With the BR change that happened at top tier recently a lot of tanks were given room to breath. Sadly the Leclerc’s were not included.
The Leclerc’s have some of the worst armor at top tier, only the Arietes are worse off. The survivability is also awful, 3 man crew that are mostly lined up. Not to mention the fuel tanks and no spall liner. The reload speed is good, but not that special, as is the mobility. The shell is also by far the worst at top tier. Worst PEN and is the lightest (which means less damage).
I believe the Leclerc’s should sit around the BR 11.7-12.0 range. The Leclerc’s aren’t even as good as the M1A1 Abrams, Leopard 2A4M and T-80U-E1. Not to even mention being the same BR as the Leopard 2A7 or T-80BVM.
In-fact you could argue its even worse for the Leclerc’s now, as the weaker tanks like Challenger 2, t-80u and t-72 ect are all BR 11.7. and with CAS and Helis being 13.0 it means you almost never see them.
Now if Gaijin fixed the Leclerc’s (just look at the bug report) it could definitely be BR 12.7, but until the Leclerc’s shouldn’t be at this BR. It is 100% the player stats keeping The Leclerc’s at this BR, rather than the tank itself. If the Leclerc’s were in the German or USSR tree we all know they wouldn’t be.
Leclerc at same BR as the 2A7s/122s is absolutely insane. No organism capable of intelligent thought would make such a decision. S1 and S2 Leclercs could easily be 11.7 as long as the likes of M1A1 and Type 90 are there. As well as the Challenger 2 variants. Leclercs SXXI and AZUR should be 12.0 at the highest.
It’s baffling why Gaijin took so long to decompress Ground top tier, but made terrible changes anyways.
I finished S1 and S2 today and yesterday, but they’re weaker than I imagined—I’m shocked. After spending half a year completing the French Tree…
If it’s a skill issue, I’ll go train.
This is the way. France players together stronk and if we just train harder, gain more gainz than all the other nation players that play tanks with armor, or with shells that aren’t worse than what the m1a1 at 11.7 gets i am sure we can make the Leclercs go up to 13.0 as the first and only tank in game. Shouldnt be too hard considering the average war thunder players level of gen 3 eyeballs and tactical understanding. (Bit problematic though at the moment that even if russia players manage to lose the whole map in a bad exectued rush one or two of them will get into cas and half the time still wipe the whole battlefield uncontested. Kinda nice for some nations to get handed second chances…) Anyways Baguettelovers assemble!
Do it ;-) when you learn how to do really good in underdog tanks once you play another nation with one of the top tanks you will be amazed what you can do
Considering the Leclerc really is one of the weaker, maybe the weakest top tier tank, its basically a m1a1 with worse frontal armor, worse ammo, worse gun depression but a bit better mobility, 5 second autoloader stock and a bit smaller nato hump, but you get france teammates. Doesnt mean it can’t work, it does but it feels like most people playing it really know what they have to do and what they can do to maximize its efficiency (and where to go on the maps to do so). In the end theres really not a lot going for it except for being a solid tank for brawling and getting into the important positions quick.
But at everything it does, theres mbts in game that do it better no matter if thats mobility, survivability, armor, firepower (reload or raw pen) at every metric its somewhere in between and in a lot of them it is at the lower end. Can’t snipe due to horrible frontal turret armor. Struggles on uphills and with 8° of gun depression, cant do the stupid early rushes like the russian tanks due to overall bad armor layout (ofc it can, its just way more risky than doing it in a tank with better armor) so youre really having to occupy key positions, lock down sightlines and hope the main nation youre teamed with doesnt completely throw and lets half the enemy team get into cas to wipe you off the map.
Where would you put it, if you compare it objectively with (admittedly probably the strongest 11.7/12.0 tanks, but still) the m1a1, m1a1 aim which is probably closest (considering it gets a round comparable to the leclercs and not straight out better and also good gunner thermals) and the m1a1 HC which outshine it in several metrics like armor, firepower and gun depression but sit 0.7 to 1.0 br lower?
Im only now making my way to Leclerc (7.7 france currently), but with circa 1/7th of all of my games being in its BR range over the course of several years, ive faced it enough to know what I can and what I need to do when facing Leclerc.
Sure, protection wise its bad, and the shell is on the lower end of penetration values. However its still extremely mobile and has relatively fast reload. Moreso the shell is good enough to slice through most of the weakspots its contemporaries also have to go through (ive talked about this in different thread, once your pen reaches or failes to reach certain treshold it doesnt matter whenever you have 580mm of pen or 650mm of pen. Leclerc will lolpen Ariete all the same like 2A7V would; and none of the can lolpen BVMs UFP so they both have to go for weakspots anyway).
and yet when compared to the apex predators of the current ground, it outshines them in things like mobility department and ready rack size.
Should Leclercs be all 12.7? no. that BR should be reserved for 2A7V, Strv122, BVMs.
But 11.7 BR is insanely low, and 12.0 is arguably low. If you however said they can go to 12.3 right now, yeah, no argument there.
also Leclerc, alongside the type 10, are probably one of the few tanks where I know I absolutely cannot mess my shot placement nor I can allow them to live on my teams flank rent-free.
and after 2A7/Strv122 and BVM, its the last tank I want to find myself staring at after cresting a corner.
The shell is literally so bad that you can push out in one of russias ERA plastered mbts (T-90m and t80 BVM) unangled and your chances are not bad that the miserable dart of the leclerc does absolutely nothing. And while i am aware that this does and can happen to any dart, the frequency with which it happens to me in the leclerc compared to any other high or top tier mbt is astonishing. Also you are aware that spall depends on the mass of the dart as well as pen value remaining after penetrating armor? It is quite a big difference having 380 mm pen at 100 m at 60° angle compared to the 330 mm the leclercs round has considering post pen damage at oblique angle shots. So that alone makes darts on the lower end of the spectrum much less lethal.
Mobility is another interesting one and i feel the 72kph top speed that is barely ever reached let alone keeping it for more than a couple of seconds, the leclerc literally struggles to turn on the spot. If youre sitting on a slight incline in a leclerc i challenge you to try and turn, or even better try to go forward and turn from standstill. Because it cant. You literally first have to gain momentum, or decide to just back down and reverse back up the “hill” (which in this case is basically any incline no matter the angle) to change position.
I’m not sure, as you said, if the Leclerc should go down in BR at all, maybe 12.3 but that wont change a lot. It should get fixes (like a lot of tanks should) and most importantly at least a reliable dart but oh well, I’m also afraid what the france mains are capable of doing to its “statistics” if that happens. 13.7 it is with working ammo that doesnt grief you in 1/3rd of shots you take to weakspots/sides that would be totally disabling or killshots with any other top tier round.
And Leclerc’s reload is on par with Abrams and Ariete.
Leclerc is currently one of the least appealing top tier MBTs, can we please stop pretending it’s good? 75% of the MBT roster is an outright better choice than Leclerc rn
The S1 is the best Leclerc, as it is upwards of 3 tons lighter than the others.
Leclercs should be 12.0 along with M1A1, with M1A1 HC specs going up to 12.7.
Then what tank is slow at top tier lol ? Perhaps Challenger and that’s it.
If all MBTs except for one are all going at pretty much the same speed AND Leclerc isn’t the fastest among them either, then it’s not a variable that makes it stronger than other MBTs.
Hence, why I’m pleading to stop to perpetuate the myth that “Leclerc has good mobility !!!”. It’s average in that area so let us stop making it seems like it’s actually a strength. It is when it comes to Leclerc not a weakness (at best) lol.
Ive had those damn relikt™ bags stop a damn DM53 fired from L/55 point blank at perfect angle. Id say its less of Leclerc shell issue and more of a relikt™ bag issue.
yes, it was brought to my attention.
wont comment on that mechanic as I have no objective way to measure it. However, I will once again mention the penetration tresholds.
Facing BVM frontally, 2A7V nor Leclerc can lolpen its UFP. Disregarding the turret in its entiriety, they both have to go either for LFP (at max 205mm thick) or drivers port (at max 181mm thick). With such low protection values, the residual penetration of both Leclerc and 2A7V should, in theory, be more than enough to disable the BVM in single shot (disregarding the gaijins spagheti code that affect us all equally randomly).
Scenario, where there will be plate just thick enough to allow Leclerc to penetrate, but it will be thick enough to completly nulify any spall AND Leclerc will be forced to shoot it, will be more likely than not exceedingly rare.
This issue can be simply rectified by updating Leclercs shell. When the ground top tier decompression was announced, I said that I dont think Leclercs are 12.7 material. If they are going to keep their new BR, new shell is entirely reasonable.
Dont get me wrong, I dont think Leclercs are without issues; I just dont find them as bad as people portray them. Im more scared of Leclerc on my flank than I am scared of Merkava or Ariete, and both have better shell than Leclercs.
And yet, if you compare AZUR to SEPv2 and 2A7V, it has best HPT, best top speed and its reverse is best but tied with SEPv2.
Cant comment on that (yet), but I find it that highly improbable without evidence. maybe @Magikッ can clarify whenever this is true or not?
neither would 12.0 or 11.7 because Leclercs would still sit within 1.0 BR of top tier. But 11.7 Leclercs would make 10.7 unplayable - dont know if you had the pleasure of playing 10.3/10.7 against Fujis, but god. Even if Fujis armor is bad, seeing that thing rolling down to my position while playing 10.3 russia or 10.7 US was code brown (and with 10.7 US it still is).
Current Leclercs at 12.3 sound reasonable to me. Arguably even 12.0 Leclercs wouldnt be out of question, but when compared to other 12.0 tanks… I know Id take 12.0 Leclerc over 2A4M any time.
Thats issue with ingame modeling which obviously should be fixed.
BUT Leclerc not only does get its 5sec reload out of the bag even with lvl 0 crew; its also not dependent on loaders brain being inside loaders skull. And Leclerc still has largest ready rack than any of the top tier MBTs bar the soviet carousels.
if we can stop pretending its reload time isnt a massive advantage. If 5 sec reload is massive advantage for Abrams and Ariete, then that same 5 sec reload on Leclerc is also massive advantage.
