Should the Devs consider Russian sources for NATO vehicles and vice versa?

Machinery of War Discussion
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21

You still haven’t provided evidence that the Leclerc provided to Sweden wasn’t in the same configuration as French T1 production standard (a vehicle being pre-serie doesn’t contradict it being built to match the production vehicles in status, in fact it is the final form for an MBT before it begins being distributed to the troops), which can be easily verified by comparing their weights.

According to Gelbart & Marsh (1996) Tanks main battle and light tanks, the S1 weighted at 54.5 tons, which is identical to the weights of the vehicle provided to Sweden, meaning between the production variant, and the pre-serie, there couldn’t have been an armour improvement (as those always come with weight increases).

The difference in scores is perfectly explainable by the faults found in the Leclerc being fixed (and protection was not one of them, because you can see that it was still judged as inferior to the M1A2 and the Leopard 2A5, actually even worse than the Challenger 2, which according to newest sources should be “nerfed”).

I’m not even sure where that book/article got the scores from, the actual Greek sources state this only:
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There is no other breakdown, where did they get their scores from?

Or how it’s attempting to a paint a picture of Leclerc’s ammunition storages being fully isolated (when they aren’t).

It’s also forgetting to mention how the EPP was fitted to the Leclerc S2 provided to Greece, meaning its automotive performance wouldn’t have been representative of the Leclerc fitted with the SACM engine.

I’ll have to admit, I’m not entirely sure if it was a MILAN, it was something that I’ve seen in a UAE article a few years ago, however as far as I am aware, it was never confirmed that it was the ATGM claimed by others here (9M330 was it?).

22

According to the French government, the T1 was never considered operationable. What was tested in Sweden never entered service with the French army.
Source 9 Cover
Source 9 pg. 33

23

That’s cleared up then, so in a best case scenario S2 could’ve better armour, but the question remains how much.

According to models created by Laviduce back on the old forum, the armour improvements were provided by welding additional plates to the turret front (rather than anything changing internally).

24

This source can’t be used at face value. T4 and T5 standard used by France as the official S1 name where delivered between 1996 and 1997. Considering your source barely overlap (and considering it takes time to publish such documents) with that means to me that he probably talked about earlier Leclercs which were NOT accepted in service

25

T1 Batches was never adopted by France because of the problem it had,

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Protection of Leclercs was never evalutated by the Greek Army, you can see it from the same document i sent.

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While you are right, from the Swedish Trials, Leclerc showed the best acceleration out of M1A2 and Leopard 2 IMP, so that doesn’t really matter

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Fair, if you have the article please provide it. Also worth nothing that the hit wasn’t where the composite was, so im not sure how that would matter regarding the protection.

26

And where’s y’alls source on the weight? I’ve asked 3 times already, I haven’t been provided with one as of yet.

If you don’t have one, just say.

27

You are giving me an outdated source that gives the same weight as the Leclerc used in the trials. Why should I bring anything new to the table on this point ? All you are saying is, yes, T1 batches were indeed T1 batches. What we are giving you are multiple sources stating that France had GIAT make major changes to the Leclerc before accepting them into service

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To prove me wrong? I’ve stated clearly that we can estimate any improvements to protection based on the weight changes of a vehicle, if nothing else was changed.

Not providing one simply tells me you haven’t got one, and cannot prove that there’s a difference in armour.

29

Why should we make the efforts to disprove point by point all of your arguments with clearly stated sources, when not a single one of your claims are actually given to us with acceptable sources. We’ll give you sources proving one point, and then you’ll jump out to another just after. I don’t really see the point in spending time dealing with this

30

And here’s where the contradiction comes: the Greeks clearly evaluated it, even if not directly via fire testing, seeing as they’ve been able to compare it to the Challenger 2, and the other 2 tanks that took part in the trials:

“Challenger-2E was one of the disadvantages. Despite the fact that the version presented in the competition was equipped with a similar type of Europack-type machine with the French tanks, it was often spoiled when switching to high speeds, which was the fault of the passing of the motorway on the motorway. The 1200-horsepower engine at Challenger-2 was replaced with a 1500 horsepower engine and did not adapt to the kinetic scheme and adjusted to the engine that caused frequent outflow of the carriageway. It was also a negative surprise with its annexed armor. The car was distinguished by a relatively weak armor compared to Leo-2A5S and M1A2, even with 10 tons of light Leclerc, almost never behind British tank protection.”

So we’re at an impase, because the Greeks have made statements on the armour, whereas the French state it was never evaluated.

I currently do not have the full 26 pdf in my possession, but finding it shouldn’t pose too much of a problem, so we can re-visit this issue at a later date.

31

Special pleading fallacy?

If you know for sure that I am wrong, just prove it. I haven’t jumped between points, I’ve addressed most that I could provided I’ve got a reasonable amount of information on that, I haven’t addressed the ones I wasn’t sure about or couldn’t argue, to me it seems like you’re simply dishonest.

32

Sure, feel free to share the PDF when you want with me and we can talk about it, because according to my source Greeks didn’t indeed tested the protection but they based off what GIAT stated, you can see it on my previous message, but if you can prove the source is wrong feel free.
Same about the MILAN missile penetration you affirmed on the bug report platform.

2 Likes
33

You might want to check the translation, as it barely makes any sense here

34

Andd now the goalposting comes in. Right, I’ve affirmed it by now that you’re a waste of time, Wareta seems to be the only person here interested in the actual discussion.

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This sentence, which I guess is the one you want to highlight on the armor protection of the Leclerc, is very poorly written. which tank is the one that cause the negative surprise ? It seems that the “car” is being compared to the Leo, M1 and the 10 ton lighter Leclerc. And it seems that this “car” is the British tank. And it seems that the 3 tanks are almost never being the British armor.
So, to me, all that it is saying is that the British tank is less armoured than the Leclerc. So one again that does not say anything about the Leclerc compared to the other 2 tanks…

Edit : And I see were you will be coming from “yeah but you clearly see that the greek compared the armor”, but the thing is that according to the French, they never did firing tests, so all they can give are at best educated guesses.

As for the weight issue. No, I won’t bother looking for exact values, as it’s unlikely GIAT remedied the issues by just slapping more weights. Most talks are about an armor redesign, which does not give us much informations on what type of changes that were made. Also, we don’t know if any other modifications that were made could also have changed the weight by any measurable amount, such as the redesigns of the powertrain, transmission, interior…
I believe the already numerous documents that Wart gave you are sufficient enough to prove that such redesign has indeed take place, and that thus more recent sources giving updated armor values are as credible as the Swedish trials, just on different batches of the tank. To me, your point on the weight issue is completely redondant, and I wholly believe you are just looking for every pieces you can to construct your argumentation, even when it’s not alined with the pre-established informations that were given to you prior

36

@FurinaBestArchon from a second source talking about Greek Trials:

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According to this, the armor was consided good considering the weight, it was considered worse than the M1A2 and Leopard 2 ( Uparmored Version ), which sounds fair.

As i was saying, when you will get back the document talking about the Greek Trials, i would like to have a look and another talk with you.

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Which is also in line with the report made by @Bossman919, so here we loop back to the original report not being outrageous

38

Congratulation, it’s machine translated from Greek.

Despite the poor TL quality, it’s clear you’re overreaching, since the message was still understandable, i.e;
“The 10 ton lighter Leclerc is almost as well armoured as the Challenger 2”.

The only thing we need at this point is the armour capabilites of the Challenger 2 (which can be found in the Chally 2 thread, provided by Flame), which were ~600mm RHAe against KE for the turret within a ±20 degree arc, as the Leclerc was judged to be at about the same level, we can infer the Leclerc’s protection for the turret to be ~600mm RHAe against KE in a ± 20 degree arc… which very ironically mostly lines up with the protection analysis provided to us by the Swedes…

Now, whether the game actually represents Leclerc’s armour accurately is a different matter, since I’ve found that it undersells Leopard 2s turrets (all) against both KE & CE when compared to the Swedish graphs, the same could be the case for the Leclerc - but for that you will need to analyse the tables to confirm… or look for the analysis made by Laviduce back when he was reporting Leclerc’s armour, either of the two.

Another thing, OFL F2s performance per what Wareta posted would’ve been for LoS 60 at 2km’s, at that distance it would provide performance roughly equivalent to OFL F1s.

As for the weight issue. No, I won’t bother looking for exact values, as it’s unlikely GIAT remedied the issues by just slapping more weights.

Say so from the beginning instead of goalposting around the issue then. Would’ve saved us a lot of time (re-designing the armour package wouldn’t have been reasonable either way, so until anyone can provide proof that there is a difference in armour between the Swedish model, and later models, the assertion that the former’s armour is representative of the production variants remains as the best case scenario).

wholly believe you are just looking for every pieces you can to construct your argumentation

No? It’s a legit way of checking for changes. If you see it in any other way, not my problem. So far, apart from unreliable Russian sources, and secondary/third rate French sources, I’ve seen no reliable evidence shared here, or in the report itself, that GIAT redesigned or improved the armour in the meantime. Majoriry of the sources shared are of much lesser reliability than the Swedish ones… so i’m really not sure what you’re trying to argue here.

In fact the author of the report purposefully omits to mention the performance for F1 and F2 was cited for LoS 60 perforation, i.e a much higher obliquity than the turret’s modules, or the hull’s beak, which artificially ups the performance. Without mentioning several other outrageous claims based on Eastern “reports”.