynamics European Land Systems, the ASCOD 2 was on of the "down-selected" vehicles, making it appear that the three not tested vehicles (G5, Kaplan-20 and Tulpar) were rejected. At the time of the testing, the Czech Army didn't know how the exact requirements will look. They will decide on a balance between costs, weight, height, wading depth, interior volume, transportability, payload and more (i.e. mobility, protection, firepower, reliability, etc.). It was planned that a suggestions for requirements made by the Army should be submitted to the MoD end of August (so last month, don't know if that happened due to the source being older). Overall 210 new vehicles in nine versions will be bought (with an option for 100 more vehicles) for a total contract cost of up to 50 billions koruna. Half the money will be spend on vehicle, the other half will be used for the infrastructure - they need facilities to manufacture and repair the vehicles, training facilities with new simulators, but maybe also new transport and recovery vehicles for the new IFV. Some of the money might come from the new EU defence fonds, which is only possible when a European manufacturer is chosen (but I guess since GDELS has its headquarter in Europe despite being owned by the American General Dynamics, it is also European, so all of them count as European). The contract will be made with the manufacturer of the winning bid at the end of 2018, deliveries will start 2020 and last to 2024. According to a news report on the Czech Army website, the (first set of the?) firing trials against moving targets were done at the ranges 700 m, 1,200 m and 1,800 m - nothing special given that all tested vehicles claim to have a range of 2-3 km. The vehicles were required to transport at least nine men (crew of three + six dismounts), have a high level of protection (incl. mine protection) and a 30 mm gun. Crew ergonomics, infrastructure and growth potential are also important factors. The Czech defence news blog Armádní Noviny has a few articles on the BMP-2 replacement program. Apparently the Puma might be the favorite vehicle of the Czech MoD, but they also consider a vehicle with rubber band tracks (I don't speak Czech, so I don't know if they are looking for a lighter Puma variant or are considering a ASCOD 2/CV90/Lynx as alternative). The Puma apparently was the best vehicle in the test (it "showcased technological dominance" according to Google translator), but is very expensive. The fact that the Puma is currently in production and by 2020, the Bundeswehr's order would be nearly finished, is seen as an advantage by the author. The Czech Puma would be cheaper than the German version (due to local assembly and possible design changes), but the Czech MoD still looks at cheaper options - they might consider buying the Puma for the IFV role only and a second, cheaper vehicle for all other tasks (such as armored ambulance, mortar carrier, etc.); interesstingly Czech website E15.cz mentions only the ASCOD 2 and the Lynx as vehicles suited for the cheaper secondary vehicles, not the CV90 (apparently based on the price of the CV90 being too high compared to the previously mentioned vehicles). The T-72M4Cz is also meant to be replaced in the timeframe from 2020 to 2025, thus the Czech military is interested in the Leopard 2 (making Germany a more attractive partner), but they also consider buying a medium tank on the new IFV chassis. CV90 and ASCOD 2 already have been showcased as light/medium tanks, Lynx more or less (Marder 1A3 was fitted with various turrets)... question is if a Puma light tank could be made. The Leopard 2 is considered the best option, being a high-tech tank that might be available for affordable leasing thanks to the EU defence fonds. The problem is that only very few Leopard 2s are available for leasing (something about 100) - enough for the Czech Army, but Croatia and Bulgaria are also interested in them. The only MBT other than the Leopard 2 offered to the Czech Army is the Sabra tank in the latest version. The Ariete and the Leclerc are not in production anymore, while the M1 Abrams, the K2 Black Panther and Japanese Type 10 are all too expensive to operate and maintain. Originally IMI and partners wanted to offer the Merkava 4, but seeing the requirements and European terrain they considered the Sabra to be a better option. The Sabra is considered a worse option than the Leopard 2 due to being based on the M60 chassis and being inferior in performance. (Some of this text is off-topic given the thread title, please ignore that).

In the Czech trials for a BMP-2 replacement, the Puma IFV proved to be more accurate than all other contenders. It hit the highest number of targets during the static and also during the dynamic (fire on the move) tests. The trials lasted six weeks and included firing trials, high speed driving on roads, traveling cross-country, climbing, crossing ditches, wading through water and other tests. The manufacturing companies hope to copy the Leopard 2's success and to start a Puma user's group responsible for suggesting upgrades, sharing operational experience, etc. PSM offers that all Pumas for the Czech Army would be assembeled locally and even some components for the German Puma would be made in the Czech Republic (currently some of the cables and parts of the fire suppression system are already made by Czech suppliers - in the future this also could include the tracks). Seems like a cost-cutting measure, but that may be the solution to make the Puma affordable (also make it cheaper for Germany) . On average wages in Germany are 3.64 times as high as in the Czech Republic (data from 2014), but it might mean that some jobs are outsourced from Germany (unless there is enough demand for tracks to keep KMW busy). It is possible to easily create other Puma variants such as a recce vehicle and an armored ambulance based on the Puma's hull. Btw. the Spike-launcher to be added to the Puma IFV will be armored to resist enemy fire.

Second generation thermal imagers were adopted on the M1A2 SEP, the previous M1A2 model still had the same gunner's primary sight with first gen thermals.

What about 20 British soldiers thought about the M1A1 Abrams after testing the tank for two days in Grafenwöhr:

That's also the driving force behind the Dutch-German cooperation: saving money. The Netherlands cannot afford to have their own tanks, while Germany cannot afford enough soldiers (or rather find enoough people to do the work given the low wages) - just let Dutch crews take a few leased German tanks. Germany cannot afford to buy a new resupply ship? Let's just take the Karel Doorman when available/required. The SEP is really an odd case. It was designed from the very beginning with superior protection than the CV90 (two armor packages, including one with protection against 30 mm APFSDS ammo), but it wasn't meant to replace the CV90. Not really; the TMRP-6 is an EFP mine and therefore is not related to shock proof seats as used on modern vehicles. The EFP won't create a such a large shock as a conventional HE mine or an IED. Mine proof/decoupled seats are mostly focused on meeting the STANAG requirements for mine protection, which are not fitted with EFP warheads, but pure HE mines. This is certainly an oversight, for example it is possible to modify the ASCOD Ulan to mee the STANAG 4569 level 3 mine protection requirements (8 kg TNT) by adding a 25 mm steel plate to the belly; this wouldn't survive the smaller TMRP-6 (5.1 kg TNT), which has an EFP warhead that can penetrate 40 mm steel at 800 mm distance according to the manufacturer. The TMRP-6 has less HE content than required for STANAG 4569 level 2 mine protection (6 kg TNT), so decoupled seats are not really required to deal with it. First vehicles with proper mine protection and decoupled seats were made in Africa. Germany tested a few of them in the early 1990s and decided to start developing the Dingo MRAP shortly after. Two prototypes were made, the last one finished in 1995 (one year before the start of the wars in Yugoslavia); one year later it was decided to upgrade the Marder 1A3 with a mine protection kit and decoupled seats, though funding delayed the introduction in service. At this time, NATO had not encountered the TMRP-6 mine. Canada, Norway and Sweden all bought MEXAS kits for a limited amount of AFVs before KFOR/SFOR, though at this time they might already have known about the TMRP-6.

In 2012, the Danish Army looked for a new APC. They tested the FFG 5, the CV90 Armadillo, the VBCI and the Piranha 5, choosing to buy the latter. ARTEC also submitted the Boxer as option, but it was not shortlisted (this has apparently to do something with the price...). Here are some foils from the ARTEC presentation to Denmark: Regarding Germany and the Netherlands: Regarding the Boxer's design and features:

- http://www.defence24.pl/654631,mspo-2017-premiera-borsuka#

That's essentially the same as with the Marder, with the difference that the MILAN launcher on the Marder was mounted at the commander's hatch during travel and could be used to engage heavily armored targets. Once the infantry left the vehicle, the missile launcher was carried by the AT team. For the Puma the ATGM launcher will be fixed, but both the infantry squad and the IFV will share the same stock of missiles. Can you elaborate? I've never heard of any "great powers" (USA, Soviet Union, NATO?) stopping any cooperation between the Scandinavian countries. The Netherlands were offered to buy the Puma IFV or cooperate in the development during a very early stage. They opted for the CV9035 instead, because of their wish for a 35 mm gun, the lower cost of the CV9035 and the earlier possible introduction. I am not sure how deep the cooperation between the Netherlands and Norway is, but I'd imagine it wouldn't be as deep as the cooperation between the Netherlands and Germany currently is - though it might have been a closer cooperation at the time the CV90 was chosen. The Dutch tanks are semi-integrated into the German Army (and located in Germany), while just recently a new cooperation on air-defence was made. The FlaRakGruppe 61 will be subordinated to the Dutch Air Force, while the procurment of future air defense systems will be made jointly - that means the Netherlands might buy MEADS/TVLS at some point in the future, while both countries look for a VSHORAD system to properly fill the gap left since Gepard/PRTL Cheetah were decommissioned (maybe Skyranger on Boxer?). The current systems relying on Stinger SAMs only (i.e. Fennek and Wiesel) are not capable enough for protecting moving convois. The German naval infantry is part of the Dutch Korps Mariniers, while the Luchtmobiele Brigade is subordinated to the German Division Schnelle Kräfte. At the same time Germany and Norway are buying submarines together, but the Dutch are not interested in the U212 class. So European military procurement is still in a pretty bad shape, where cooperation is limited and rarely used when it could save costs. Well, the title of the topic is a bit biased and certainly makes it look like this is a bashing topic only, I didn't have the intention to bash anything for no reason. The CV90 is a popular choice and it is not inferior to most other IFVs, but it is often praised for questionable reasons and has a large fanbase, that sometimes doesn't look at the facts. In so far I think the title chosen by Serge, "Why so much love?", seems to be quite fitting. I once posted in another forum that the the basic CV90 (Strf 9040) armor should protect against 14.5 mm/23 mm AP in the frontal arc only (both rounds with the same penetration), but then was told by another poster that the CV90 clearly had better armor and all-round protection against 14.5 mm ammo, while the frontal armor should resist 30 mm APDS. The Norwegian CV9030 with composite armor then would resist 30 mm APFSDS ammo frontally and APDS ammo at the sides... Now, BAE Systems' own presentation says something against such myths, together with the armor schemes from the UDES 09 prototype (23 mm LFP armor, 6-10 mm side armor). I've seen people posting in forums that the Strf 9040 is the best IFV! Not being as good as claimed by fanboys doesn't mean that the CV90 is bad, it is just not very good either. It is average and has a number of advantages (low size, seven roadwheels pairs, separated fuel tanks, low costs) over other IFVs from the same time; however if rating vehicles only by armor protection, FCS or power-to-weight ratio, the CV90 is certainly not the best IFV. The fact that the CV90 won the Swiss evaluation by price and reliability, but not by performance is something that surprised me when reading; I never considered the Warrior 2000 to be something special and I also didn't think that Kuka's M12 (E4) turret was superior to the CV90's E30 turret at that time. The Norwegians essentially dislike(d) all things that the Swiss also disliked on the evaluated CV9030: low troop compartment size (that's why tthe SPz 2000 has an enlarged one), bad thermal imagers (thats why the CV90 Mk II has second generation thermal imagers) and no hunter-killer capability (too expensive to fix for the Swiss Army). ____ Not very well known, but Germany actually tested an upgraded version of the CV9030CH in late 2001/early 2002. It was rejected for several reasons, which is why the Puma development was started in Fall 2002. I am still searching for more info on that, but there is an archived question in the Swiss parliament, where a member of one party questions the value of the CV9030CH in the Swiss Army based on the German critique. I.e. it appears that the CV90 in Germany was fitted with a mine protection kit, which was still found unsatisfactory. The basic conception of the vehicle has been claimed to be based on the ideas of the 70s and 80s. The weight of nearly 30 tons of the up-armored variants was too close to the weight limit of the chassis, limiting the growth potential and upgradability of the CV90 in thte future. The exact wording of the Swiss MP says that the CV90 got "the last place" in the evaluation, suggesting it was tested against other vehicles (or concepts for future vehicles). I'll try to look into that topic.

I think the Merkava uses proper SLERA (self-limiting explosive reactive armor), which for example can contain only small amounts ("pockets") of explosive materials inside a larger layer of an elastic material. It is also possible to combine reactive/energetic materials with explosives for use as SLERA/ERA. http://www.ciar.org/ttk/mbt/papers/symp_19/TB611523.pdf

It's ERA according to the description from the Spanish website. It was an ERA prototype made by Santa Bárbara Sistemas specifically for the Centauro.

Cenaturo with Spanish ERA:

Not much IMO. Based on BAE System's statements it had worse protection than the average IFV (only vs 12.7 mm AP, but apparently this was only limited to the frontal arc; just look at the armor schemes), it had a sub-par FCS, no stabilizer and no vectronics. It was somewhat more mobile than other IFVs and had a 40 mm gun, but no ATGM launcher. Given the competition, it's quite a bit suprising that the CV90 became so successful, but there are numerous unknown factors affecting arms purchases (such as price, local industry involvment, readiness for series production, other contract objectives, etc.). Germany at the same time had the Marder 1A3 (with better armor and in case Marder M12 model with 30 mm gun and improved FCS), the TH-495 (offered as APC with 12.7 mm HMG and as IFV with either 20 mm, 25 mm or 30 mm gun; it had a proper hunter/killer configuration with fully independent sight for the commander), the ACV PUMA and in theory also the Marder 2 as export offers. Of the two variants of the ASCOD variants, both have their own drawbacks and advantages, but I'd consider them to have a fair chance against the CV9040 and even against the CV9030 (Mk 1). They have better armor than the CV9040 (depending on variant either a similiar MEXAS kit as later used on the CV9030 or a reactive armor kit against RPGs), somewhat similiar or even greater mobility (at least in terms of power-to-weight ratios) and probably equal firepower. The IIRC Spanish ASCODs also had a BMS from the start. In general the European IFV market in the late 1980s/early 1990s had a lot to offer. MOWAG build the Trojan IFV, which in terms of conceptions was an improved Marder design. If it wasn't for the Swiss government cutting funds at the end of the 1980s, the Swiss Army would have probably bought Trojans. MOWAG stopped building tracked vehicles after this time, having created numerous tracked vehicles that all lacked success. The vehicle comes with better base armor and a 25 mm autocannon compared to the CV90, but would have had a harder time against the CV9030 with MEXAS. There was however a Trojan prototype with the German M12 turret. Ironically the Swiss government, after purchasing the CV9030, never decided to buy add-on armor in a large enough quantity for all their CV90s, they bought only 40 kits; i.e. on average the previous M113 "IFVs" were better armored. There are many more IFVs that seem to be competitive against the CV9040 and in some cases even the CV9030 Mk 1 with MEXAS. The British Warrior 2000, the Italian Dardo and the Japanese Type 89 are examples from the same timeframe. The contemporary Bradley model also was better in many aspects. The Warrior 2000 was one of the three shortlisted contenders for the Swiss Army (original there were 8 options, but only the CV9030, Warrior 2000 and Marder M12 were shortlisted). It seems that the CV90's main advantages were the low weight/size, the low cost and the ability to modify the design to the user's needs with options for local component production. The Swiss Army (after six weeks of troop testing with the Marder M12, Warrior 2000 and CV9030) liked/disliked the following aspects of the CV9030: good protection, specifically liking the concept of the modular applique armor, the low size of the vehicle and separating the fuel tanks from the crew compartment decent mobility, offered with the larger 670 hp engine for the first time. The seven roadwheel pairs and the low weight resulted in a lower ground pressure, which is especially important when driving through snow the concept of having only a single sight for commander and gunner was disliked the high potential for future upgrades was seen as advantage over the other offers. The maximum weight supported by the chassis was 30 metric tons, only the internal volume was too small. Thatt's why the Swiss CV9030 is the first variant with raised roof at the rear compartment, something latter done with all new/upgraded CV90 variants main factor was the lower price-to-performance ratio of the CV9030 according to official Swiss documents The Marder M12 was only offered with second-hand hulls from the German Army and had a weight of 34.4 metric tons, but its overall conception (and mobility) was considered to be slightly inferior to the other offers. In theory it could have been a more serious contender, if the spaced armor was replaced with more weight efficient ceramic armor such as MEXAS. It was not able to fully keep up with the Leopard 2 when traveling through terrain (a key requirement of the Swiss Army), but was very cheap and its turret was considered to be very good. The Warrior 2000's turret (made by Delco) was seen as the most modern offering on the market and had top-notch electronics including automated tracking of targets. However during the Swiss evaluation, GKN (as manufacturer of the Warrior 2000) was bought by Alvis plc., which at the same time also owned Hägglunds. At 31 metric tons and quite a bit of extra hull height, it was heavier than the CV90. The Warrior 2000 had better crew ergonomics and a better turret than the CV9030, but was not fully developed - there still were some teething/reliability issues; according to the manufaturer they could be fixed, but the Swiss Army took no gamble. The CV9030 was a low risk and low cost option, even though performing a bit worse than the Warrior 2000. In the late 1980s/1990s. But I doubt that the CV90's seats were installed for mine protection; first of all BAE Systems mentions no mine protection in their recent presentation, also the belly armor is too thin. No idea, but the original Bradley is build to fit the average 50% of the US population only.