- Yes
- No
Hello everyone, today I’m suggesting the Ariete “Certezza” as a possible candidate for a 10.3 premium MBT like the Leopard 2A4(PzBtl 123)/Christian II and so on.
This version takes the name from the 20th Course “Certezza” where we saw this curious variant of an Ariete in action.
On the outside the only differences would be a barbed wire attached to the LFP and a really peculiar and “Tiger like” exhaust on the back.
The running theory it’s that this Ariete was modified to take part in the Tank Biathlon in 2014 as the standard exhaust produces a lot of black smoke and would be significantly visible.
To make this variant viable as a 10.3 premium, I propose to equip it with only the DM23 like the Leopard 2A4, this way it trades a bit of armor for a more advanced thermal sight and compared to the Ariete(P) it loses a bit of firepower.
The “Tiger like” exhaust:
History of the Ariete:
Spoiler
The C1 Ariete is the MBT used by the Esercito Italiano(Italian Army) by the mid 90’s and was under design already in the 80’s.
This second generation MBT was made thanks to the know-how acquired through the production of the Leopard 1 and the development of the Leone first and of the OF-40 later, as a matter of fact this tank keeps a lot of design choices from the Leopard 1 like the ready rack and the general layout of the tank.
The tank was and is harshly critized due to the general poor performance compared to its countemporaries then and more so now due to the lack of a steady ammount of modernization packages that are required nowadays to keep a tank competitive.
Unfortunately we never saw the MBT exported to other countries although some showed interest in it, like Spain for example.
Nowadays the EI has problem to keep this tank running due to the lack of spare parts that it needs to order each time they are needed, to solve this problem and to keep a decent amount of machines running until it’s able to acquire a new generation tank, the EI decided to start the Aggiornamento Mezza Vita(Mid Life Upgrade),AMV for short.
This upgrade was to initially test 3 different upgrade configurations but due to a geopolitical shift, the army will go through with the complete one and the renovated tank will be called C2 Ariete in service.
It’s expected to see around 125 tank upgraded to this standard and coupled with a more advanced MBT to serve as a stop gap.
Technical Data:
Same as the one ingame.
Photos from the course:
Sources: