" Kantas also alleged that a KMW representative, Dimitris Papachristos, paid him 0.5% of the value of the PzH-2000 deal (approximately EUR 820,000), while a third representative, Thomas Liakounakos, left EUR 600,000 on his couch to smooth over his concerns about the Leopard 2 program. Kantas claimed he originally believed the tank program was unnecessary, but Defence Minister Yiannos Papantoniou felt obliged to continue the program because the army demanded parity in re-capitalization spending with the other services."
None of the other parts relate to Leopard 2 acquisition.
It remains unknown whether KMW was responsible for any bribery associated with the Leopard 2 contracts, as originally suspected by the Greek investigators, or whether it was Rheinmetall alone which greased the deal.
Not like it would have mattered, it was either leo 2 or no new MBT.
It already makes several mistakes, it’s not “LeClerc”, leo 2 also did already directly compete with M1A2 and Leclerc in the UK…
I wonder where the Leclerc name misunderstanding comes from…
Yes it was the best export armour GDLS had at the time i.e. it was meant to be better armour then the original FMS armour package, however it was not equivalent to the US’s DU armour as GDLS did not have a DU armour equivalent until after the Swedish trials, i.e. what was used in Greece and Turkey was comparable to the US’s M1A2 DU armour and it was called the Improved FMS armour package:
No, if you look at the protection the US gave for it’s M1A2 to Sweden (with DU), it is very, very close to the protection levels the Swedes got in their non-DU package.
Can you link it?
That’s irrelevant, it quite clearly shows that DU’s main benefits are not in terms of mass efficiency, but rather volume efficiency.
And as I said, there are a lot of errors in that article:
There was never a “Swedish” armour package, it was all developed by IBD but simply made in Sweden for test firing by Akers (which later became IBD subsidiary).
This is just an excuse as to why M1 didn’t get chosen, Americans were quite surprised when they saw the test results and even made a last ditch effort to sway the Swedes by offering M1s with 105s…
The 62.5t was the weight as offered to the Swedes, a non-DU package equivalent to the DU one did exist and was offered as Lindström states.
The M1A1 AIM doesn’t weigh 62.5t because it lacks a CITV and the new commander’s cupola, this along with a few other things can easily make up for the 500kg difference: https://www.army.gov.au/equipment/vehicles-and-surveillance/m1-abrams-tank
FMS non-DU (also known as “advanced non-DU”) → M1A1 level
Improved FMS non-DU → M1A1HA/HC level
The Australians received a non-DU armour comparable (again, indicated by the weight…)
There is no indication it is equivalent to HAP-3, nor is there even any indication of what changed with HAP-3…
It is possible that HAP-3 is simply the new term for the HAP-2 package including the Improved Turret Side Armor (ITSA), there was never any explanation given.
Because if you go off of the previous quote about DU being more volume efficient, than that means in order to achieve a similar level of protection you’d actually need to make the tank dimensionally longer at the very least to achieve similar levels.
Lindström says this, according to him they tested the “best armour” available in each country in firing trials in said country (backed up by the fact that the slides contain US and German documents) and they did their own testing in Sweden against armour arrays made locally with information from the supplier, both the original armour and the one improved with the IBD/AK developed add-ons.
The slide with the various protection levels and arcs is from US documents and can also be found in some US documents (obviously with the actual values censored).
Only the slides containing the simulations are the ones that were made by the Swedes (actually using CONDAT, a Franco-German protection software).
It’s clearly visible that the turret mockup lacks the add-on in these images and that these tests are done in Sweden, but similar tests were done in the US (as stated several times…).
I’m trying to access the USAHEC files again, but that site is quite fickle, it may take some time.
The files don’t load atm.
Highly recommended to go and take a look at it though, there’s a lot of cool stuff that can be found, when it is up.
For example:
XM1E1 armour improvement proposals.
They decided to only improve the turret armour as hull improvement supposedly had negligible effect.
Really, if you want armour improvements, you should be looking at the frontal arc for the hull, which is currently not correct, this goes for most MBTs mind you.
Until you can provide the source directly saying that it was in fact comparable, I’m taking that one with a grain of salt, because the only instance I’ve found Lindstrom commenting on DU is again that it was more volume efficient (aka taking up less space). Which to me implies barring completely a new composite scheme with new materials and virtually no wasted space it would be hard pressed to match DU’s KE protection on the turrets without the turret being longer.
XM1E1 is what led to the M1A1, not the M1A2, much less the SEP or SEPv2. You’d want to be looking at Block II P3I M1 Abrams (at least for the M1A2), which had if I remember correctly a couple of proposed armor packages providing a KE increase on the LFP that were rejected by Gaijin on the grounds that none of them were implied to have been implemented.
That particular armor package in the bug report that got forwarded is sourced from DTIC ADA300522, Ballisticians in War and Peace Volume 3, by John T Fraiser. Seen here: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA300522.pdf and had around 35% KE increase and 25% SC (shaped charge) increase.
Imagine trying to lock onto a plane that less than 2km at you, and your stinger missile wont lock on. Oh and don’t talk about stats with a vehicle, whe nyour stats aren’t much better than mines
Britian has the skink, the falcon, the za-35 and a 20mm and a 23mm cannon both at 4.0BR - 5.3 BR
Japan never had good anti air, this isnt a game problem, this was a real world problem. No one knows why the Imperials Japanese burned all their tank blueprints.
Lindström does clearly indicate they tested both armour types and were provided with the information necessary.
DU can be replaced with similar materials like tungsten alloys.
Either way, the weight speaks for itself and the results as well.
I didn’t say it was, but it clearly indicates that hull protection increases were not considered particularly important relative to turret improvements and other considerations.
M1 is already quite front heavy with the DU turret inserts, increasing volume of the front hull is nigh impossible without reducing the already limited driver’s space or extending the hull forward which would be clearly visible.
I’ve seen this, they never adopted this improved armour (no proof to say they did).
When you look at the citation, you’ll see you can’t even find it online.
It may even have been armour intended for TTB.
There’s budget lists for every FY from 1996 that you can go through, they list what parts are being changed in some detail except from like 2009 on or something like that. https://www.asafm.army.mil/Budget-Materials/#fy-20002001
They don’t list hull armour improvement when they start upgrading to SEPs.
Only things like driver’s hatch interlock etc.
Which were only added in late 2021 and 2022. After which Gaijin started to address other SPAA holes. They are identifying SPAA holes in different trees and than just yeet 2-3 new SPAAs into that hole to fill it up in close succession.
This already happened with the US 9.0-11.7 hole, the Britain/Russia/Japan mid tier hole and is now being done to France.
So for the SEPv2 we know it has DU as the SEP had DU, which shared the same hull as the M1A1 SA, which we know has DU as per one of the sources Count_Trackula provided earlier. I’m not sure how this does anything other than suggest the SEPv2 has DU.
Having now played the 2A7V for a decent amount, it honestly feels unfair to play tanks like the wA7V and Strv 122s.
They feel so ridiculously strong and survivable, and here I play against Arietes, Leclercs, Merkava Mk.4s, Type 10s, Challengers and Abramses that are all super easy to one shot. I wouldn’t really call any of them survivable anymore at all lol.
funny how the leopard supposedly did the worst in the test but was chosen in the end lol or is it backwards stating 1place gets 1 and the winner is the one with the lowest points? honestly reads very confusing to me
remember how the whole german community said its to early for the 2A7V and that is not even with gajin giving its whole capabilities. Spall liners was a mistake of gajin, initialy only wanting to give them to the T-90M was just stupid. Leopard being the biggest western export just made it well known and the easiest to find information on
Problem is now the beast it let loose so to say and of course we gonna try to get it as close to its original
