DarkLabor

5 hours ago, TPR said:

Thank you for your reply!

I was wondering if you would be in possession of a photo of the AMX-30 B gear lever, I noticed that you were the source of a lot of tank photos on the internet, so I take the liberty of ask you the question.

Well, I have a spotty collection, so don't expect anything comprehensive.
In that case, I discovered that I did not have the Saumur AMX 30 B hull leaflet (figures)...

Hope this will be helpful :


 

56 minutes ago, SH_MM said:

I am not sure if mixing old and new passive skirt armor elements makes sense. GEKE also could have replaced the internals of the existing skirt panels and added new ones at the same time.

You are right, it doesn't make sense for a perfect protection.
But in the end, the client is almighty.
Depending on his choices, the modifications can be cost-effective with minimal changes.
Or it can be an entire overhaul with high expenses (price and mass-balance).

Since yesterday, I checked some photos of the "nude" tanks that received the CLARA packages. And it seems (to me at least) that the skirts are indeed slightly different.
So you may be right regarding the passive skirt armor.

18 minutes ago, SH_MM said:

 

If you are referencing the ERA solution fielded on the UAE's Leclerc in Yemen: this is made by Dynamit Nobel Defence, not by GEKE GST.

 

GEKE provides the roof armor, mine protection plate and components for the NERA for the Puma IFV.

Yes DND provides the ERA packages but there is another modification that got made. And I don't think Nexter got contracted for it...
Once again, it is not necessary to look far :
https://dn-defence.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/NEW_Folder_DND_Protection-scaled.jpg

My best guess is that they did not touch the first 7 elements. And only sub-contracted GEKE for the 3 at the back, plus attach points...

Regarding the AMX 30 capability to fire illuminating rounds, I don't think so... That kind of task was more for the ART support with their 155.
In terms of night fighting capability it was more direct illumination through PH8 projector (vis./IR)

Indirect fire was also done with M1 quadrant.

Regarding operation Daguet, the AMX 30 B2s were equiped with counter-measures not APS (as defined by today's standards).

1 hour ago, SH_MM said:

According to the German company GEKE Schutztechnik GmbH, it also delivers armor components/solutions for the Leclerc main battle tank. Is there a French source with any further info on that matter?

Just look at the next vehicle they quote, you can fairly piece it together.

A former worker is much more credible when he, unlike any parties in presence (competitors + judge) , did show me his videos of the competition. The tank losing the accompaniment vehicle. The fixing process on the hull, etc.

In addition, the guy who supposedly leaked info on the armor protection said that they made, on their own, some changes to the armor protection of the Leclerc. Yet the 3D model shown was a Giat Industries one used to make a counter proposal on the protection requirements of the swedes.

Regarding the suspicion of bribery with the aid of Al Yousef, this has been under reinforced investigation and nothing has been found so far. Giat Industries continues to abide french laws wich led to the dispute in the first place. Do not mistake lobying with corruption. But I give you that the comissions made are sickening for business reporting and marketing...

 

16 hours ago, Scav said:

And how do you know?
They clearly did their own tests, with reference armour inserts and also with their own developed add-ons.

 

Again, why do you think so?
Everything  points to the opposite, they tested the armour as would be on the test vehicles, afterwards they added their own add-ons and tested again.

 

Which is exactly what I pointed out....if you go lower armour volume you need to compensate with higher density of materials, which almost always in turn means similar weight....

However, high thickness/volume of armour is generally more mass efficient than the same mass of armour in a smaller volume.

 

Mass will always remain relevant, but you need to take into account mass efficiency to get anything out of it.

 

I am in touch with some former worker of Giat Industries and have some details on what happened.
That's how I know one of the Leclerc got its chassis damaged and not the suspension (as claimed the swedes...). I also have the confirmation that, at the time, the Leclerc performed poorly in mobility due to the defect of a temperature sensor that induced surging on multiple occasions.
In addition, the tanks sent there were NOT prototypes, they were batch 1 tanks (a pre-series despite what say the engineers).

I still maintain that weight is not a gage of efficiency of the armor. There is so many mecanisms that enter into play to defeat a penetrator that it is difficult to make a clear statement.
But the example of a large slab of a dense material compared to an array of same thickness having a succession of sandwiches (dense material  + rubber +  dense material). Overall the slab of dense material is more dense than the array having rubber and air inbetween the sandwiches. Yet the array will be more efficient to defeat a penetrator, because it will disrupt it. The succession of different densities will also reduce greatly the kinetic energy.
 

4 minutes ago, Scav said:

The Swedes "simulated" the armour by asking the companies involved for specifications on how to make said armour, which was then produced locally according to specs and tested.

They did also produce their own add-on armour for these tanks and because they didn't get the exact measurements on the armour carrying parts, they had to make these themselves:

They asked for quotations, and maybe got demoed a live fire of said protection in each country.
But they did NOT use the different packages for their own testings...
 

8 minutes ago, Scav said:

http://www.ointres.se/projekt_stridsvagn_ny.htm

 

He also mentions tests were conducted in each country on the base armour.

So, this isn't a "simulation" as much as it is live testing.

They got rigs to put THEIR OWN layouts so they could test on their own but that's about it. NOTHING developped by the different competitors have been tested BY THE SWEDES THEMSELF.

 

9 minutes ago, Scav said:

Hold up, so you're saying that the leclerc when using smaller armour packages with denser armour somehow makes turret weight irrelevant?

Isn't that the exact opposite, less volume with denser materials -> same/similar weight....?

What do you want? A full volume made out of the strongest/the most dense alloy you can ever make? (yay, check mate engineers!) That is silly! You have sandwiches that can shear the penetrator (presenting fresh armor as the penetrator is advancing). You can set up your layout so that a large dense chuck can deform the penetrator, backed by a set of disruptors that will shear the penetrator in a different direction, backed by a lightweight high tensile buffer...
In the age of composite armor, the mass is nearly irrelevant (totally regarding HEAT protection;  a little less for KE protection).

21 hours ago, SH_MM said:

The "evidence of corruption" was found in an unrelated contract for the delivery of the Panzerhaubitze 2000, not a contract regarding the sale of MBTs. There wasn't a comparative trial, so it opens the option of corruption. The Greek tank trials and the Swedish tank trials however were comparative trials held in front of an audience consisting of representatives of the Swedish government, the Swedish military, the tank manufacturers and members of the operator countries. It isn't a real option to bribe a procurement officer, when  there are dozens of people seeing the trials and how data is recorded. 



Your lack of knowledge regarding the different stages of the trials is kinda cute.
That's not a pure competition à la Strong Europe Tank Challenge where the winner is designated at the end of the "field activities".
Nor the competitors have eyes on what could happen behind the rug. They don't clearly know what other competitors have put on the table.

 

21 hours ago, SH_MM said:

Maybe you shouldn't have eaten as many crayolas as a kid, otherwise you'd move on and accept that a tank is not automatically perfect just because it is made in France, not everybody is a liar and corrupt, just because they don't buy French tanks.

 

Never been educated with crayolas, always pencil and eraser.
Never stated that the Leclerc was "perfect" far from it. That is one of your inventions to drag the argument where you want it to be.
The Leclerc is a compromise that suited the french army at the end of the cold war (sadly not anymore).
It's greatest drawbacks are :
-Complexity to use (complexity that serves as anti-theft and complexity induced by the system of systems)
-Low ground footprint (forcing to weight every evolution to minimize the increase of ground pressure)
-Of course the ridiculous number produced and the lack of family to drag down the prices on "consumables"...

 

21 hours ago, SH_MM said:

Funny thing is that even French books state that the reduced volume of the Leclerc saved 4 tonnes of weight compared to the Leopard 2's design, yet you believe that the 54 tonnes prototype tested in Sweden has better armor than a 62.5 tonnes Leopard 2 Improved! What's next, conspiracy theories why baguette isn't the only type of bread in Europe?

 



The designers of the Leclerc have set every armor modules with a set of mass efficient // volume efficient materials it's protection efficiency varies independently of the thickness. Nothing like what the swedes did with their simulation.
The Leclerc has smaller armor packages with more dense materials. In that case, the weight of the turret itself is not a good indicator...

KMW already showed evidence of corruption during the greek trials; that would not be impossible that they did the same thing with the swedes...

But yeah keep drawing sunshine and rainbows with your crayolas...

4 hours ago, SH_MM said:

 

Yeah, the mean Swedes! How could they demand their future tank to be reliable, to accurately hit targets and to drive through muddy terrain and snow. These bastards!

In what world do you live?

The Swedes had the opportunity to add "production under license" in their requirements yet they ignored the propositions and threw their industry under the truck by just buying from the germans (the trials in itself was a mean to appease the industrials that were complaining).
In addition, they managed lose the accompaniment vehicle of Giat Industries and during that time, they managed to damage the hull of a Leclerc... It was written that the suspension was damaged yet those fools didn't even managed to damage it. The impact was so strong that the nitrogen spheres went up to 1400 bars (were the french STAT managed to go up to 900 bars with their testings) and the bolt holes of the suspension units had been deformed...
Hell, even recently, the "armor assessment" "leaked" is just BS. The swedes just 3D modeled however they wanted and put their armor composition in their simulation.

Apparently from what I'm reading, you live in the world of care bears & Co...

1 hour ago, Molota_477 said:

Thanks, so it just a rumor.

Well, I never heard of it.
This doesn't mean that it never happenned. It could have happenned in punctual manner to validate or gather additionnal data...
There is A LOT of things that the constructor (or the DGA!) experimented that has not been revealed to the public.
 

16 hours ago, Molota_477 said:

Hi,

Do you guys who know what's this equipment mounted on the MSC's turret?

There is someone claims that it was a surveillance radar and likely the same device also had been mounted on a Leclerc prototype ,  I would like to ask that if it is ture and is there any material related to such devices? 

While there is no radar on this photography, the MSC used to carry a ballistic radar to collect data.



Never heard or seen anything like this on the prototypes or the first batches...

 

9 minutes ago, David Moyes said:

Challenger 2 has always had an all-electric turret.

Alright! Thanks for this precision!

Not the first time eSim Games writes down wrong stuff...

2 hours ago, David Moyes said:

Turret uses regenerative braking. Friction caused by the turret slowing down gets converted into electricity that then recharges a battery.  Formula 1 cars use something similar - KERS/ERS. 

Errr... Welcome in the 1990s... Congrats!
More seriously is this a full switch from hydraulic to electric or a just a handiwork to ease the power management?

The ideal situation would be to remove all the hydraulic system to replace it with batteries accumulators and the double set of electric motor + gearbox (traverse & elevation).

But who knows their limitations in space & budget...

35 minutes ago, Serge said:

Yes. 

I can’t remind its exact purpose but it can :

- detect targets ;

- guide barrel launch missiles ;

- detect incoming threats. 

Er... No, it is just a forward-facing camera.
You said antenna based on certain claims made by the koreans with their K2 (I also was fooled once when they presented their prototypes)?

https://imgur.com/a/rvwc31g

Well the history of the AMX 10 program is quite complicated (at least for the AMX 10 RC).
At first (1960) it was planned to have an all tracked family with the ERAC (Engin de Reconnaissance Amphibie Chenillé == Tracked Amphibious Reconnaissance Vehicle) as a recce vehicle with a 90mm gun fitted in an oscillating turret. Studies were pushed towards a 105mm gun system with an ongoing competition between the APX and the EFAB engineers teams for the ammunition. The ERAC was dropped when the specifications were more demanding and other weapon systems were considered. The ECA (Engin de Combat Amphibie == Amphibious Fighting Vehicle) did not last long (mid 60s) but was considered with a wide range of weapon systems ranging from conventional 105mm gun to conventional anti-tank missile with the tube launched ACRA missile system inbetween.
In the end, the development of the AMX 10 P seems to be uneventful compared to the AMX 10 RC which ended up being based on the AMX 10 P in order to reduce possession cost and ease of maintenance.

10 hours ago, Serge said:

So the UFP is cooled. 

 

1 hour ago, Collimatrix said:

 

It has to be.  Any engine powerful enough to drive a modern tank needs lots of air; either air to run through the engine core of a gas turbine or air to cool the cylinders or radiator of a diesel.  This is one major disadvantage of the engine-in-front design; there needs to be a set of big-ass holes somewhere to let the air in and out.

Whut?

The cooling unit is right behind the UFP, you can see the air intakes on the pictures.
The UFP just carries the main air intake (plus the air filter, I believe).

3 minutes ago, Serge said:

In france, 3 men crew was considered the best choice but, after 25 years of Leclerc MBT, I know plenty of cavalry men who would be very pleased to have a 4 men crew tank. 

BMS burden?

19 hours ago, 2805662 said:

Can you elaborate? Thanks. 

At the start of the production of the UAE tanks, the armor packages volumes were similar to the french série 1 :


But at the end, they all ended up with the same armor packages volumes as our série 2 tanks :


Even old ones were retrofitted (as you can see with the apparent gap between the storage boxes) :
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CLeT2-6VAAAgSPh.jpg:large

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.

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.

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

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).


 

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).



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...

Still too soon to confirm...
I would be curious as to what caused the fire...
A galix that detonated with the VBIED and a poor Murphy law coming in hot? Or a critical failure of sort during the blast?