Gun Ready

Well, almost 30% of spare parts for Polish Leopards 2A5 were made in the previous year in Poland. Excluding thermal cameras, machine guns and L44 cannons. Also we repair MB 873 engines at level 4 in Poland.
 
And the agreement about licence production of Rheinmetall tank guns in Poland was signed today - currently only about L44 or even L44A1 but it looks like it may cover up future licence production of L55/L55A1 or even 130mm tank gun.
 
Additionally WZM from Posen which repairs Polish Leopard 2A5 is currently building own welding shop so it looks like they can be ready to produce Leopards in Poland in agreement with KMW. Few years ago they even offered production of Leopard 2A7V in their factory.

Boxer gets a(nother) remote 30mm turret. 
 
 

Indeed 
 
Ole standard loadout for T72/90 had ammo all over , hard not to hit any in case of penetration. Literaly charges and rounds everywhere .Not to mention the extra ammo is actually for reloading into carusel so its used last.
 

 
 

Rehearsal of VP in Verkhniya Pishma

 
 
   In Moscow

Flensburg is a border town and there are a lot of cultural and sociological interchanges with Denmark; it is a German city though. In Germany you will also find lots of people considering border towns in neighbour countries (Austria, France, the Netherlands, etc.) to be essentially German, because a lot of Germans work there and a lot of culture is shared (in case of the 91-years-old woman who lives next to the house I grew up in, even Breslau/Wrocław is German, but she has other reasons for saying that...).
 
To suggest that the PMMC G5 was rated higher than the CV90 Armadillo and the turretless ASCOD in the Danish evaluation because the Danes have sympathy with FFG just because Flensburg is located so close to the border, is silly. It undersells the actual reasons why the G5 was assessed as being better such as the larger interior volume, the very high level of mine protection (12 kg TNT, i.e. higher than STANAG 4569 Level 4b), the good ergonomics/crew station layout for driver and commander, the low weight and the inherent modularity of the design.
 
As for the vehicles that lead to the G5, it should be noted that the G actually stands for German; or at least it did before FFG started marketing its upgrades internationally. Originally the G was added to the M113 by FMC (the original M113 manufacturer) to denote that the M113G incorporated specific changes made for the German Army (i.e. SEM series radios, 76 mm smoke grenade dischargers by Wegmann, etc.). The German military then designated upgraded versions M113G1, M113G2 and M113G3 rather than M113GA1A1/A2/A3.
 
Some of these upgrades contracts - i.e. the NDV 1 and NDV 2 - were awarded to FFG, as their offers were better than the competition. The M113G4 "Waran" was also originally developed by FFG for the Bundeswehr (hence the "G"), but was not purchased after being trialed in 2002; the German Army had decided to instead focus on wheeled vehicles such as the GTK Boxer.
A non-offcial "M113G5" - i.e. a further development of the M113G4 - was privately funded by FFG and offered to the German Army in 2008 as M113 variant optimized for use in Afghanistan; FFG described the vehicle only as GMT (Geschützer Mannschaftstransporter) M113. It was fitted with AMAP ceramic armor, a Rheinmetall Amarok RWS and rubber-band tracks. It was decided that the M113 shouldn't be used in the APC role and instead the up-armored Fuchs and MRAPs such as the Dingo and Eagle were better suited for operations in Afghanistan.
 
 

Well, Flensborg is Danmark's southernmost port that is located on the German borderside.  If you be there you will understand - it is simply a mix of both countries and so is FFG on my opionion.
 
It is true that M133 upgread led to G5 but G3 and G4 are/were used in DK as well.
Wisent 1 and Wisent 2 have both lots of input from Danish user side in their veins and Bundeswehr rejected both (BPz2000 and Wisent 2 AEV) for a worse technical solution.

Not really.
   Speaking production wise, parts for T-90 are produced on same machines as for T-72, as they are similar/same. So production of parts is effectively for 1.5 vehicles as T-64 is not in production, as T-80 AFAIK.
   Second reason is keeping companies alive.
 
   New gen vehicle, it would have been single/unified chassis in any case. 
 
1) Mainly politics and Kharkovites failing at main battle tank, specifically "main" part. They designed a vehicle that most of country tank factories couldn't produce, on top of being not reliable enough. 
   Because of that T-72 was given a green light, as more sensible combat machine. T-80 grew from prototypes with gas turbines that were noted by generals and became mostly political matter.
   T-90 was also somewhat complicated, but at least it had a lot of commonality with 72.
 
2) 1815mm for T-55/72/80/90. Burlak turret was supposed to be unified turret for 72s and 80s. Main problem is autoloader design and layout of autoloader area, as plenty of parts are packed there.

Oman i Centauro B1 with 120 mm gun




 

1

Some artist models on the French vision for the MGCS :
 
Three different versions:
 
Canon which shows a large caliber coax which seem to have en independent elevation (so back to the AMX-30) C² : Command and Control which seem to have a 40mm Missile: Same autocanon as a secondary than the canon version, 6 missiles ready and no RCWS  

 
Found on a video from DGA: https://scorpion-future.fr/
 
Not much change from previous drawings:

This thread sure was an exhaustive read. 
 
It raised me few questions / conclusions:
 
Regarding the ex- Bundeswehr surplus 2 A4 around the world  - at least three different hull / turret armor combinations can be around:
 
B/B - Any given vehicle from the first five batches B/C - Vehicles up to the fourth batch, which have been turret donors for vehicles from batches six to eight (C [or even D?] tech hulls which were used as basis for 2 A5's ) in the 90's, and have received a later C-tech turret in exchange C/C - late fifth batch vehicles Does this make sense? I am assuming that the B/B vehicles were not upgraded with C-series armour, when bringing them up to 2 A4 specification - do we have any conclusive evidence that would suggest pre-sixth batch 2 A4's receiving armour upgrades?
 
For attention and eye candy, I drop you a single Finnish LEO 2A4 URDAN from Armoured Engineer Co in ARROW 19 FTX, from my personal album.
 
 

 
 
 
 

There are some rumours that EMBT will be shown on MSPO 2021 as a result of cancelled Eurosatory 2020.

EMBT nothing, and we probably won't hear anything else about it, the market for second-hand and/or upgraded Leopard 2 is still going strong and the EMBT makes little sense from an economical standpoint.
Ultimately it was just a project to show that Nexter and KMW were playing nice together, but Rheinmetal has created big waves by saying that they intend to take control of KMW and by extension of the MGCS program (which the French side was not exactly happy with).
 
On the MGCS the last new I saw was mid october to say that 200 millions € would be engaged in 2021 to produce 14 Main Technological demonstrator (basically technological bricks) that are to be ready by 2025 for integration in the different platforms of the MGCS.
 
https://forcesoperations.com/200-me-pour-le-programme-mgcs-en-2021/
 
On parallel the preliminary design studies are still going on should run for 18 months (they started around may 2020).
The goal is to finish the demonstration phase by 2025 and to have a demonstrator for the complete system between 2024 and 2027.
 
https://www.rheinmetall-defence.com/en/rheinmetall_defence/public_relations/news/latest_news/index_23936.php
https://forcesoperations.com/mgcs-le-1er-contrat-detude-darchitecture-systeme-enfin-notifie/
 
Following who's doing what and within which time frame is a bit of a headache on this program (at least for me), but as I understand it right now they are focusing on developing the various technological bricks that'll be integrated in the system while the two government try to sort out a list of common requirements for the system. Then once we have a working prototype you'll have the  politicians and industrials of the two country bickering between each others to see who gets to produce what.
 
Don't expect to see a prototype before 2025.
At best we'll get a list of requirements, some infos on the various technological bricks and maybe some design concepts in the meantime.

Yes, on page 4:
 
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292157319_An_Overview_of_Protection_Technology_for_Ground_and_Space_Applications

Technology demonstrator APC with hybrid propulsion
Made by FFG Flensburg
 
https://soldat-und-technik.de/2020/09/mobilitaet/23977/genesis-funktionsfaehiger-vollhybrid-technologie-demonstrator-von-ffg/
 

Eurosatory 1996
 

First 4 Leopards arrived in Hungary
 

 
In army base:
 

Well done. Many thanks for this quick answer!

The stated length is the entire projectile, not just the penetrator. The rods width is about 19-20mm. Muzzle velocity is correct. My own estimations  for the projectile´s dimensions corroborate those figures.


 

 

Leopard 2 at Allach KMW plant.
Pretty good angle on the hull add-on.
 

Here you go, sorry for the rather bad quality.