The Leopard 2 Thread

[Ramlaen]

1 hour ago, Pardus said:

 

Also the Leopard is consistently scoring better in gunnery competitions between the two during SETC

 

Are you by chance confusing the overall offensive scoring with gunnery scoring, because 

 

 

[VertigoEx]

On 10/29/2019 at 12:58 PM, Beer said:

 

Unfortunately You didn't get the point of my post. I wanted to say that it's extremely difficult to define what does it mean to be the best and that even one against one comparison is not a good one. Even the very same thing can be the best for someone and a pain in the ass for someone else. Of course I also didnť try to claim that the T series tanks are the best  

 

With the T-90A example I tried to show an example of a scenario where such tank works maybe better than for example Abrams. The use of Abrams by similar military of Iraq has been rather problematic mainly due to claimed very low serviceable numbers. Regarding the actual combat loses I would say in both cases most of them can be attributed to an incompetence of their users. I know some T-90A were destroyed in Syria but despite having thousands of ATGM strikes on youtube we don't have any of a catastrophic explosion of a tank of late Soviet or post Soviet origin in Syria while we have tons of them with old T-72M1 or A models. 

 

By the way no T-90A loss is documented in Donbas among more than thousand of documented destroyed armoured vehicles. Only several T-72B3 and 72B mod.1989 from the relatively modern tanks. From what I have read the T-90A were used only briefly during the summer 2014 ofensive in Lugans area where they defeated the 1st tank brigade of Ukrainean army equipped with T-64BM in a night fight.  

 

Sure I understand that the Abrams M1A2S and Leopard 2A4 spectacularly destroyed on the videos were hits from side onto a tank sitting in the open. However to claim that the reputation for crew survivability of Abrams stayed intact after that is a bit too bold claim. In that very case if the crew was inside it was sure killed by the explosion. I am not saying the tanks are bad, I'm saying that a large part of their reputation comes from the fact that they have been mostly used by very potent militaries. When they are being used by less competent users the story changes. I think some Izraeli general said after Six day war that even if the militaries switched their hardware the result of the war would be most likely same. 

 

Thanks for the info about Leclerc in Yemen. 

 

Sorry for the late reply.. It does appear we agree on much. 

 

As for the T-90A in the UKR, a talk was given on youtube by a US adviser in the Donbas, he stated that T-90s were used in one the the battles for Donetsk airport and very hard to knock out. Perhaps he is mistaken. I will try and find he video

 

cheers.

[DIADES]

On 11/3/2019 at 9:57 PM, SH_MM said:

Technologically, there is no lead on either side.

There used to be but one of the outcomes of the idiotic arrogant ITAR rules was the US lead being eroded.  I agree, state of the art, no lead for anybody.

[2805662]

I’ve had no issues working with ITAR. Having almost two decades of firsthand experience exporting controlled/military technologies from the UK, Finland, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Israel, Canada, & the US, for both government & private entities, I’ll take ITAR/EAR any day of the week. There’s a lot of ignorance/assumptions/old wives tales about ITAR, generally by people who think that they can bypass/outsmart process process monkeys & fail dismally. 

[DIADES]

35 minutes ago, 2805662 said:

I’ve had no issues working with ITAR. Having almost two decades of firsthand experience exporting controlled/military technologies from the UK, Finland, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Israel, Canada, & the US, for both government & private entities, I’ll take ITAR/EAR any day of the week. There’s a lot of ignorance/assumptions/old wives tales about ITAR, generally by people who think that they can bypass/outsmart process process monkeys & fail dismally. 

Me too, slightly longer but different (about 25 years) experience on the receiving end in Australia.  Always injects big chunks of lost time and the rues are applied idiotically for maximum revenue tor US primes.  Got a cable connecting two ITAR items?  Congratulations, that is also an ITAR item and now costs 100 times a non-ITAR cable doing the same job,  A drawing of that cable (2 conductors in a sheath) is also ITAR controlled.  Ridiculous.

 

The organizations I work with these days go out of their way to eliminate any US ITAR related components at the design stage as far as possible.  Quite often cost dollars but significant de-risk.  The money spent drives competitive non-US solutions.

 

Any kind of dependency on the US is a risk - and we are bloody allies!

 

And a chuck of that experience was with night tubes...

[2805662]

39 minutes ago, DIADES said:

Me too, slightly longer but different (about 25 years) experience on the receiving end in Australia.  Always injects big chunks of lost time and the rues are applied idiotically for maximum revenue tor US primes.  Got a cable connecting two ITAR items?  Congratulations, that is also an ITAR item and now costs 100 times a non-ITAR cable doing the same job,  A drawing of that cable (2 conductors in a sheath) is also ITAR controlled.  Ridiculous.

 

The organizations I work with these days go out of their way to eliminate any US ITAR related components at the design stage as far as possible.  Quite often cost dollars but significant de-risk.  The money spent drives competitive non-US solutions.

 

Any kind of dependency on the US is a risk - and we are bloody allies!

 

And a chuck of that experience was with night tubes...

Sounds like the relevant TAAs weren’t sorted in advance, or they’re not applying the DTCT. 
 

Image Intensification tubes are now covered under the DTCT - no lead times, apart from production lead times. 

[DIADES]

51 minutes ago, 2805662 said:

are now

yeah, I am old....  Not so much the TAAs but how the vendors use "its ITAR" Much like Classification, everybody defaults too high, too wide etc,  The clear motive in the ITAR case is to tie customers into equipment that they must purchase (in a support sense) from the OEM in perpetuity with the associated immense cost.

[2805662]

Closing out this interesting side bar to the Leopard 2 discussion; the motives aren’t just commercial, they’re legal. Nobody wants to risk criminal charges by erring in applying export controls, so, of course they’re sometimes applied with more rigour than what’s strictly necessary. Also, violating the licence risks losing access to the technology and support. 

 

Anyway, back to over-engineered German tanks that still haven’t fought another tank in their 40-year history (kidding!). 

[SH_MM]

130 mm turret for Leopard 2:

[Gun Ready]

At the 40 year anniversary of Leopard 2 at KMW in Munich it had been announced that the German Army Leopard 2 A7 will get TROPHY from RAFAEL as an additional active protection system. The decision was made against the Rheinmetall ADS.

 

 

 

[SH_MM]

This is typical "Welt" reporting. They have heard about the 17 units of Trophy purchased for the VJTF and thinking this is valid for the complete fleet...

 

Trophy's defeat mechanism isn't secret and KMW also isn't the one to decide which APS will be fitted to the Leopard 2 MBT, but the countries operating it. Stupid video.

[Gun Ready]

50 minutes ago, SH_MM said:

This is typical "Welt" reporting. They have heard about the 17 units of Trophy purchased for the VJTF and thinking this is valid for the complete fleet...

 

Trophy's defeat mechanism isn't secret and KMW also isn't the one to decide which APS will be fitted to the Leopard 2 MBT, but the countries operating it. Stupid video.

I seems that you are the best IBD, now Rheinmetall supporter of this blog and unable to accept the reality that KMW is the prime of Leopard and Rheinmetalls only suppliers.

[Ramlaen]

14 minutes ago, Gun Ready said:

I seems that you are the best IBD, now Rheinmetall supporter of this blog and unable to accept the reality that KMW is the prime of Leopard and Rheinmetalls only suppliers.

 

Or you could defend your position instead of going straight to ad hominem.

[SH_MM]

44 minutes ago, Gun Ready said:

I seems that you are the best IBD, now Rheinmetall supporter of this blog and unable to accept the reality that KMW is the prime of Leopard and Rheinmetalls only suppliers.

 

You are the only one in this topic who has some sort of fandom for one company instead of looking at all options. KMW announced at their "40 years of Leopard 2" event, that they will hand over the first Leopard 2 with Trophy to the BAAINBw in a few weeks. Welt stupidly took this is as "this means Germany will buy Trophy for all Leopard 2 tanks".

 

As a matter of fact not only Rheinmetall has developed its own APS, but also KMW and Diehl - so there is no reason to buy Trophy once the desired levels of technology readiness levels are reached. Even when buying a foreign system, Trophy should come as second choice behind Elbit/IMI's better Iron Fist system. But when the BAAINBw tested three types of APS (Rheinmetall ADS, Iron Fist & Trophy) for potential installation on the Leopard 2 tanks for VJTF, all of them failed to meet the requirements. Trophy however was rated with the highest level of technology readiness and therefore chosen as urgent material request for the Leopard 2. BAAINBw specifically announced that this is no final decision for the whole German tank fleet.

 

Speaking of 40 years of Leopard 2:

 

 

And Leopard 2A7V for Germany:

[Voodoo]

That Leopard, third to the right.. Which is it? Is it the same as the one displayed at Eurosatory 2018? this one:

 

 

[Gun Ready]

14 hours ago, SH_MM said:

 

You are the only one in this topic who has some sort of fandom for one company instead of looking at all options. KMW announced at their "40 years of Leopard 2" event, that they will hand over the first Leopard 2 with Trophy to the BAAINBw in a few weeks. Welt stupidly took this is as "this means Germany will buy Trophy for all Leopard 2 tanks".

 

As a matter of fact not only Rheinmetall has developed its own APS, but also KMW and Diehl - so there is no reason to buy Trophy once the desired levels of technology readiness levels are reached. Even when buying a foreign system, Trophy should come as second choice behind Elbit/IMI's better Iron Fist system. But when the BAAINBw tested three types of APS (Rheinmetall ADS, Iron Fist & Trophy) for potential installation on the Leopard 2 tanks for VJTF, all of them failed to meet the requirements. Trophy however was rated with the highest level of technology readiness and therefore chosen as urgent material request for the Leopard 2. BAAINBw specifically announced that this is no final decision for the whole German tank fleet.

 

Speaking of 40 years of Leopard 2:

 

Spoiler

 

And Leopard 2A7V for Germany:

 

 

So it seems that you got an invitation and had been there!

[123]

1

[Laviduce]

On 9/13/2019 at 3:59 PM, SH_MM said:

 

 

According to the Brits, Type D base armor is a thing.

 

From what document is this from ? What year was this released ?

[Laviduce]

On 9/17/2019 at 8:03 PM, SH_MM said:

 

 

 

 

From what document are these pictures from ? What year was this document created ? Thanks in advance !

[SH_MM]

The excerpts are from a British report on Chieftain replacement, 1988.

_________

 

 

Weight.

[David Moyes]

Don't know if this has been mentioned before but apparently Santa Bárbara Sistemas cut costs by replacing titanium armour with steel when making the Leopard 2E:
 

Quote

The malpractice came, according to internal sources of the program, to the point of replacing part of the armour of the Leopard car, made of a titanium alloy face, with a steel one; the Army being aware of such folly when it submitted the vehicles delivered to a review of weights (the change in addition to compromising their protection, meant an overweight of two tons). This "error" has serious consequences on its behaviour in combat and the life of the engine and transmission. Unfortunately, the government then did not take legal measures, so it is understood that these sludges come from those dusts - Google translation

https://www.ejercitos.org/2019/12/24/vcr-8x8-requiem-por-un-sueno/

[2805662]

6 hours ago, David Moyes said:

Don't know if this has been mentioned before but apparently Santa Bárbara Sistemas cut costs by replacing titanium armour with steel when making the Leopard 2E:
 

https://www.ejercitos.org/2019/12/24/vcr-8x8-requiem-por-un-sueno/

Yikes!

[FORMATOSE]

On 12/26/2019 at 12:26 AM, David Moyes said:

Don't know if this has been mentioned before but apparently Santa Bárbara Sistemas cut costs by replacing titanium armour with steel when making the Leopard 2E:

https://www.ejercitos.org/2019/12/24/vcr-8x8-requiem-por-un-sueno/

 

Titanium was one of the components of the D-Technologie composite armor package, right ?

[Wiedzmin]

On 9/10/2019 at 6:52 PM, SH_MM said:

 

Naked armor modules:

 

 

btw it's modules for turret roof, no ?

 

 

[Pardus]

On 11/12/2019 at 2:25 PM, Ramlaen said:

 

Are you by chance confusing the overall offensive scoring with gunnery scoring, because 

 

 

 

No I mean the Leopard 2 in general has won the SETC gunnery exercises. The stationary shoot out discipline was won in 2018 by the US, but that's the first and only time so far, and they didn't place as high as the Leopards in the initial offensive & defensive gunnery disciplines.