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Challenger 2 LEP.


Damian90

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Rheinmetall just presented their proposal for Challenger 2 Mk2, and I must say I am impressed.
 

It's a completely new turret, made from welded rolled plates + probably a new modular special armor on top of it, I wonder if hull special armor will be replaced as well?
 

Armament is 120mm smoothbore Rh120/L55A1 gun, and it's said ammunition is stored in the rear turret bustle, probably isolated with blow off panels.
 

PomqWyk.jpg

Really impressive, IMHO a better upgrade than BAE proposal.

 

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3 hours ago, Damian90 said:

Rheinmetall just presented their proposal for Challenger 2 Mk2, and I must say I am impressed.
 

It's a completely new turret, made from welded rolled plates + probably a new modular special armor on top of it, I wonder if hull special armor will be replaced as well?
 

Armament is 120mm smoothbore Rh120/L55A1 gun, and it's said ammunition is stored in the rear turret bustle, probably isolated with blow off panels.
 

PomqWyk.jpg

Really impressive, IMHO a better upgrade than BAE proposal.

 

Well, as RM has taken over 55% of BEA land...is there a difference between the BEA and the RM offer? ;-)

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Never. LoL

 

But lets not mention the boxer APC.

 

All joking aside IMO.

A tank that could be standard in NATO forces would be very effective in terms of cost per unit maintenance ammo supply etc

But national pride and commercial interests would never allow it.

british-bulldog-andrew-farley.jpg

Edited by Marko
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19 hours ago, Maj.Hans said:

Blowout panels on the hull...  Leo 2 needs hull blowout panels and suddenly it's even closer to perfection.

It's immposible to fix hull ammo storage problem in Leopard 2, and Leclerc without completely redesigning these vehicles.

Blow off panels alone won't help if you don't isolate ammunition storage with blast proof armored sliding doors or bulkhead.

Much easier solution in such case would be to use more compact engine, and move hull ammo storage in to a compartment between powerpack and turret. In such case lot's of space would be made free in hull front, I would then move the driver station to the hull center axis, in my interactions with Leopard 2A5, I noticed that due to wedge armor, it's very difficult to use driver hatch to get in and out.

If driver could be moved to the center axis of hull, then especially if gun is elevated, it's much easier to get in and out using driver hatch. I noticed during my familirization with M1A2SEPv2, that due to driver station placement in hull center axis, it's rather easy to get in and out, especially if main gun is elevated.

I would also try to eliminate weak zones in turret frontal projection like the gunner sight weak zone.

Leclerc would be much more difficult with such modification. Honestly I would completely remove hull storage, and simply move driver station to the center axis of the hull + modify the turret to eliminate it's weak zones like in Leclerc variant proposed for Turkey.

 

Tough it's far easier to upgrade M1 or Challenger 2, due to their inherently better designed turret and hull shells.

 

Edited by Damian90
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1 hour ago, Damian90 said:

It's immposible to fix hull ammo storage problem in Leopard 2, and Leclerc without completely redesigning these vehicles.

Blow off panels alone won't help if you don't isolate ammunition storage with blast proof armored sliding doors or bulkhead.



 

Well, I didn't explicitly state to put those in, but I naturally expect that they would be part of a blow out panel upgrade.

 

I expect that the cost, time, effort, etc required to get a smaller power pack and rebuild the interior is going to be more than most are willing to invest.  I'm aware that many parts of the Leo2 can be considered weak or poorly designed, but the idea of a catastrophic T-Tank style turret launching explosion is what bothers me the most about that design.  Even if it required a reduction in the size of the stowage area, I'd rather have blast doors than what's in there now if I were having to crew it.

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10 hours ago, Maj.Hans said:

Well, I didn't explicitly state to put those in, but I naturally expect that they would be part of a blow out panel upgrade.

 

I expect that the cost, time, effort, etc required to get a smaller power pack and rebuild the interior is going to be more than most are willing to invest.  I'm aware that many parts of the Leo2 can be considered weak or poorly designed, but the idea of a catastrophic T-Tank style turret launching explosion is what bothers me the most about that design.  Even if it required a reduction in the size of the stowage area, I'd rather have blast doors than what's in there now if I were having to crew it.


IMHO the best for entire NATO would be to abandone European designs that have such flaws, and either work with US to further upgrade the M1, what I would want to see in M1A2D (M1A2SEPv4) is a new powerpack with diesel, for example either the new US ACE-1500 diesel, or MT883 (the latter was integrated and tested allready, altough ACE-1500 is more future proof design), hydropneumatic suspension system, and a proper dep water fording kit allowing for underwater driving + perhaps a new turret with autoloader and new gun (be it US XM360E1 or Rh120/L55A1) and voila.

Or upgraded Challenger 2 Mk2 with that new turret and upgraded hull.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 27/01/2019 at 6:10 PM, Damian90 said:

It's immposible to fix hull ammo storage problem in Leopard 2, and Leclerc without completely redesigning these vehicles.

Blow off panels alone won't help if you don't isolate ammunition storage with blast proof armored sliding doors or bulkhead.

Much easier solution in such case would be to use more compact engine, and move hull ammo storage in to a compartment between powerpack and turret. In such case lot's of space would be made free in hull front, I would then move the driver station to the hull center axis, in my interactions with Leopard 2A5, I noticed that due to wedge armor, it's very difficult to use driver hatch to get in and out.

If driver could be moved to the center axis of hull, then especially if gun is elevated, it's much easier to get in and out using driver hatch. I noticed during my familirization with M1A2SEPv2, that due to driver station placement in hull center axis, it's rather easy to get in and out, especially if main gun is elevated.

I would also try to eliminate weak zones in turret frontal projection like the gunner sight weak zone.

Leclerc would be much more difficult with such modification. Honestly I would completely remove hull storage, and simply move driver station to the center axis of the hull + modify the turret to eliminate it's weak zones like in Leclerc variant proposed for Turkey.

 

Tough it's far easier to upgrade M1 or Challenger 2, due to their inherently better designed turret and hull shells.

 

 

 

 the Idea to upgrade leopard 2 turret armor with the introduction since the 2a5 was to basically weld on Applique armor onto base 2a4 turret. They didnt need to keep revising armor layouts within the current existing LOS limitations of that turret.

 

 Even if Base turret designs are argued better, There are limitations within the current turret config going so many years forward

 

Either M1 and Challenger 2 will need a new longer turret with newer variations ( more los thickness will mean more NERA layers will be possible)  however within the current Chassis i don't think it may viable therefore will need to go the Leopard 2a5+ route and install applique armor atop based Turret armor to  meaningfully improve its armor but this may interfere with the ability of the driver to get out. hatch.

Edited by Kev2go
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