I know we’ve all been waiting on it to eventually come, but I’ve been quite busy as of late (as well as those I’ve been working with). That said, by now I’m pretty sure I’ve looked at every photo of the Leclerc that’s on the internet as well as most available literature; suffice to say, there is lots of info to sort through. Over the next two weeks I will have time to go over everything, and hopefully by the time of the next major update something comes out.
I was also hoping that we would see other buffs come to the Leclerc in lieu of armour, but it seems the devs would rather shoehorn a Leopard 2A6 into France - the idea of which I personally loathe. Anyway, over the next two weeks (or so), along with armour reports there will be other reports either being updated with new info or reporting new issues. There will also be reports on other French vehicles (yeah… I’ve been sitting on quite a bit lol).
There are sources that state the presence of spall liners, though in truth after the recent nerfs to spall liners the report has taken a backseat. The biggest buff to survivability (outside of armour) will come from the front fuel tank being modelled as internal external. Dunno why it’s still not… not as if there are two walls separating the compartment…
Thankfully Benelux ground has been delayed. I was concerned the devs would rush the update and launch it within a week. This wouldn’t give sufficient time to have a Leclerc armour report done by then, at least if Leopard 2s are pushed on the French tree, the armour report will be hanging around to further show there is zero reason for them in the first place.
Also the Vextra is so egregiously mismodelled. Fortunately I anticipated this and have been collecting sources over the past few weeks. Some of the things that I will be reporting very soon:
The Vextra has the wrong cannon modelled and is currently using OFL 105 F3 (found on the AMX 10 RC) which can’t actually be fired from the Vextra
Missing OFL 105 F2
Wrong weight, it should be 6 tonnes lighter lol
Missing thermals, should be third generation
Can’t drive over 100kph with two wheels destroyed
Acceleration will most likely be massively underperforming
Turning diameter should be 15 meters
Armour is probably incorrect. Should be invulnerable to 14.5mm
Spoiler
Just a quick question @Smin1080p : You previously said the devs are working on filling the 9.7 - 11.7 void, so then how come the Vextra is slated for 8.7 where it wouldn’t fill any gaps; rather, it would just be adding to an already full line-up? Really, the addition of the Vextra proves two things:
The devs (as per usual) put zero effort into ensuring French vehicles arrive in a historically accurate state
The devs have zero intention of actually filling any tech tree gaps
Now I apologise that you’re the one who has to deal with this, but it’s not as if the devs want to engage with the French community. The French tree is in a miserable state but the devs only seem concerned with adding insult to injury.
To be fair, Gaijin doesn’t do automotive components, as far as the game goes, as long as it’s moving, it’s working.
The turning radius is the only thing they can adress with the chassis.
Acceleration is tied to having working engines with torque and gearboxes, not incurring penalties for missing wheels would rely on having working suspensions and all adjacent systems.
As for the BR, once it gets it’s correct gun, and can fire NATO standards ammunition, if Gaijin is really allergic to adding more domestic french 105 rounds, they can just slap any DMwhatever to make it at least 9.3 worthy.
VEXTRA/SANTAL/Gazelle is looking good.
Simple question but why add a tank, when a forum page with hundreds of players, thousands of comments has been asking for the improvement of the leclerc since 2023. In itself I would prefer an update of the leclercs than having new tanks. I don’t know if people share my opinion but hey
Plenty of people wanted to see the Vextra 105, myself included. I was probably the most excited to see it until I realised I now have to spend the next day making bug reports. France desperately needs light tanks, but the devs making half-assed additions just exacerbates the issue.
TBH currently Vextra being in 8.7 is just wierd, you trade laser rangefinder, fatter chassis, thermal compare to amx 10rc and still 0.3 BR higher than it, and all you have is a stabilizer.
That’s because the devs put zero effort into research. Hell, even the commander sight is the exact same as on the AMX 10 RC but it both has the wrong optical zoom and is not stabilised and the gunner sight is the exact same on the CR2E yet lacks thermals.
Actually, I lie. The devs did do some research… wanna guess where the 34 tonne combat weight figure comes from?
something something “Devs think Ukrainian sources are unreliable for French vehicles”
I am very hyped with the Vextra personally. I have literally been waiting for it since the suggestion was passed to devs back on the old forums.
True, it has loads of pretty big inaccuracies, but the model is here, and the rest is just a bunch of lines of code that can be easily fixed during the dev server.
It might be true that it does not feel like the devs spent very much time actually researching the vehicle, but that model is chef kiss especially the non premium cameo net, so I’ll gladly accept that, that hard work is already done.
I just hope that the devs realize that the Vextra 105 is not Type 16 FPS material but rather more similar to the Centauro found at 9.7ish, with high quality thermals, great mobility, laser range finder, and even somewhat working armor…
All in all, there are some silly reports that will have to be made and shouldn’t have in the first place, but there are not to much of them actually (mainly gun, ammo, mobility, LRF, armor) and they are with primary source
All in all, the Vextra would fill both the 9.7-11.7 gap that @Bossman919 mentionned, while also making this amazing vehicle that, as @Smin1080p mentioned, was highly requested, a center piece of a potential new (non premium) lineup from 10.0 onwards
Anyway, might be worthwhile to make a separate dev Vextra thread to sort everything out for the update, instead of clogging this thread
