Why is it that Black Night has a spall liner in its turret, but Cr3 does not? They’re both tech demonstrators, infact you could even make the case BN is a CR3 prototype. Yet only one gets the liner. What’s up with that?
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The BN has a normal Cr2 turret with slight mods to it inside. Cr3 TD has a heavly modified Cr2 turret, that had its interior torn apart due to digitalization and all the work around it.
We could argue that like Yak 41 it should get it if it was ever to go into a fight, but i do not have a strenght to do that, and i imagine it will be a lost fight.
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Pretty sure if was a Leo2 turret they took apart and modified into a Chally turret. Saved them having to fit a smoothbore into an existing Chally 2 turret without modification to it.
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Why didn’t they just use a leo turret
oh wait money
They did? Im sure it is a Cr2 turret. The L55a1 could fit into Cr2 turret no problem (thanks LIP for testing that), and the inside, you can find some photos around Cr2/3 topics, is a Cr2 turret inside, but with slight (maybe not so slight) layout changes.
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Interesting. How did i missed that? I did hours of research on Cr3 and i did not found it.
The article was from 2018 just before the it was revealed in 2019 at the show. So no surprise tbh XD
Equally though it’d be weird fitting the CR2 commander’s cupola to a Leopard turret instead of just using the Leopard’s cupola. You can tell at the core of the demo vehicle’s turret it’s a CR2 turret because of that (it even still has the cutout for the old commander’s panoramic sight) and things like the location of the loader’s periscope and lifting eyes.
from Twitter
Fitting a Rheinmetall smoothbore was already proven with the CLIP - it was a Rheinmetall L/55 fitted in to the L30’s gun cradle and modified to accept the L30’s fume extractor, muzzle reference device and thermal sleeve. This time replacing the FCS and gun laying system means they could do away with a bunch of that and keep more in common with the standard L/55A1.
CR3’s gun is still a specially modified version called L55A1CR3 though - by the looks the main difference is the rotor block with modifications for things like fitting the L94 chain gun, location of the GAS etc.
Ed:- Added an image showing where all the lifting eyes are on CR2’s turret for comparison with their location on the CR3 TD
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I will be honest with you. This is the only article that i can find that states that, and there are too much simmilarities to Cr2 turret. It just werid to me to take a turret of another tank and remake it so it is a copy of another tank turret.
Cutout in the commander coupola. A space between the gunner sight and the com coupola, tha the usual sight would take. Position of smaller periscopes, loader hatch. Boxes at the back of the turret, inside layout. It all would be just weird.
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Not forgetting the clip only had room for 6 rounds, explains why the gun is slightly different and why they re-engineered the leopard turret to make everything fit. Cost effective solution tbh.
Clip only had 6 rounds as they only touched left back of the hull and left the hull alone. The funds were limited as it was just a test to see if it fits, not new tank like here. Also i think that taking a Leo2 turret and shaping it outside and inside to match Cr2 is a more costly proces.
No i am not writing to RBSL to confirm/deny it.
In November 2020, the ARTEC consortium, jointly owned by Rheinmetall and Krauss-Maffei Wegman (KMW), announced that it had awarded two separate subcontracts to RBSL and WFEL respectively for the local production and assembly of over 500 Boxer armoured vehicle for the UK.
Krauss-Maffei manufacture the leopard 2 so if you was looking for a cost effective upgrade it would make sense that they’d edit an existing and available turret hull. Might see more information over time. For a prototype concept it’s not exactly out of the ordinary to test if it’ll work.
They already tried the Leo hull with Vic Mk.7 and german government got VERY mad about it. Also UK did not wanted a other country tank to replace Cr2. Pride morale and all the other things
During a time where Germany didn’t want its vehicles to be used in an aggressive combat situation, there was political implications because of that. However the recent Ukraine war changed that the moment Germany supplied them.
Yea, that was a surprise for ma that they did, but remember that LEP came in 2019. I also posted a photo somewhere of a naked LEP turret, i will see if i can find it.
Edit it is a test rig, but
Cr2ish to me
Well. All i know makes me belive that it is a Cr2 turret. Sadly Leo2 mod just doesent add up for me.
Im stealing that photo for future use. I left some tea in the cabinet as a compensation.
Personally to me it makes sense from a business pov, the machines already exist to create the rear section of the turret, the blast door, blow out roof panel, turret infrastructure for cables etc already accounted for, all that would be required is to engineer the front section to accept the gun you already mount and the different shaped armour packs. 40% of the turret is already worked out, you’ve just gotta weld it all together once complete.
The interior looks nothing like a Leo turret tho. Leo does not have angled armor plates inside, the breach area looks just 1:1 Chally 2
So here’s a post i came across whilst looking also mentioned the challenger 3 turret is based on the leopard 2.the twitter post was from a Defence industry analyst & consultant specialising in Land Warfare. Former British Army infantry officer.
https://twitter.com/nicholadrummond/status/1398952349385822208?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1398952349385822208|twgr^03a021bc24aab79681763fdd1f9cbc0c62b62878|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsturgeonshouse.ipbhost.com%2Findex.php%3Fapp%3Dcoremodule%3Dsystemcontroller%3Dembedurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fnicholadrummond%2Fstatus%2F1398952349385822208
https://sturgeonshouse.ipbhost.com/topic/1611-britons-are-in-trouble/page/31/