Rico

1 hour ago, Kal said:

https://asiapacificdefencereporter.com/selection-of-redback-ifv-confirms-the-importance-of-test-trials/

 

'All of the leaks had a certain consistently to them: namely that the Redback was proving to be exceptionally reliable and robust.  This in turn was probably related to the use of rubber tracks – more accurately steel mesh coated in rubber – which greatly reduced vibration when driving across almost all surfaces.  They also proved to be more durable and easier to repair than conventional steel link tracks used by the Lynx.

 

This has never been confirmed – and probably never will be – but there was also a suggestion that the Redback had an advantage in the critically important blast test requirements.  Both vehicles passed but apparently one of them did so with a greater margin of safety.  Hanwha used Israel’s Plasan – a world leader in armour protection – to develop their solution.

 

This might be a coincidence, but APDR has seen evidence of Redback undergoing preliminary blast testing in Israel with a number of 155mm artillery shells being detonated near a test vehicle, with impressive survivability results.'

 

not precisely the same way, but it seems that Redback did to Lynx, what Boxer did to AMV35.  Demonstrate superiority via an unscripted method,  Boxer driving off after a blast test in Vic,  Redback doing something after a 155mm shell test, overseas.

In general it must be seen that Rheinmetall is pretty new in tracked vehicle development.

They did Marder decades ago and several subsystems for PzH, Puma, Leopard etc. So it not surpising that they performed not as good as their marketing tries to tell.

I think it is easy to see that KMW (in the combined projects of PzH, Puma, Leopard etc.) did the areas where Rheinmetall has issues now - such as drive line and chassis. In addition to the wrong choice of Lynx's engine.

Besides that, it is good that they are finally starting to become a real tracked vehicle manufacturer (which is possible due to Hungary) but it will take some years until they are where they want to be.

Wisent 2 for Hungary during visit of Stoltenberg at FFG.

https://epaimages.com/search.pp?flush=1&eventid=1186106

Could be Green Lantern VS Superman. Nothing possible to see at all.

I have read that an ACSV is 1.5 million € compared to 6 million € for a Boxer which was why this was chosen. Is this true?

Features (some are my guesses):

- Leopard 2A7HU as a base

- Bomblet roof protection

- Improved optronics

- Digitised turret 

- ILME

- Digitised radios

- Enhanced trophy integration

- 571 track

- No RWS

Might be that support vehicles are included as well.

Well that is how German government destroys German tank industry.

MEXAS comes from IBD. I can only partly understand the German but Google translate works https://de-academic.com/dic.nsf/dewiki/949102

There are some references. Maybe you find what you are looking but I am sure @SH_MM knows everything about it.

I thought Polish Krab was based on K9 but wouldn't make sense to buy K9 then but great to see that Poland takes current situation serious and becomes no. 1 military power in Europe.

Let the Norwegians decide what is best. I trust that based on their call that it will be objective decision. 

On 6/22/2022 at 7:06 PM, Beer said:

More details about the Czech Leopard 2 acquistion were presented in the parlamentary defence comitee meeting. 

 

The target is to transform our WP-style tank battallion into a NATO-style battallion, i.e. increase the number of companies from 3 to 4 and also increase the number of vehicles per company. A fifth company is planned for the so called active reserve corps (they have a company of T-72M1 now). 

 

Altogether it means that the target number is 58 tanks + 15 support vehicles on tank chassis (ARV, AEV, bridge layers). 

 

After all it's not a lot of tanks but it's almost double to what we have now. 

The 14 2A4s and 1 Buffel are coming from from Rheinmetall as I have heard. Are they aiming for some Leo2 Revo/Evolution or are they are looking for 2A7s?

My suggestion would be that Spain does a "Ringtausch" with Germany. Spain delivers 40 Leopard 2A4 to Germany that can be upgraded to 2A7 in the next years and Germany delivers some 100 Leopard 1A5 to Ukraine.

Sounds roughly like the same amount that Hungary will get.

German bashing is becoming sports.

Truth is no-one needs MGCS to fight T-72 or T-90. 

All neighbours are flying F-35 so why should they wait some additional 20 years to fly FCAS? 

I would have taken the same decisions as they did. 

1 hour ago, Laser Shark said:

Marders will still be used for years to come in both the Bundeswehr (although they are indeed slowly phasing them out) and countries like Chile, Indonesia and Jordan, so it shouldn’t be too much of a hassle to get spares for these. In fact, they can probably acquire/cannibalize the German ones as they are phased out too.

 

It gets more sketchy when it comes to the Leo 1s (the tank, not the support vehicles) and the Gepards, but there are a few countries that are still using these as well, so they must be getting spares from somewhere.

No problem with Leo 1 spares. Greece has many, Turkey as well but we have plenty of spare parts in DK, too (we still take them out once per year for some hot rounds). I am pretty sure you will find many parts in stocks in Norway as well ;-).

Same number of Leo 1A5 are available at other German company plus other Leo1 based platforms.

The video is quite short where the picture is from. If I am correct there are Spectus cameras in front+rear which we don't have in Danmark but the Germans. We would have read something if they were from Hungary which are not delivered yet. So yes Germans I would guess.

3 hours ago, Laser Shark said:

2 Leopard 2A7/A7NO were recently spotted in Oslo:

 

 

 

So my guess was wrong. No weight reduction measures can be seen. Looks like 2A7V.

Interesting thank you.

On 12/31/2021 at 4:45 PM, Laser Shark said:

 

My money is still on the Leo 2, but it certainly looks like it won’t be the easy victory I predicted a year or two ago. Ultimately, though, I think the risk of ending up as the sole K2 user in Europe is going to be too much to stomach for such a small country/army, so as long as KMW can manage to produce an acceptable offer that’s not too far behind Hyundai’s, they should be able to take this one home imo.

I think there was a similiar competition when PzH2000 and K9 competed in the howitzer program which ended up pretty badly for the PzH (I think one of them broke down or something like that) but I didn't copy it since there wasn't much to read about it. Maybe @Laser Sharkyouknow more about it? At least there should be some useful lessons learned for the MBT trials.

As I understood it 62,5t are maximum weight for driving on Norwegian roads but APS and other protection measures like AoA, track skirts, SLAT etc. are mounted in operations only. Not sure how they handle it but when I look on pictures of their ARVs/AEVs they don't have it mounted when they are on training at home. 

KNDS has it's hands on Trophy in Europe and that is the only system that is widely used (M1, Leo2, CR3, Merkava). Using a different APS will add some additional risk on top. So I think it will be Trophy or none.

I think it is possible to have same protection as 2A7 with 5t less.

KMW is linked with Bundeswehr very much which resulted in current Leo2 design that is based on NERA. 

I had a long chat with FFG regarding this matter who used E-tech armour for their Canadian AEV. They mentioned they can reduce 50% weight of their AoA using ERA with same protection level.

I think KMW needs just to be pushed a lot to get straight but I think no matter what they do K2 will win.

Korea will do almost everything to get a step in NATO marked (which they did with K9 already) and will offer a huge industry cooperation for the launching customer.

On 12/30/2021 at 9:03 AM, Laser Shark said:

 

I think the main reason why we haven't seen 2A7s yet is because KMW will need to reduce weight upfront significantly. 

Goal was to archive 61t which might not be relevant for the trials but less weight will bring a big benefit for deep snow driving.

Easy for K2 because it's already in the aimed weight area whereas Leo2 needs to get rid of 4-5t which is quite some job to do which needs preparation time.

I think we will see new track, no mine protection, no belly protection, steel exchanged by aluminium in some areas and maybe more 2A5 like turret protection.

Could be that they just send a current 2A7 but that will mean that K2 will have an advantage in mobility which will be a major point in the trials.