The Leclerc XLT has already been proposed in the past on the old forum, I would like to honor it’s author, so you can consult it by following this link.(Maybe this link won’t work forever, due to the planned closure of the old forum). In addition to that another suggestion was offering us the same tank, received by the Jordanian army and only repainted in their style, find it via this link.
Spoiler
Given the future closure of the old forum, I will tell you the genesis of the Leclerc XLT, and what we know of its career within the armed forces of the United Arab Emirates.
In 1970, senior French army officials noticed the blatant obsolescence of the tanks in service at that time, the AMX-30B2. Major discussions then began, namely whether the AMX-30s would be replaced by Leopard 2s, Abrams, or even Merkavas, but these ideas were dismissed for reasons of industrial sovereignty. A program was then launched in partnership with Germany, with a design based on the Leopard 2, but did not come to fruition.
So in 1979 studies were undertaken for an entirely new design of a French battle tank.
The development was very long, unlike other Western programs, they focused more on active than passive protection, in order to limit the final mass of the vehicle. Mobility, allowing dodges, and the fire control system were particularly well thought out. In 1988 at this point in the history of the tank, it was planned to order 1500, but during its long development the end of the Cold War took place, which led to the closure of 11 tank regiments out of 17, and caused orders from France state to drop to 406 tanks between 1991 and 2001.
In 1993, a Leclerc sales contract was concluded with the United Arab Emirates. It provided for the delivery of 388 battle tanks, two training tanks and 46 recovery vehicles as well as ammunition, spare parts and training equipment related to the Leclerc from 1994.
This is from where I will only talk about Leclerc XLT, it is one of the names that was given to the version intended for the UAE, we have also seen it designated “Leclerc EAU” or “Leclerc Tropicalisé”. This version is quite specific, in the sense that it integrates simplified vetronics to allow it to be used by quickly trained personnel, the air conditioning is improved, the engine is not the Wartsila but a German MTU block more adapted to desert conditions developing an equivalent power but less torque, a diesel auxiliary power unit is added, the optics chosen by the Emiratis differ from the optics of the French series, a 7.62x51 remotely operated machine gun is chosen, and finally the pre-armor side skirts are extended all along the length to the engine compartment. You will find the details of all these wonders in the specifications below. The delivery of the 388 units was spread from 1994 to 2003.
Its operational career was initially only animated by exercises, then in 1999 fifteen tanks were deployed in Kosovo as part of the NATO peacekeeping force until 2002. They would not experience combat.
It was at the beginning of August 2015 that the tank would experience fire and that serious things would begin. Two battalions of Lerclerc E.A.U were deployed in Yemen as part of Operation Restore Hope, conducted with the Saudi coalition. Fifteen of these tanks were then equipped with the AZUR kit. By mid-September 2015, four tanks had already been hit by Houthi militia munitions: two by mines or improvised explosive devices, which damaged the undercarriage without destroying the tank, another by a rocket launcher shot that the protective grid system stopped. And the fourth was hit by a missile that, hitting the driver’s hatch, killed him and injured the tank commander, the tank being repairable. The tanks have seen other combats until 2019, and the Emirati military are very satisfied with them, no tank having been destroyed so far. In 2019, we started to see the CLARA kits, manufactured by DND in Germany, i will come back to this later… That same year 2019, the UAE reduced its military presence in Yemen but it seems that the 70 tanks are still engaged, mainly for defensive missions. Note that it is difficult to analyze the combat performance of the Leclerc in Yemen, even if it seems that it obtained better results than the Saudi Abrams tanks without armor kits.
The Emirates handed over 70 or 80 battle tanks to the Jordanian kingdom at the end of 2020
| Engine | 1500hp 27.4 liter diesel V12 MTU MT 883 Ka 500 |
|---|---|
| Engine max torque | 4,500 nm at 2000 RPM |
| Auxiliary power | Diesel APU in an armored box at the right rear of the chassis which keeps all electrical systems and air conditioning active while the engine is off |
| Transmission | Renk HSWL 295 TM Providing 72Km/h forward and reverse. 0 to 32 km/h in 6 seconds instead of 5.5 seconds on the S1 |
| Road range | 550 km |
| Internal fuel capacity | 1,300 litre |
| Hull length | 7.03 m |
| Hull width | 3.60m standard / 4.20 m with CLARA (pics estimated) |
| Weight | 57 tons without DND CLARA, about 59 tons with, estimations of the kit weight at 900kg for each the turret and the skirts |
| Ammunition | fire control supported HE 120 EXPL F1* + all standard OFL 120 G1 ; F1 and F2 APFSDS, OCC 120 G1 HEAT-FS |
| Auxiliary armament | Rremote controlled 7.62mm AN-F1 machine gun under commader’s control |
| Gunner Optics | 2nd gen Athos TVD HL 60 sight 3.3x17.5° to 14x5° zoom fitted with a laser rangefinder |
| Commander Optics | 1st gen Alis TVD HL 80 panoramic sight 2.5x20° to 10x5° zoom fitted with a laser rangefinder |
*HE 120 EXPL F1: High explosive shell, mass: 16.8 kg; contains 3 kg of explosive; initial velocity 1,050 m/s; practical range 4,000 m
You’ve already seen a little about DND’s produced armor in game, in fact you already find them on the Puma and Puma VJTF, Even if we have to say that they actually are poorly modeled in the game with 5mm of armor against kinetic, while manufacturer data boasts very different performances…
Dynamit Nobel Defence is a German company specialized in the design and integration of modular armor for all types of vehicles, as well as the manufacturer of various anti-tank missiles, such as the Panzerfaust-3 for information.
They therefore developed, based on their technical knowledge, an armor kit for the Leclerc, which we began to see in photos from 2019. This set provides better protection against single and tandem HEAT charges, as well as a substantial gain against kinetic munitions. CLARA is a type of explosive reactive armour that uses a combination of fibre plates that explode outwards when impacted by a projectile, damaging the projectile and reducing its penetrating power. However, unlike conventional steel reactive armour plates, the fibres are potentially less lethal to infantry that may be nearby. Images of UAE tanks fitted with CLARA plates show bulky armour covering most of the sides and hull of the turret.
At the top right of this DND brochure we can see the famous side skirts intended for the Leclercs, as well as those of the Puma…
In this image we can see the basic Leclerc E.A.U with the fixings for the AZUR Kit which takes place over the basic pre-armor side skirt. In the early/development versions the CLARA blocks are mounted in the same way as AZUR are.In its final version, the CALRA kit even completely replaces the original skirts on the sides of the tank hull, the blocks then include layers: ERA on NERA & Composite inside metal boxes made of armor steel, which assembled in blocks replace as complete assemblies the original side skirts:
On the following picture we can see several things of the final version:
Spoiler
- The DND skirts cover the sides lengthwise up to the side ventilation grille, and heightwise up to the top of the turret crown a few centimeters from the turret floor in order to better protect this weak point. This looks a bit like the Merkava IV design (personal comment).
- The turret side CLARA modules are fixed on trays that act as 20cm spacers all around. They must also probably be used as storage baskets.
- The turret CLARA modules completely cover both sides and the rear/front of the turret, the corner is closed by a cage armor.
In this frontal image, we can see on the turret that the thickness of the NERA blocks combined with the spacing by baskets, forced the designers not to integrate a block above the driver’s hatch, (which in the game could turn out to be a solid weakspot)
Here is one of the DND brochures which gives us some rough details on the performance of this side armor, for example the detail says that it offers protection against medium caliber penetrators, probably making the tank capable of stopping sub-caliber ammunition up to the 57mm 3UBM22 or 75mm XM885 that hit the protected areas. Or the detail that talks about protection against heavy tandem shaped charge anti-tank missiles.
Spoiler
Here is a photo which clearly shows the shape of the boxes of the CLARA kit, note in particular that the hull blocks are raised in order to better protect the turret ring, these showed ones are parts of the add-on version kit.
A selection of random photos that can add something extra:
Spoiler
Here is the original side skirt of an UAE leclerc, We can see the locations of the NERA composite plates sandwiched between the metal armor (some sources say Titanium) that make up the skirts. Note that the 9th and 10th skirts do not have NERA.
Two close-up view of the APU
Up and down: A standard Leclerc XLT tank, which would be the basis for this suggestion
Note that the engine deck is very different from the French version due to the MTU engine, I had pictures of it, but I can’t find them, if you have any don’t hesitate. I’ll do my best to find them. From what i know it is laid out like the DCL one.
We can estimate a level of skirt armor slightly different in conception than what we find on T-80BVM / Abrams SEP given the thickness of the blocks, but I still used the data of em already in game for the following work. According to the data that we find, we know that the CLARA blocks includes a mix of fiber plates that explodes (ERA) & composite non-explosive layers (Armor), is tandem charges resistant, and improve armor against KE, hence the proposition one which is foolishly, I recognize it completely NERA.
So in order to be more realistic we can assume we would like the blocks to integrates both, Composites and ERA, that’s why i have produced the most coherent proposition 2 possible.
On this work, I want to clarify that these are only proposals of my own, my interpretation to make the thing coherent in the game. Of course this task remains mainly that of Gaijin. And you can very well give your opinion!
Proposal 1:
Proposal 2:
Tell us in the comments what you think about it.
Given its characteristics, this tank should naturally be at BR12.0 in my opinion.
What I propose is that this tank be added at the end of the french TT folded behind the Leclerc AZUR in its Leclerc XLT / tropicalizé / E.A.U version, call it what you want, maybe “Leclerc CLARA” I designated it as “Leclerc E.A.U” like we do sometimes in France.
My main idea is to implement the basic Leclerc XLT with as modification to rank IV of the protection category, this formidable CLARA kit from DMD, in the style of the ERA Kit on T80BVM modif table.
- In the hypothetical Arab-league Tech-tree as Leclerc XLT CLARA
- In the French TT folded behind Leclerc AZUR, as Leclerc E.A.U
- In an other way and i’ll explain why
- No i dont want to see this in-game
Sources for data and images:
Spoiler
- Vehicle Protection – Dynamit Nobel Defence GmbH
- https://www.reddit.com/r/YemeniCrisis/comments/9xk44a/uae_leclerc_mbts_arrived_to_hodeidah_front/#lightbox
- https://fighting-vehicles.com/tanks/leclerc-main-battle-tank/
- https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Char_Leclerc
- UAE new armor upgrade Leclerc image - Tank Lovers Group - ModDB
- https://forum.air-defense.net/topic/84-mbt-leclerc-genèsevie-opérationnellefutur/page/168/
- Opération Restaurer l'espoir — Wikipédia
- The UAE's Leclerc Tanks Had a Rough Time in Yemen - The National Interest