With the Sky Odyssey update, War Thunder will implement yet another demonstrator for European’s future Main Battle Tanks. The EMBT, which I will call EMBT (2018) to differenciate it to the EMBT (2022) is France and German’s Nth attempt at producing a tank together. While the project ultimately failed, with both nations pulling back from producing a tank together and instead plan to only share technologies, 3 demonstrators remain from this failed venture : the EMBT (2018), the EMBT (2022), and the EMBT ADT 140 (2024).
I want to discuss the EMBT (2018) addition into war thunder.
For a quick hisory of the vehicle, a suggestion exists already : KNDS EMBT Technology Demonstrator 2018
EMBT (2018) at a glance
The EMBT (2018) was never to be anything than a demonstration that a Leclerc turret could be fitted on a Leopard chassis. Hence, the vehicle was made from an already existing Leopard 2A7 hull and a -Leclerc s21 XLT (Tropicalisé) turret. In game, this would only offer a different commander sight compared to the S1/S2 sights, bringing a 1stgen thermal
Spoiler
S2 commander sight
EMBT actual CITV (you can see the top of the housing does not have the arch)
XLT CITV
The benefits of the vehicle in the German and French tree
The EMBT addition brings new playstyles to both in game operators of the vehicle.
Germany will for the first time benefit from a fast 5s autoloader and a 20+1 round ready rack giving them new abilities to engage multiple targets in quick succession. This does come at the cost of a much weaker turret armor.
Meanwhile, France finally gets access to a much needed armored hull, and the addition of regenerative steering to the leopard (and not yet to the Leclerc) will provide an alternate playstyle to the french mains.
The obvious weakspot
As a purely tech demo oriented vehicle, the EMBT (2018) comes with an obvious weakspot : the turret ring. For those who feared the Abrams prior to the volumetirc changes, stay away from this vehicle. The turret ring only features a few overlapping structural armor piece providing between 50 and 90mm of protection against armor piercing rounds. This gives an obvious weakspot against autocannons
It’s position in the french tech tree
I have seen discussions regarding the position of the EMBT in the french tree :
Giving my personnal opinion, I am of those that think the current position fits well for the franco-german prototypes. This leaves room, if gaijin decides to add more prototypes, to put the “french only” vehicles to the Leclerc line while the leopard line remains “international cooperation”
As for the german tree, I also think that the prototype line is a good fit.
Discussion on it’s armement
My main issue with the current implementation of the EMBT (2018) is the current choice of APFSDS.
For now, the EMBT best APFSDS is the same as the other Leclercs, that is, the OFL 120 F1.
I don’t believe this choice of ammo is the correct one. The OFL 120 F1 is a 1990s shell and has lost competitiveness in the past few years in war thunder as almost all nations have now access to ammunitions far better than what the OFL offers. I also want to point out that the EMBT comes with much weaker armor than most, if not all of the other top tier options, notably due to the turret ring.
As a tech demo for the future of the French and German MBTs, I believe a better choice would be to give access to the EMBT to a “future” shell. There are 2 possibilities :
- As a franco-german project, and as the cannon is compatible with OTAN shells, a german shell could be given to the EMBT, such as the DM53 which is already present in game. This would give a massive boost to the firepower the vehicle.
- An alternative option would be to add the SHARD APFSDS. While the EMBT project was taking place, KNDS Nexter also worked on creating their new shell aimed at competiting against the new shells of the 21st century. While this shell has remained in the prototyping stage for almost a decade, Nexter now advertises it as tested on the Leclerc GIAT 120mm L/52 as well as the Rheinmetal’s 120mm L44 and L/55 cannons. If any EMBT were to have existed outside of the realm of mere tech demonstrator, it’s highly likely that the SHARD would have been it’s main armor piercing ammunition, if it were not a german DM53+ shell.
Thus, I want to ask everyone’s opinion on the matter
- Keeps the OFL 120 F1 as the top shell
- Add the DM53 as the top shell (OFL F1 relegated as stock)
- Add the SHARD as the top shell (OFL F1 relegated as stock)
- Add both DM53 and SHARD (explain how)
- Add another shell (which one and why)
My opinion
I personally really like the addition of the EMBT. While France only has the Leclerc XLR as a future in service addition for new MBTs, the addition of the EMBT in the tech tree opens the door for multiple other future additions, from the other EMBTs to the Leclerc EVO and CAPINT.
Germany can also now benefit from the addition of the autoloaded MBTs in it’s tree through the EMBT series.
On a tangential note, I’m also a big fan of the regen braking. Tanks are much smoother to control, and the loss in turn radius is ultimately more realistic. The implementation in arcade seems a bit funky still however, as you can effectively drift at a constant 30-40kph which seems a bit over the top
However, I do hope that Gaijin takes the time to consider that the EMBT is a late 2010’s demonstrator, and thus should have access to a more modern shell than the current mid 1990s shell that is currently available to it.
