Its been a while and I dont recall everything beside Leo 2A5 having at one point only 481mm@10m@0°, while 3BM42 had 479mm@10m@0° (its been longer from release of Leo2A6 to today than from time i started playing to release of Leo 2A6, god im old).
I cant recall correctly if Leclercs had always 5 sec reload or it was 6 sec at one time.
So I really wouldnt dwell on it, since I dont believe theres any fruitful discussion to be had tbh.
Well… lets compare 2A7, M1A2 SEPv2 and Leclerc AZUR.
If we look at the MFP triangle again, then:
Firepower:
In terms of pen, Leclerc has worst one, 2A7V wins here, but SEPv2 isnt exactly far behind.
This can go a lot deeper tho, because we can start talking about tresholds - ie. if your round reaches certain penetration, it doesnt matter if its 620mm pen or 650mm pen, they will go through the target all the same. This is best done against specific examples. To demonstrate, lets imagine encounter between any of those compared tanks, and say, Ariete. Does Leclerc have the worst pen out of all three? Yes. Will it slice through Ariete in the same way like DM53 would? Also yes. It also works in the opposite direction - if none of the compared rounds can reach certain treshold, it doesnt matter if you have 650mm pen or 580mm pen. For example, none of the tanks can lolpen UFP a BVM, so all three have to go for weakspots. Higher pen still means more reliable penetration, but thats neither here or there.
In terms of ammo selection SEPv2 likely wins. Beside good sabot it has proxyfuze HEAT-FS, standard HEAT-FS and even the one of a kind HE-OR.
In terms of ready-rack size, Leclerc wins with 22 rounds aviable, which is AFAIK one of the, if not the largest ready-rack on any top tier MBT (might be a tie with some russian autoloaders).
In terms of overall ammo capacity and its storage, Abrams wins, as all of its ammo is stored in turret (the most armored part) with blow out panels.
In terms of reload rate, its a tie between Abrams and Leclerc, but Leclerc gets its reload rate straight out of box and its not dependent on loaders training or loaders cranium being intact.
In terms of gunlaying capability, they all have same horizontal speed, 2A7V wins on the horizontal speed.
In terms of gun depression, its a win for Abrams.
In terms of gunner optics, Abrams wins.
In terms of thermals…I actually dont know which gen thermals does Leclerc has, so you might wanna fill me in. All I know is that 2A7V is the only german tank to get gen2 gunner thermals, and that SEPv2 should also have gen2.
All three have dual controls.
In terms of secondaries, Abrams wins on sheer amount of them as well as having commander .50cal. Leclerc gets coax .50cal and commander 7.62mm, 2A7V gets 2x 7.62mms. This doesnt come into play that often, but .50cal can destroy walls etc. unlike 7.62mm. Its also good to have .50cal aviable to teach those pesky jokesters that bring some undertiered meme wagon to top tier a valuable lesson. It also comes handy for those occasional heli rushers.
In the next patch, Leclers are also one of the few tanks that get automatic air target tracking, so they have some limited anti-air capability unlike the other two.
Mobility:
In terms of HP/T, Leclerc wins undeniably wins, it has 3.7 more HP/T than the other two.
In terms of max speed, Leclerc wins.
In terms of reverse speed, its a tie between Leclerc and SEPv2.
Survivability:
This is where it might get subjective, so lets get the easy things out first.
In terms of aviable crew, its a tie between 2A7V and SEPv2. Trade-off for Leclercs autoloader.
In term of smoke grenades, Leclerc wins on count, but im actually not familiar with how many are launched per salvo.
Abrams gets ESS over the other two. How useful that is might be subjective. Id say its usefulness is limited, but its still something Abrams has over the two.
Leclerc gets LWS; how useful that is again might be subjective, but id say you get more utility ouf of it in average game, so its more useful.
In terms of hull frontal protection, 2A7V wins no doubt.
In terms of turret frontal protection, 2A7V wins no doubt, but only if the wedges are still present. If they were shot off/destroyed, Abrams might be better.
In terms of side protection, theyre all NATO MBTs and dont have Relikt™ bags, they all get penned the same.
“In terms of spall liner, we have no spallliner.” 2A7V is the only one that has it as far as I can see, and while its usefulness is nowhere near where it was on release, its still an objective upgrade to not having it.
In terms of ammo storage layout, Abrams wins by a mile.
Not feeling like discussing weakspots rn, but obviously it would be tie between Leclerc and Abrams.
Point is, comparison between the three isnt all black and white, theres lof of effin gray too.
And then we can also start talking about what is actually usefull to the meta and what is not lol.
Theres probably lot of stuff ive missed and/or didnt type out, its complex issue after all, so feel free to fill me in if you feel ive missed something.
EDIT:
Oh also Leclerc doesnt get turret basket unlike the other two (at least for now) and only Leopard 2 gets affected by the NATO hump™ (because devs cant come up with proper method of balancing).
