Japanese tanks are lightly armoured because of the terrain they are required to operate in.
British tried the cruiser tank in WW2 then in the Cold war they made the decision to prioritise fire power and first hit probability.
With the Cold war and the terrain in Western Germany. A tank that could move fast was not as important as a tank that could engage and destroy other tanks before they could make a shot.
Soviet armour was so numerous and you were inevitably going to have to be able to take a hit. Soviet commanders feared/respected the Cheiftain and that is why they put the brand new T-64 series tanks to face them, confident the T-62s and T-55s would deal with M-60s and Leopard 1s.
This mindset never left Britain which is why even now with CR3 they are prioritising armour, firepower and first hit potential.
I can understand the Chieftain to the CR2 but why still that strategy in this day and age? Russia is less of a threat via land invasion and a fast firing tank with high levels of mobility (like the Type 10) would be beneficial and likely cheaper in the long run considering that Britain wants tanks but won’t buy them or parts for them
Quite a number of British tank forces(if I remember correctly, about half of them) are deployed in Germany and Eastern Eruope. Nothing changed on their strategy against Russia compared to Cold War against USSR.
It’s cheaper to reuse an existing design CR3 is essentially a CR2 upgrade. It offers no new change in design ethos. I put this down to cost, export market potential, doctrine and combat efficacy. Britain cant and wont compete with the US or Germany in the export market we have even fallen behind nations like South Korea. CR2 has largely performed well when deployed, or certainly good enough this is down to the excellent training of UK tank crews. We take so long to adapt and adjust to new technologies you could see an argument for Britain to not have an MBT and focus instead on mobile systems to support our NATO partners.
What Britain should be doing is driving and developing the 130-140mm tank programme. CR3 will only bring us up to the same level as our allies. Albeit with a superior FCS and optical systems. We could see in the next 5-10 years that the 120mm is no longer suffucient and instead of being a nation driving innovation we will again be behind out French/German and US allies.
To late on that front as well.
Germany already offficialy started development of the 2AX with a 130mm as an in between vehicle until the MGCS is finished.
Superior fcs and sight systemm ehhh questionable but whatever
Why not upgrade the CR2 into something like the Type 10 which still has a 3.5 second reload and with how low the British military is getting with new recruits, they could do with an autoloader that replaces a crew member, yes there is increased stress but that is already there with so few people joining
The issues with autoloaders is fewer crew, this makes tasks when the tank is out of combat dependant on additional resources. Britain have always liked a 4 man crew.
When the tank is stood down 4 crew members can each contribute to the maintenance and security detail for the tank.
Leclerc as an example requires engineering crews to be available to assist when completing maintenance as the tank only operates with 3 crew members.
In combat though the autolaoder and Leclerc are superior/equal to CR2 it’s the tasks out of combat
Well that is the official stance from a sensors point of view.
If not superior then certainly on the same level
And that doesnt surprise me as Germany know the export markey for Leopard is so crucial being able to offer Leopard (3) with a 130-140mm gun would be a massive boon
To some degree they wanted to, from the Chieftain replacement trials the general first choice ended up being Leclerc then Leopard 2, we only went for CR2 due to cost, lead time, & grand strategic concerns.
Also don’t forget about MBT-80, that would have been autoloaded, if the programme ever produced anything.
The MBT 80 would have been worse than the CR1 in the end due to not enough money being put in things that need a lot of it but the CR1 and MBT 80 are not bad and probably would have complemented each other well if they had both entered service together
I don’t think its fair to say Britain are slow to adopt new technologies, I think its more accurate to say that Britain generally picks a design philosophy and likes to stick with technologies within that philosophy
Both are true. Britain in WW2 didn’t want to go with the better technologies of the time but still wanted to produce the same quantity as much higher quality tanks, the Navy and Air Force did take a lot of the engineers but from 1941/2 they were starting to get better designs but they didn’t improve on other designs they way they could have
I think we can safely blame the requirements for a multi fuel engine for the ruinously slow speed of the chieftain. Its kind off the only time we wish we didnt stick to specs as we were stuck with leyland trying to make a multi fule engine which ended up increasing the size and weight of the chieftain along side reducing the hp we wanted. Imagine a chieftain that was 40 tons like it was meant to with a similar or more hp engine. Would have been a pretty sexy thing to see.
I just want gaijin to give us the gas turbine prototype but i know thatll never happen as it was never given a turret i dont think.
Although, i do admit. A two stoke super charged engine does sound pretty cool untill you slap on the leyland badge and see the 75% fail statistics.
