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New British Challenger Tank announced


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Interesting. Two thoughts:

1. There's a difference in the hard prototypes and the graphic version, the latter having a very boxy gun mount which would surely have a very short shelf life. I'm guessing the more svelte angled mount in the model the bigwigs stood in front of is the real thing though.

2. (a reflection and a much wider question) It sounded like the Minister is falling prey to the old adage of planners fighting the last war, with his comments on stabilisation themes/mass only now being relevant for a very short time. Surely the UK debacle/lack of interest in front line deployments in Syria and even Ukraine was the death knell of that sort of tech imbalanced conflict?

Edited by Maquisard manqué
S spells Spalling
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Wow this is a surprise. I thought the brits wanted to get out of tank warfare.

Edit: Ah they even said it in the video

This looks like a less of a challenger 3 and more of a challenger 2.5... Seems they are just trying to stay modern. Or else they probably would have considered changing the armament and the hull.

Edited by Artkin
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Yeah I'm not exactly sure about the logic Britain is following. Are their apfsds superior to the German rounds? Probably not, they still used the rifled 120mm... Accurate but not as deadly AFAIK. I guess they're trying to justify cost savings through using their old rounds, and as many old parts as possible.

But to push the platform only makes sense temporarily. The joint leopard 3 program makes more sense to me. NATO already shares 5.56 and 7.62.

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18 minutes ago, Redwolf said:

Yeah, but I don't see how they are going to win any sales over the Leo.

Exactly, the challenger seems like a dead platform that's ready to be phased out. If I was importing military hardware, I would expect it to have a long supported life.

Edited by Artkin
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On 5/7/2021 at 5:18 PM, Maquisard manqué said:

2. (a reflection and a much wider question) It sounded like the Minister is falling prey to the old adage of planners fighting the last war, with his comments on stabilisation themes/mass only now being relevant for a very short time. Surely the UK debacle/lack of interest in front line deployments in Syria and even Ukraine was the death knell of that sort of tech imbalanced conflict?

Can you elaborate please? I didn't really understand this. My brain is tired :(:P

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Yeah I was gonna comment on that. How complicated did they want to make the hull? Doesn't make sense to me. The Germans optimized the Panther and then the King Tiger with its nice flat singular slabs. 

Tbh the KT turret was an excellent design IMO.

Edited by Artkin
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You need a degree to be considered for crew training. Like the first world war highly trained troops who could do the mad minute. By 1916 it was back to cannon fodder. 148 of these AFV's. Russian production will be geared for logistics and a driver's license and highschool certificate will be sufficient.  

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7 hours ago, MikeyD said:

Its difficult to tell from the video but it seems the display vehicle has an extra roof layer. Making it proof against top attack munitions would go a long way to keeping if from immediately being 'dead meat' on the battlefield.

Thats Interesting. I remember reading some while ago that following the azeri victory in the 2nd Nagorno Karabakh war, the British MOD visited Turkey and was suppossedly very impressed by the results of their drones. I wonder if the reducement of the number of british tanks is also related to the percived threat from drones, and is not only being done out of economical and strategic considerations, but also tactical ones.

What it would be also interesting to know is what other, more discret, improvents are also being added (or being actively developed for their eventual inclusion in the program), apart from the old tried method of just putting more armor into the tank (EW, Jammers, maybe even new system of APS capable of hitting top-down threats etc).

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18 hours ago, Artkin said:

Can you elaborate please? I didn't really understand this. My brain is tired :(:P

I was (and continue to) be talking what's proabbly a load of ill-informed nonsense anyway. Nonetheless, here's what I meant:

The minister gave a speech (in the video) saying a lesson learned from Iraq & Afghanistan was that "mass" (i.e. tanks/AFVs) wasn't needed for a sustained time - briefly perhaps and then not. Which sounds sensible if you have a similarly asymetric conflict again. BUT, my point is that it seems unlikely that would be the case now as the UK and US both decided not to get on the ground (bar SFs/training) in Syria, the latest opportunity for such an asymetric conflict, or Ukraine either. Ukraine is perhaps a more tenuous link to an asymetric conflict (if Russia also got involved faced off to a direct challenge from Nato), but served to support my point on willingness for expeditionary front line conflict (bar SF & airpower engagment). 

The UK just published a new intergrated review of defence, diplomacy and development. I haven't read it but i thought the gist was that the armed forces were gearing up more for sustained high-intensity war with potential opponents like Russia or China. If that's the case, then what the Minster said when introducing the challenger 3 (about not needing mass for long) seems inconsistent. Which is why i said it sounds like the UK is preparing for the last war.

In reality, I guess the speech was hogwash and the rationale is more likely to be a quesiton of cost and, as others mention here, responding to new threats like drones and (as they do mention in the Integrated review too) cyber and digital stuff (whatever that looks like).

 

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We now have real world evidence on the Leopards performance. In Syria. It's drawbacks compared to Challenger 2 are clear and the charred hulks of Leopard 2s litter the Syrian desert whereas Challenger 2s in Iraq were impervious except to blue on blue

758.jpg

Edited by Flibby
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Those destroyed Leopard II photos are misleading, considering there haven't been any recorded incidents of Challenger or M1A2 Abrams being attacked by Kornet. I recall during the Iraq invasion the US briefly thought they were facing Kornet and they FREAKED. The reports later proved false but the Pentagon was sweatin' bullets for awhile.

Leopard 2 didn't take up the offered 'Chobham armor' when it was first designed, considering it too expensive to produce, if memory serves. They instead did their own interpretation of the Chobham concept which resulted in a vehicle with lower protection levels than Abrams and Challenger. I can imagine the Brits saying 'We like Everything about Leopard 2A6 but we're really uncomfortable about sacrificing our armor package.

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18 hours ago, MikeyD said:

Those destroyed Leopard II photos are misleading, considering there haven't been any recorded incidents of Challenger or M1A2 Abrams being attacked by Kornet. I recall during the Iraq invasion the US briefly thought they were facing Kornet and they FREAKED. The reports later proved false but the Pentagon was sweatin' bullets for awhile.

Leopard 2 didn't take up the offered 'Chobham armor' when it was first designed, considering it too expensive to produce, if memory serves. They instead did their own interpretation of the Chobham concept which resulted in a vehicle with lower protection levels than Abrams and Challenger. I can imagine the Brits saying 'We like Everything about Leopard 2A6 but we're really uncomfortable about sacrificing our armor package.

 

The British Army wouldn't use anything that couldn't fire Hesh, but yes I'm sure the armour issue is also key.

 

 

Given that Kornet has been out since the Challenger 2 I would be surprised if someone hadn't tested it's performance v Kornet at the range. I'm sure the UK and US managed to obtain some. It's not difficult.

 

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thous are leo2a4 and if i remeber right ( 5 destroyet on total) , this was destroyet on close combat range and leos was whit out infantry support . basicly turkis army did ewerything what you should not do whit leo2 .

Edited by snarre
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