- Yes
- No
caid’s suggestion #207
I would like to suggest an interesting armored car, the LOHR RPX 90 with TS90 turret.
the LOHR RPX 90 was an armoured car proposed by LOHR industry to provide an offer amounts of the class 10 military vehicles. offered from 1983, the class 10 was highly needed in the market and LOHR had hoped to secure some contracts on the international market and make a name for themselves. relatively new in the military industry, LOHR hoped that one of their design could make a name for themselves and make competition Panhard with the AML and ERC. The RPX 90 was a larger version of the RPX 6000 which was a reconnaissance armored car. the RPX 90 was offered in 4 different known versions, each with a different turret which would all be subject to their suggestion. the TS 90 was a conventional turret designed to be fitted on light vehicles. introduced in 1977 it was considered very modern back in 1983 and also pretty cheap. the turret was famous for the Panhard ERC-90 Sagaie which was a successful armored car, successor to the Panhard AML-90, and competitor to the RPX 90. The turret was made of Mars steal and could also be added serial optional upgrades. the main armament a 90mm F4 gun allows the vehicles to use APFSDS at a velocity that is normally found on the guns from the MBT.
the RPX 90 wasn’t a success. no contract came to LOHR at all. the company didn’t manage to make the name they hoped for.
Firepower
using the 90mm F4 gun, the RPX 90 will offer superior firepower over the armored car of his type. the 90mm capable of a decent fire rate, can fire HEATFS and APFSDS rounds. this gun can allow the RPX 90 to fight some MBT and be used as alternative to the real tanks. the turret normally tuning manually would suffer a bit of slow rotation. the various options offered on the turret are as follows, for most of them, it’s unsure which was used on the prototype. i will let Gaijin decide which option they want to give to the RPX 90 based on the balance
- Electrical transver increasing the rotation of the turret from 14°/sec to 26°/sec
- Independent elevation for the coaxial
- replacement of the 7.62mm coaxial for a 12.7mm M2HB
- roof mounted AA 7.62mm
- commander’s gun sight to allow the commander to replace the gunner with magnification x 5 (the commander already has the priority country included but does not have a proper gun sight)
- gunner’s day/night sight (day magnification x 5 with a 10’ field-of-view and night magnification x7 with a 7° field- of-view)
- Laser rangefinder
- replacing the 4 smoke launchers by 6x smoke launchers.
some of those options are pretty interesting and could actually affect a lot the performance of the vehicles which allows gaijin to adjust the BR of the vehicles to fill the need they have in the tech tree.
as many of those performances are optional, i will only expose the firepower’s stats representing the basic turret with the now option in the following charts.
Mobility
the RPX 90 offers a very high mobility. the vehicle weighing about 10.0 tonnes is powered by a 250 hp engine. the power-weight ratio normally around 25 hp/tonnes gives it a high acceleration that would be pretty comparable to the R3 T20 FA-HS which is infamous for its high speed. the vehicle’s top speed reaching 105 km/h on the road would sometimes allow the players to reach 70 km/h off-road on flat terrain. if you want to raise your acceleration further, you can always turn your turret backward and fire a few shots to make the recoils give you a bit of buff in the acceleration. vehicles have hydraulically assisted steering, 6 forward and 1 backward speed gearbox, and all wheels break.
the weight was stated in Jane’s armor and artillery 1985-86 which mentioned the MARS F4 turret in the description which led me to assume the weight is the one with the MARS F4 turret. the both turret are about the same weight when fully loaded. so we do not have to bother giving it a lighter weight.
TS 90 = 2.650 kg
Mars F4 = 2.600 kg
Assuming the weight of about 10,0 tonnes refers to the version with the Mars F4, we can assume the TS90 version is about the same weight.
Protection
the protection of the hull is unspecified in thickness, but it is indicated in the protection level. it was simply said to have protection against small arms and splinters all around. made of welded steel, this means a thickness of 8 to 12mm (like the AML and ERC from Panhard) this protection is a bit light and would make the armored car easy to take out. but the small size is a great advantage. 2.52 m tall, the vehicles will offer a pretty small target. the crew of 3 men is a bit small, the driver is placed in the center at the front of the hull while the gunner and commander are in the turret. this makes it easy to take out the crew with a single shot. the engine is at the rear. the turret is made of HHRhA which increases the protection level a bit. but only a bit better than the hull, it would be capable of taking some hit of the 12.7mm in the frontal arc as long it’s not from too close. 4 smoke launchers are normally included to the turret.
Sources
Jane's armour and artillery 1985-86
TTB190 pamphlet (they use the same gun)
Jane's Armoured Fighting Vehicle Retrofit Systems 1993 94 (information on the turret)
