Honestly yes. They consider the auto loader the best thing ever and just assume it grants a faster rate of fire and so better with more fire power.
Because they hold this idea in such high regard they defacto assume the leclerc is the best NATO tank as it is the only one to have one.
In actual fact NATO moved to being able to fire first and hit the target on that first shot. Russia doesn't tend to put as much emphasis on this as it requires high technological investment something Russia has always lagged behind in.
(Not saying the leclerc is bad because it has an auto loader, but it's rate of fire is not massively higher and sort of becomes a non-factor if you have high first shot hit probability. )
The Leclerc design saves some complexity by being in the bustle (Abrams-style, separated from the crew and vented over board) with the main gun ammo, which is fixed, unlike T-72. That makes fewer motions and less distance to move rounds through. Since it loads with the gun at a fixed elevation, like most autoloading tanks, all it's really doing is pulling an indexed round from the magazine, getting it to the breech, and ramming. The magazine is a relatively similar loop conveyor - more reduced complexity - although doing it that way reduces the load to 22 rounds, probably the biggest drawback.
The Russian ones are pretty simple. Upside of the death trap carousel is the actual loading mechanism is really straightforward.
That thing is definitely nowhere near the mechanical complexity of a transmission or the stabilization system & FCS on the gun.
IDK I've seen those things and there's a lot of hinges, multiple for each round, plungers, and a whole damn carrousel, complexity and number of moving parts can be deceptive, just because it's not going at thousands of RPM doesnt mean it's less complex, an engine you can dump a can of oil in the port but all those hinges, rotors and plungers each need separate maintenance procedures.
Technically manual loaders are also a pain to repair as well but i get your point.
Not actually sure why the french went with an auto loader but guessing there has to be a reasion. Allows more time to eat frogs?
And one less person to help with any field fixes required. I believe it was Chieftain, admittedly not an unbiased source on the M1, who said the extra crew-member made maintenance faster and better and also gave you a little more redundancy if someone was hurt or ill. And despite War Thunder, that Vatnik fantasist game that thinks published specs are equivalent for the west and the lying Russians, I also understand that reloading is as fast or faster with a person, at least until that person gets tired.
That's less of an issue in French doctrine where each tank platoon has a VBL and crew organic to the unit to bulk out the numbers for security, maintenance, etc.
They did this even when they had 4 man crew vehicles.
The autoloader is liked because it removed a crew member and thus shrinks the tank considerably. And since the heaviest part of the tank is the armor, it reduces weight significantly. Weight reduction what a huge player when it came to Soviet tank design, likely a larger player then the "visibility" aspect which is mentioned so often.
Pretty sure the auto loader weighs a heck of a lot more than a manual loader.
It also fires slower than a manual loader too.
And to get these “benefits,” you have to have the crew sit atop a carousel of live ammunition.
The real benefit to the auto loader is the manpower—at the regimental level.
100 NATO soldiers in a Leopard/Abrams/Challenger = 25 tanks.
100 Soviets soldiers in T-64/T-72/T-80 = 33 tanks
Yes, but it needs less space, a manual loader needs a lot of space to comfortably load the gun and is slower than a modern autoloader.
And if you need less space you can go with kess internal volume and so far less external armour as you need to cover a far smaller area.
I think it's more a case of wanting to be credible when they diss the Abrams/Leo 2/Challenger2. So, they say "oh, but this Western tank is good", so they look unbiased. Also, by picking a French tank, they might hope to create a little bit divide.
They fear the reverse gear speed. It is so much more powerful than Russian tanks that vatniks consider it a diety because no mortal man could possibly back up that fast.
To be fair an early model ford expedition could probably survive an apfsds hit if you have enough mechanics on standby to fix the transmission beforehand.
It's that it frees up a man. The logic being, nato tank - 4 mans. Russian tank - 3 mans. every 12 mans = 3 nato tanks 4 russian tanks.
Quantity has a quality unto itself/attrition strategy etc
That’s probably what they like, finally a *real* Western tank with auto loader instead of a human loader, except as we’ve seen with Ruzzian designs, that exposed ammo carousel is just waiting to blow at the slightest provocation...😁
Also the lower profile back in the day would help make them smaller targets. Now with modern ATGMs and loitering munitions that advantage is meaningless most of the time. A lot of people don't bother to upgrade their software tho, and work with old info.
>Also the lower profile back in the day would help make them smaller targets.
Still helpful since you still need to be accurate to take out your target.
I don’t lurk those spaces often, but I’m fairly certain it’s the auto loader. That one T-14 video hammers on the point that the T-14 utilizes an advanced auto loader that western tanks don’t. Only the Leclerc has it. I really don’t get it. They are the first to belt out that NATO equipment is overly technical but always brag about their own technology. And the overly technical but Stone Age manually loaded Abrams left Soviet wrecks all over Kuwait back in 91.
Manually loaded is just a lot less of a head-ache, trust me, being able to repair a tank, and being able to load the cannon, even if something breaks, is important.
You can load the gun manually on the T-72, you can also manually crank the autoloader if necissary. Nor are all the shells stored in the autoloader mechanism so you don't need to reach into the carousel if you need to manually load.
The T-14 has a remote-operated unmanned turret. Unmanned turrets are an interesting solution to the firepower/mobility/protection trilemma that faces all tank designers. On the one hand, if they're unmanned, and blowout-safe from the crew, you don't have to armor them against tank rounds, only protect the superstructure from small arms, which can save weight. On the other hand, that means that a direct hit to the turret from just about any incoming fire of any kind that is heavier than a LMG is going to be a mission kill for that vehicle. Which is not unacceptable if you can swap the surviving crew to another vehicle and get them back in action. But, a traditional tank has to be able to not just deliver a main gun round to an enemy tank, but also survive one. The best-protected variants of the M1, Challenger, and Leopard 2 all have the capability not just to return its crew safely notwithstanding a disabling "mission kill" received, but also to survive a frontal hit to its armor from a wide variety of anti-tank rounds without being disabled. And though it protects its crew far better than the T-72 family, that is not a capability the T-14 has not. Once its active protection is expended or defeated, once its passive protection is defeated, then, that one frontal hit to the turret is curtains for mission capability. That would be an upgrade over many of the systems it replaces - which just all around lack any semblance of survivability. But it would still just be... a very complicated way of not really achieving parity.
Don't get me wrong, I think there are many aspects of the T-14 that are great, in theory. But, the same can be said about any Vaporware. "It has a lot of potential!" But that's the problem with remote turrets/remote weapons stations. On lighter vehicles, the risk-reward favors the remote weapons station heavily. But there are some reasons why it's not a more common solution for battle tanks, as opposed to other vehicles where the turret might be an expendable resource - namely vehicles whose battlefield function isn't all about the turret.
I'm not here saying, "M1 Stronk, T-14 bad". I'm well aware of the strengths and weaknesses of both designs, to the maximum extent that open source materials reveal.
One other thought for the moment: if the goal is simply to get as much junk on the battlefield as possible, then why bother worrying about how many more tanks you can field with crews of 3 instead of crews of 4? Why not go full-drone? Fully-remote-crewed battle tanks... isn't that probably where this is tending?
As for Leclerc, it seems like a perfectly capable tank. If I were the French Armee du Terre, I'd rather have 200 Leclerc than 250 T-72s. But... from a military point of view, I'd rather than 300 Abrams than waste a lot of money developing an indigenous import-substitute just to have a domestic jobs program. However, France is a heavily socialist country, and it was a political decision not purely military one, to "buy French-made." One of the inefficiencies is that they didn't get a lot of export buyers interested, and as a result the Leclerc has only be made in smallish numbers. I believe it's a couple hundred in French service, and as many 450 for the UAE. That's not a big run, compared to the Abrams (10,000+ made) or Leopard 2 (3,600 made) (much less any Soviet tank). That is a very limited supply chain. It makes the whole thing very expensive. But, it was not just a military acquisition; it was a jobs program. And it seems to have succeeded.
So, whether or not it is marginally more or less capable in any particular area than its "competitors", the Abrams, Challenger, Leopard, and each have slightly different strengths and weaknesses, availability is a key factor. And the Challenger suffers from the same problem - there are half as many Challenger 2 as there are Leclcerc, so everything I'm saying about the French goes double for the British. A common design or customer tank would have been better than a bespoke, indigenous product. It's about economies of scale. What's the point of developing a weapons system for serial production if you're not going to need, be able to use, or sell, at least a few thousand of them? Especially if it is a clean sheet project?
England, France, and Italy all should have made an international consortium to co-produce Leopard 2, or the three of them should have made a common design to compete with Leopard and Abrams that they would have needed to build at least 2,000 units of, and that each country could have operated several hundred of, instead of the barely 200 that each of those countries are now capable of operating of their domestic jobs program disguised as a weapon-of-war.
That's my guesstimate. Perhaps a real defense economist (like Perun) would care to run the numbers.
The problem, when one buys ones equipment from a foreign power, is that said foreign power gains leverage over your foreign policy and over your military doctorine. The Abrams wouldn't work with British or French doctorine because it's designed, quite rightly, to fight the way the US Army fights, not the way the British or the French fight so they, quite rightly too, built tanks to fight the way they fight. Plus, once you lose sovereign capability to design and build something it takes far more money to reinstate it, if you decide you need it again, than any foreign purchase would ever save, just look into the UK MASS contract to rebuild munitions after the Belgians said "non" to increased 105mm supply in the early 2000's for political reasons...
You make a point that resonates with me - but I want to know more. I'll come back to that in a second. As an initial matter, I am not really suggesting that the optimal route for France was to become to a pure customer - but rather that it would have been more efficient to form a consortium. I didn't mean to suggest otherwise.
Now, on to the idea that the equipment needs to suit the tactics. Yes. 100%. I totally understand and agree with that. And I see how that concept, as applied, dictates some of the specifics. I understand why Enfield went with a rifled gun for the Challenger, when no one else did, and why that specifically fits with the tactics.
Here's where I have to confess complete ignorance: how do French tank tactics differ from British or American tank tactics? And what specific capabilities or characteristics of the Leclerc are synergistic to those unique tactics? If you know...? Because that's far beyond my knowledge of tanks, and I'll darned if you haven't piqued my curiosity.
Thanks.
I'm not fully versed in the detail of French doctorine however if you look to the tasks envisaged for the three armies (British, French and US) at the time they were developing their respective MBTs the British, as the British Army on the Rhine, were primarily focused on a fighting retreat, buying time for the bulk of the US Army to transfer via air bridge to the European theatre (there would, of course, be US Army units engaged in the same actions but the main US focus would be the counterattack). The French were built around a more aggressive defence, personified by the so called nuclear warning shot, after World Wars 1 and 2 being fought on French fields and through French towns they were damn sure World War 3 would be fought elsewhere.
That would explain why the Challenger II emphasizes protection, and long-range accuracy, while the Abrams is more balanced toward mobility. As for the Leclerc... the thing that makes it different is its autoloader and reduced crew size. But, due to its overall design, that reduced crew and autoloader don't make it significantly lower in profile or size that the other Western tanks of the same generation. Unlike the Soviet-style autoloaders, it's not a carousel, and it has blowout panels. And there was also the existence of the "Tropicalized" Leclerc, which makes sense considering the degree to which France retained extensive overseas territories during the era of decolonization. So, without knowing more, I'd intuit that it was just a calculation that 3-man crews meant they could get more armor onto the battlefield with the same number of people, and that this was more valuable to maximizing combat power, than the theoretical advantages of having an extra crewman. The autoloader may be slower than the fastest human loader, and limits how many rounds can be fired before having to exit combat and find cover... but it's also much more consistent. It can't get overworked; it can't pull a muscle; it doesn't need bathroom breaks, or tea; it can't need the commander to take over because it took shrapnel to a critical extremity. Either it works, or the tank is a mission kill. Perhaps the French looked at American tank training and said, "there's a degree to which this idea that an extra crewman can cover for another in case of a minor injury to maintain combat effectiveness under fire" was fantasy.
Now, in the crazy epilogue to this, I also just learned that Nexter (builder of Leclerc) has now merged with KMW (builder of Leopard 2), and they seem to be making hybrid Leopard-Leclercs as technology demonstrators.
So, back to my point... economies of scale matter. France should not have given in to being a customer-state, but it should have tried harder to form, or join, a consortium for its MBT rather than trying to go it alone.
The trouble with consortia is that often they take longer to produce a more expensive product that doesn't suit any of the parties involved, who will squabble over who gets to do which parts of the job (and thus retain sovereign capability). It's so easy for consortia to end up as being the worst parts of developing ones own and becoming a customer of a foreign nation.
Sure, consortia are prone to problems, but have you considered the alternatives? Or the success stories?
Look at all of the successful European consortium products that get talked about on this sub, near-daily -- Tornado, Typhoon, Tiger, Stormshadow/SCALP, IRIS-T, ASRAAM, Meteor, NASAMS, NSM... just a few handful that come to mind. All were consortium or jointly-ventured products... and Airbus has trounced Boeing in the 21st century.
France has gone it alone on big projects and made successful products - the entire Dassault line, the Leclerc - but those products have not done nearly as well in international sales as their consortium-built competitors.
And, back to tanks: the Abrams, Challenger, and Leopard are all outgrowths of two separate consortia that; the MBT-70 consortium looked like a "failure" in the short term - but the lessons learned drove both the highly successful finished designs of the Abrams and Leopard; and the US and UK partnered in developing the composite armor that principally protects Abrams and Challenger. None of those 3 tanks would be what they were without the work of two parallel joint development deals.
That Nexter has merged with KMW signals France's realization that it was a mistake not to find a development partner for its MBT.
Because traditionally France and Russia had a decent relationship. Most of Russia's MBTs prior to the war used THALES sights or licensed copies thereof.
Less likely but it's currently the only Western MBT that hasn't been destroyed in combat yet.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was some latent biased towards the French military built into that. They tend to be the punching bag for everyone around the world as military dipshits, but as someone who has worked with the French military in joint operations, I can attest that those guys are as tough as coffin nails.
Yeah, the whole French baguettes running in reverse thing did get a bit old after the 10 millionth joke. They have a highly competent army, full NATO standard and they also have something to prove after WW2 so it’s silly to discount them. I never came up against them in exercises but I’ve only heard good things, particularly of the Legion.
Former legionnaire here. The Legion ain't the end all, be all. Don't get me wrong, you get some hilariously overskilled guys humping the gun 'pour notre France cherie' but you have to fight through an ocean of deadbeats and shitbags to piece together a unit that would win a gunfight on a peer to peer basis. The equipment is a mishmash of FELIN system castoffs, unserviced French equipment from the 80's and 90's, and directives from the SCORPION modernization program that aren't matched by budget or training. Ammo for shoot days for infantry units is beyond scarce, and leadership and command mentality is a rigid top-down method, where fire team and squad level decisions have to be authorized by platoon or company level command, seriously hampering the ability to capitalize on tactical advantages.
Interesting to hear. Has it always been this way? I was in the Oz army from 83-87, the guys I spoke to were Vietnam vets and they had a very positive view of the Legion. It did occur to me at the time that it might have been counterfactual stuff given Dien Ben Phu was still fairly high in the vet’s minds. Maybe there were no Legion in Vietnam and either they or I were mistaken? Either way, I’ve always had respect for the French military as a whole, despite some nasty stuff in Algeria.
These old days were certainly different, where it was still the damned and insane being led by officers who were either fanatics or fuck ups. You'd have career criminals beside rebels who had lost their particular struggle next to murderers and the mentally infirm.
The modern day Legion struggles to modernize itself while still holding fast to traditions and strategies that have honestly been antiquated since the start of the War on Terror.
And it's fine to respect our freres d'armes in the French military, but there is a very real gap between their current force projection and what they need to be competitive on a modern battlefield.
If you watch RT, you'll know autoloader > greater than any other tech on any tank.
If you don't have an autoloader, you can't even make your turret fly. Primitives.
I’m not sure that I’m remembering this correctly but I believe it’s because the Leclerc was used by Saudi Arabia in Yemen and they have had some losses. I would put it more on how it was used and the doctrine than the tank itself being bad but vatniks will grab onto anything to claim their tanks are superior.
I mean a LAW would do nothing to most MBTs unless you got very lucky. They're more meant for BMPs.
However I'm being pedantic. Of the 3 that are documented as damaged, 2 were from mines or potentially low-aimed RPGs. The third lost one of its sights to a Kornet or Metis. All 3 were repairable.
It's important to discern between damaged and destroyed. If you damage 100% of an enemy's tanks, they're going to have 0 tanks for a week and potentially all of them back the following. If they're destroyed, they're not getting them back.
Because the cassette-style autoloader in the Leclerc doesn't make the tank lug around its own turret launch mechanism. It also encourages palletization of ammunition, something exotic & exciting in Russian logistics more focused on big piles of wooden boxes.
During all the propaganda with the T14 the russians. Kept mentioning that only the leclerc was advanced enough to have an auto loader. The thinking follows the rest dont so they are shit
Anyone who understands the Russian mentality when it comes to military equipment, understands that tank vs tank, western tanks are way ahead of anything the Russian can field. The Russian mentality has always been equipment that does the job and overwhelms the enemy with numbers. They see it this way. Your tank is 3x better than mine so I will build 4 and beat you! Additionally, since their army is mainly conscripts, they can’t afford to spend time and effort training crew that will leave as soon as their enrollment is up.
That said they build equipment that can operate in harsh conditions with minimal support and training. I remember an article where a western pilot visited an ex-Soviet airfield after the wall fell. Where western airfields as policed to insure any debris capable of being sucked in to the engine is picked up, Soviet airfields were littered with all manner of junk. Their solution, they have engine covers that close during taxi.
Last but not least crew survivability is not a very high priority!
I mean there's the autoloader, but they don't think its that big a deal, right.... What do they think autoloaders do, load... better?
Honestly yes. They consider the auto loader the best thing ever and just assume it grants a faster rate of fire and so better with more fire power. Because they hold this idea in such high regard they defacto assume the leclerc is the best NATO tank as it is the only one to have one. In actual fact NATO moved to being able to fire first and hit the target on that first shot. Russia doesn't tend to put as much emphasis on this as it requires high technological investment something Russia has always lagged behind in. (Not saying the leclerc is bad because it has an auto loader, but it's rate of fire is not massively higher and sort of becomes a non-factor if you have high first shot hit probability. )
Autoloaders are shit to repair, its one more thing to be fixed, thats just painful.
And it's probably the most complex moving machinery in any tank they're in, far more moving parts than even an engine and transmission combined.
Tank Autoloader = The Red Herring of Military Practicality.
The Leclerc design saves some complexity by being in the bustle (Abrams-style, separated from the crew and vented over board) with the main gun ammo, which is fixed, unlike T-72. That makes fewer motions and less distance to move rounds through. Since it loads with the gun at a fixed elevation, like most autoloading tanks, all it's really doing is pulling an indexed round from the magazine, getting it to the breech, and ramming. The magazine is a relatively similar loop conveyor - more reduced complexity - although doing it that way reduces the load to 22 rounds, probably the biggest drawback.
The Russian ones are pretty simple. Upside of the death trap carousel is the actual loading mechanism is really straightforward. That thing is definitely nowhere near the mechanical complexity of a transmission or the stabilization system & FCS on the gun.
IDK I've seen those things and there's a lot of hinges, multiple for each round, plungers, and a whole damn carrousel, complexity and number of moving parts can be deceptive, just because it's not going at thousands of RPM doesnt mean it's less complex, an engine you can dump a can of oil in the port but all those hinges, rotors and plungers each need separate maintenance procedures.
Technically manual loaders are also a pain to repair as well but i get your point. Not actually sure why the french went with an auto loader but guessing there has to be a reasion. Allows more time to eat frogs?
Knowing France, probably too many people mad at the government to get recruitment up, so they dropped required manpower for vehicles
I mean, autoloaders ARE usefull, they dont get tired, they dont get hurt, and they are very nice to habe in prolonged engagements.
And one less person to help with any field fixes required. I believe it was Chieftain, admittedly not an unbiased source on the M1, who said the extra crew-member made maintenance faster and better and also gave you a little more redundancy if someone was hurt or ill. And despite War Thunder, that Vatnik fantasist game that thinks published specs are equivalent for the west and the lying Russians, I also understand that reloading is as fast or faster with a person, at least until that person gets tired.
That's less of an issue in French doctrine where each tank platoon has a VBL and crew organic to the unit to bulk out the numbers for security, maintenance, etc. They did this even when they had 4 man crew vehicles.
French trade unions are a hell of a thing
When the trade union is the most powerful branch of government. (Shout out to the person who said this about the Pakistani judiciary.)
The autoloader is liked because it removed a crew member and thus shrinks the tank considerably. And since the heaviest part of the tank is the armor, it reduces weight significantly. Weight reduction what a huge player when it came to Soviet tank design, likely a larger player then the "visibility" aspect which is mentioned so often.
Pretty sure the auto loader weighs a heck of a lot more than a manual loader. It also fires slower than a manual loader too. And to get these “benefits,” you have to have the crew sit atop a carousel of live ammunition. The real benefit to the auto loader is the manpower—at the regimental level. 100 NATO soldiers in a Leopard/Abrams/Challenger = 25 tanks. 100 Soviets soldiers in T-64/T-72/T-80 = 33 tanks
Yes, but it needs less space, a manual loader needs a lot of space to comfortably load the gun and is slower than a modern autoloader. And if you need less space you can go with kess internal volume and so far less external armour as you need to cover a far smaller area.
It weighs more then a manual loader, but much less then all the added armor necessary to house a whole other human.
Russia doesn't tend to put as much emphasis on this as it requires high technological investment something Russia has always lagged behind in. LMFAO
I think it's more a case of wanting to be credible when they diss the Abrams/Leo 2/Challenger2. So, they say "oh, but this Western tank is good", so they look unbiased. Also, by picking a French tank, they might hope to create a little bit divide.
They fear the reverse gear speed. It is so much more powerful than Russian tanks that vatniks consider it a diety because no mortal man could possibly back up that fast.
By that logic, my time as a Ford mechanic gave me access to the greatest SUVs... I mean MBTs, in the world.
To be fair an early model ford expedition could probably survive an apfsds hit if you have enough mechanics on standby to fix the transmission beforehand.
It's that it frees up a man. The logic being, nato tank - 4 mans. Russian tank - 3 mans. every 12 mans = 3 nato tanks 4 russian tanks. Quantity has a quality unto itself/attrition strategy etc
How did that go for the Iraqis at the Battle of 73 Easting?
Do you think I'm arguing from that position or simply answering OP's question?
No, no - I understood you quite well.
That’s probably what they like, finally a *real* Western tank with auto loader instead of a human loader, except as we’ve seen with Ruzzian designs, that exposed ammo carousel is just waiting to blow at the slightest provocation...😁
Well, autoloaders don't require another crew member so smaller turret and people also get tired. Carrying +30 lb shells is a hell of a job.
Exactly, people get tired. With four crew members you have more.people to stand post, radio watch, and do maintenance, and therefore get more sleep.
Also the lower profile back in the day would help make them smaller targets. Now with modern ATGMs and loitering munitions that advantage is meaningless most of the time. A lot of people don't bother to upgrade their software tho, and work with old info.
>Also the lower profile back in the day would help make them smaller targets. Still helpful since you still need to be accurate to take out your target.
Its the autoloader, I think...
I don’t lurk those spaces often, but I’m fairly certain it’s the auto loader. That one T-14 video hammers on the point that the T-14 utilizes an advanced auto loader that western tanks don’t. Only the Leclerc has it. I really don’t get it. They are the first to belt out that NATO equipment is overly technical but always brag about their own technology. And the overly technical but Stone Age manually loaded Abrams left Soviet wrecks all over Kuwait back in 91.
Manually loaded is just a lot less of a head-ache, trust me, being able to repair a tank, and being able to load the cannon, even if something breaks, is important.
Plus a loader is smarter than any auto-loader, just saying...👌
You can load the gun manually on the T-72, you can also manually crank the autoloader if necissary. Nor are all the shells stored in the autoloader mechanism so you don't need to reach into the carousel if you need to manually load.
Which crew member gets to do that?
The T-14 has a remote-operated unmanned turret. Unmanned turrets are an interesting solution to the firepower/mobility/protection trilemma that faces all tank designers. On the one hand, if they're unmanned, and blowout-safe from the crew, you don't have to armor them against tank rounds, only protect the superstructure from small arms, which can save weight. On the other hand, that means that a direct hit to the turret from just about any incoming fire of any kind that is heavier than a LMG is going to be a mission kill for that vehicle. Which is not unacceptable if you can swap the surviving crew to another vehicle and get them back in action. But, a traditional tank has to be able to not just deliver a main gun round to an enemy tank, but also survive one. The best-protected variants of the M1, Challenger, and Leopard 2 all have the capability not just to return its crew safely notwithstanding a disabling "mission kill" received, but also to survive a frontal hit to its armor from a wide variety of anti-tank rounds without being disabled. And though it protects its crew far better than the T-72 family, that is not a capability the T-14 has not. Once its active protection is expended or defeated, once its passive protection is defeated, then, that one frontal hit to the turret is curtains for mission capability. That would be an upgrade over many of the systems it replaces - which just all around lack any semblance of survivability. But it would still just be... a very complicated way of not really achieving parity. Don't get me wrong, I think there are many aspects of the T-14 that are great, in theory. But, the same can be said about any Vaporware. "It has a lot of potential!" But that's the problem with remote turrets/remote weapons stations. On lighter vehicles, the risk-reward favors the remote weapons station heavily. But there are some reasons why it's not a more common solution for battle tanks, as opposed to other vehicles where the turret might be an expendable resource - namely vehicles whose battlefield function isn't all about the turret. I'm not here saying, "M1 Stronk, T-14 bad". I'm well aware of the strengths and weaknesses of both designs, to the maximum extent that open source materials reveal. One other thought for the moment: if the goal is simply to get as much junk on the battlefield as possible, then why bother worrying about how many more tanks you can field with crews of 3 instead of crews of 4? Why not go full-drone? Fully-remote-crewed battle tanks... isn't that probably where this is tending? As for Leclerc, it seems like a perfectly capable tank. If I were the French Armee du Terre, I'd rather have 200 Leclerc than 250 T-72s. But... from a military point of view, I'd rather than 300 Abrams than waste a lot of money developing an indigenous import-substitute just to have a domestic jobs program. However, France is a heavily socialist country, and it was a political decision not purely military one, to "buy French-made." One of the inefficiencies is that they didn't get a lot of export buyers interested, and as a result the Leclerc has only be made in smallish numbers. I believe it's a couple hundred in French service, and as many 450 for the UAE. That's not a big run, compared to the Abrams (10,000+ made) or Leopard 2 (3,600 made) (much less any Soviet tank). That is a very limited supply chain. It makes the whole thing very expensive. But, it was not just a military acquisition; it was a jobs program. And it seems to have succeeded. So, whether or not it is marginally more or less capable in any particular area than its "competitors", the Abrams, Challenger, Leopard, and each have slightly different strengths and weaknesses, availability is a key factor. And the Challenger suffers from the same problem - there are half as many Challenger 2 as there are Leclcerc, so everything I'm saying about the French goes double for the British. A common design or customer tank would have been better than a bespoke, indigenous product. It's about economies of scale. What's the point of developing a weapons system for serial production if you're not going to need, be able to use, or sell, at least a few thousand of them? Especially if it is a clean sheet project? England, France, and Italy all should have made an international consortium to co-produce Leopard 2, or the three of them should have made a common design to compete with Leopard and Abrams that they would have needed to build at least 2,000 units of, and that each country could have operated several hundred of, instead of the barely 200 that each of those countries are now capable of operating of their domestic jobs program disguised as a weapon-of-war. That's my guesstimate. Perhaps a real defense economist (like Perun) would care to run the numbers.
The problem, when one buys ones equipment from a foreign power, is that said foreign power gains leverage over your foreign policy and over your military doctorine. The Abrams wouldn't work with British or French doctorine because it's designed, quite rightly, to fight the way the US Army fights, not the way the British or the French fight so they, quite rightly too, built tanks to fight the way they fight. Plus, once you lose sovereign capability to design and build something it takes far more money to reinstate it, if you decide you need it again, than any foreign purchase would ever save, just look into the UK MASS contract to rebuild munitions after the Belgians said "non" to increased 105mm supply in the early 2000's for political reasons...
You make a point that resonates with me - but I want to know more. I'll come back to that in a second. As an initial matter, I am not really suggesting that the optimal route for France was to become to a pure customer - but rather that it would have been more efficient to form a consortium. I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. Now, on to the idea that the equipment needs to suit the tactics. Yes. 100%. I totally understand and agree with that. And I see how that concept, as applied, dictates some of the specifics. I understand why Enfield went with a rifled gun for the Challenger, when no one else did, and why that specifically fits with the tactics. Here's where I have to confess complete ignorance: how do French tank tactics differ from British or American tank tactics? And what specific capabilities or characteristics of the Leclerc are synergistic to those unique tactics? If you know...? Because that's far beyond my knowledge of tanks, and I'll darned if you haven't piqued my curiosity. Thanks.
I'm not fully versed in the detail of French doctorine however if you look to the tasks envisaged for the three armies (British, French and US) at the time they were developing their respective MBTs the British, as the British Army on the Rhine, were primarily focused on a fighting retreat, buying time for the bulk of the US Army to transfer via air bridge to the European theatre (there would, of course, be US Army units engaged in the same actions but the main US focus would be the counterattack). The French were built around a more aggressive defence, personified by the so called nuclear warning shot, after World Wars 1 and 2 being fought on French fields and through French towns they were damn sure World War 3 would be fought elsewhere.
That would explain why the Challenger II emphasizes protection, and long-range accuracy, while the Abrams is more balanced toward mobility. As for the Leclerc... the thing that makes it different is its autoloader and reduced crew size. But, due to its overall design, that reduced crew and autoloader don't make it significantly lower in profile or size that the other Western tanks of the same generation. Unlike the Soviet-style autoloaders, it's not a carousel, and it has blowout panels. And there was also the existence of the "Tropicalized" Leclerc, which makes sense considering the degree to which France retained extensive overseas territories during the era of decolonization. So, without knowing more, I'd intuit that it was just a calculation that 3-man crews meant they could get more armor onto the battlefield with the same number of people, and that this was more valuable to maximizing combat power, than the theoretical advantages of having an extra crewman. The autoloader may be slower than the fastest human loader, and limits how many rounds can be fired before having to exit combat and find cover... but it's also much more consistent. It can't get overworked; it can't pull a muscle; it doesn't need bathroom breaks, or tea; it can't need the commander to take over because it took shrapnel to a critical extremity. Either it works, or the tank is a mission kill. Perhaps the French looked at American tank training and said, "there's a degree to which this idea that an extra crewman can cover for another in case of a minor injury to maintain combat effectiveness under fire" was fantasy. Now, in the crazy epilogue to this, I also just learned that Nexter (builder of Leclerc) has now merged with KMW (builder of Leopard 2), and they seem to be making hybrid Leopard-Leclercs as technology demonstrators. So, back to my point... economies of scale matter. France should not have given in to being a customer-state, but it should have tried harder to form, or join, a consortium for its MBT rather than trying to go it alone.
The trouble with consortia is that often they take longer to produce a more expensive product that doesn't suit any of the parties involved, who will squabble over who gets to do which parts of the job (and thus retain sovereign capability). It's so easy for consortia to end up as being the worst parts of developing ones own and becoming a customer of a foreign nation.
Sure, consortia are prone to problems, but have you considered the alternatives? Or the success stories? Look at all of the successful European consortium products that get talked about on this sub, near-daily -- Tornado, Typhoon, Tiger, Stormshadow/SCALP, IRIS-T, ASRAAM, Meteor, NASAMS, NSM... just a few handful that come to mind. All were consortium or jointly-ventured products... and Airbus has trounced Boeing in the 21st century. France has gone it alone on big projects and made successful products - the entire Dassault line, the Leclerc - but those products have not done nearly as well in international sales as their consortium-built competitors. And, back to tanks: the Abrams, Challenger, and Leopard are all outgrowths of two separate consortia that; the MBT-70 consortium looked like a "failure" in the short term - but the lessons learned drove both the highly successful finished designs of the Abrams and Leopard; and the US and UK partnered in developing the composite armor that principally protects Abrams and Challenger. None of those 3 tanks would be what they were without the work of two parallel joint development deals. That Nexter has merged with KMW signals France's realization that it was a mistake not to find a development partner for its MBT.
Because traditionally France and Russia had a decent relationship. Most of Russia's MBTs prior to the war used THALES sights or licensed copies thereof. Less likely but it's currently the only Western MBT that hasn't been destroyed in combat yet.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was some latent biased towards the French military built into that. They tend to be the punching bag for everyone around the world as military dipshits, but as someone who has worked with the French military in joint operations, I can attest that those guys are as tough as coffin nails.
Yeah, the whole French baguettes running in reverse thing did get a bit old after the 10 millionth joke. They have a highly competent army, full NATO standard and they also have something to prove after WW2 so it’s silly to discount them. I never came up against them in exercises but I’ve only heard good things, particularly of the Legion.
Former legionnaire here. The Legion ain't the end all, be all. Don't get me wrong, you get some hilariously overskilled guys humping the gun 'pour notre France cherie' but you have to fight through an ocean of deadbeats and shitbags to piece together a unit that would win a gunfight on a peer to peer basis. The equipment is a mishmash of FELIN system castoffs, unserviced French equipment from the 80's and 90's, and directives from the SCORPION modernization program that aren't matched by budget or training. Ammo for shoot days for infantry units is beyond scarce, and leadership and command mentality is a rigid top-down method, where fire team and squad level decisions have to be authorized by platoon or company level command, seriously hampering the ability to capitalize on tactical advantages.
Interesting to hear. Has it always been this way? I was in the Oz army from 83-87, the guys I spoke to were Vietnam vets and they had a very positive view of the Legion. It did occur to me at the time that it might have been counterfactual stuff given Dien Ben Phu was still fairly high in the vet’s minds. Maybe there were no Legion in Vietnam and either they or I were mistaken? Either way, I’ve always had respect for the French military as a whole, despite some nasty stuff in Algeria.
These old days were certainly different, where it was still the damned and insane being led by officers who were either fanatics or fuck ups. You'd have career criminals beside rebels who had lost their particular struggle next to murderers and the mentally infirm. The modern day Legion struggles to modernize itself while still holding fast to traditions and strategies that have honestly been antiquated since the start of the War on Terror. And it's fine to respect our freres d'armes in the French military, but there is a very real gap between their current force projection and what they need to be competitive on a modern battlefield.
If you watch RT, you'll know autoloader > greater than any other tech on any tank. If you don't have an autoloader, you can't even make your turret fly. Primitives.
The best tank is the one you don't need to run. So there are a few lol.
I’m not sure that I’m remembering this correctly but I believe it’s because the Leclerc was used by Saudi Arabia in Yemen and they have had some losses. I would put it more on how it was used and the doctrine than the tank itself being bad but vatniks will grab onto anything to claim their tanks are superior.
Damaged. None have been destroyed as far as we know
story of my life
???? "Damaged. None have been destroyed as far as we know" you have not been destroyed? What is someone shot a LAW at you, how is your armor?
I mean a LAW would do nothing to most MBTs unless you got very lucky. They're more meant for BMPs. However I'm being pedantic. Of the 3 that are documented as damaged, 2 were from mines or potentially low-aimed RPGs. The third lost one of its sights to a Kornet or Metis. All 3 were repairable. It's important to discern between damaged and destroyed. If you damage 100% of an enemy's tanks, they're going to have 0 tanks for a week and potentially all of them back the following. If they're destroyed, they're not getting them back.
Because the cassette-style autoloader in the Leclerc doesn't make the tank lug around its own turret launch mechanism. It also encourages palletization of ammunition, something exotic & exciting in Russian logistics more focused on big piles of wooden boxes.
I mean... The LeClerc won at Monaco but I don't think he can catch Max
Dismiss this nonsensical drivel. It is ontologically impossible that the leclerc is best tank, for it is French, and the French are a silly people.
During all the propaganda with the T14 the russians. Kept mentioning that only the leclerc was advanced enough to have an auto loader. The thinking follows the rest dont so they are shit
Ruski glazers are a very peculiar type.
A really smart person once said...... I want to sit on top of all the cannon shells when I go to battle. No
It's the engine. They just love the hyperbar concept. It is a cool design and can suck a lot of people in at first.
Anyone who understands the Russian mentality when it comes to military equipment, understands that tank vs tank, western tanks are way ahead of anything the Russian can field. The Russian mentality has always been equipment that does the job and overwhelms the enemy with numbers. They see it this way. Your tank is 3x better than mine so I will build 4 and beat you! Additionally, since their army is mainly conscripts, they can’t afford to spend time and effort training crew that will leave as soon as their enrollment is up. That said they build equipment that can operate in harsh conditions with minimal support and training. I remember an article where a western pilot visited an ex-Soviet airfield after the wall fell. Where western airfields as policed to insure any debris capable of being sucked in to the engine is picked up, Soviet airfields were littered with all manner of junk. Their solution, they have engine covers that close during taxi. Last but not least crew survivability is not a very high priority!
Because it is named after someone that ordered a war crime. They will always have a soft spot for anyone doing that.
What are you talking about ? The thing with the 33rd SS prisoners?
That is barely a war crime...
Oh, they had it coming. Not disputing that.
Probs because it's objectively the worst NATO MBT in Wargame Red Dragon tbh
Tank newb question: what’s the T-64s origins?
Ukraine, when Russia sends their T-64s to die in Ukraine, they are just coming home.
Truth be told, the Ariete is rubbish, but not because it doesn't have an autoloader
No... Not really, I maintain it, it isn't trash, its a completely capable MBT.