Leclerc tank
| Leclerc | |
|---|---|
 Demonstration of a Leclerc tank in Paris, on the 14th of July 2006 | |
| Type | Main battle tank |
| Place of origin | France |
| Service history | |
| In service | 1992 - |
| Used by |  France
 United Arab Emirates |
| Production history | |
| Manufacturer | GIAT Industries |
| Produced | 1990 - |
| No. built | ~800 |
| Specifications | |
| Mass | 56 tonnes |
| Length | 9.87 m (6.88 without gun) |
| Width | 3.60 m |
| Height | 2.50 m |
| Crew | 3 (Commander, gunner, driver) |
| Armor | Steel, titanium, NERA |
Main armament | 120mm tank gun 40 rounds (1 round ready to fire in the chamber, 22 rounds inside autoloader magazine with additional 18 rounds in the chassis) |
Secondary armament | 12.7 mm coaxial M2HB machine gun 1,100 rounds 7.62mm machine gun 3,000 rounds |
| Engine | 8-cylinder diesel Wärtsilä 1,500 hp (1,100 kW) |
| Power/weight | 27 hp/tonne |
| Suspension | hydropneumatic |
Operational range | 550 km |
| Maximum speed | 72 km/h |
The Leclerc is a main battle tank built by GIAT Industries of France. It was named in honour of General Philippe de Hauteclocque "Leclerc" who landed at Normandy and eventually led the drive towards Paris while in command of the Free French 2nd Armoured Division in World War II.
The Leclerc is in service with the French Army and the army of the United Arab Emirates. In production since 1990, the Leclerc entered French service in 1992, replacing the venerable AMX 30 as the country's main armoured platform. With production now complete, the French Army has a total of 406 Leclercs and the United Arab Emirates Army has 388.
History
At the start of the 1970s, the AMX-30 was ageing and, in 1977, the French Army drafted a requirement for a new main battle tank, called "EPC" (Engin Principal de Combat). Importation of foreign equipment, like the M1 Abrams, the Leopard 2, or the Merkava was studied and rejected; a joint programme with Germany, based upon the Leopard 2, went astray in 1979 and studies for a national project started then.
In contrast with most Western programmes, the stress was put on active, rather than passive protection, to limit the overall mass of the vehicle. Mobility for evading incoming fire and firing control were given particular attention.
Partnership with a foreign State was sought to limit the cost per unit, and this was found when the United Arab Emirates ordered 436 vehicles, adding to the 426 units already planned for the French Army.
In 1986, the project was started under the name of "Leclerc", six prototypes being built swiftly. Mass production started in 1990 with the four-unit first batch, used mainly for comparative tests in foreign countries. The 17 units of batches 2 and 3 were shipped, with improvements in the turret and in the hull armour. These units were diagnosed with problems in the engine and suspension, and were quickly retired.
Batches 4 and 5 were better built, eliminating the recurrent problems in the powerplant, and are still in service, after having been refitted at the end of the 1990s. The second series started with batch 6, with an added climate control system in the right rear of the turret. Batch 7 introduced a transmission system to the command vehicle, and a data system giving instantaneous vision of the state of all battle tanks and acquired targets. It also incorporated minor improvements in the visor. Batch 8 was a modernisation of the electronic system, and batch 9 replaced the visor with a SAGEM Iris system with thermal imaging, which allows acquisition of targets at a greater range.
All previous batches will be modernised up to the standards of batch 9 from 2005. In 2004, batch 10 was presented, incorporating new information systems which could share the disposition of enemy and friendly units to all vehicles and new armour. This is the beginning of the 96-unit third series. By 2007, 355 tanks should be operational, 320 of them incorporated in 4 regiments each of 80 Leclerc vehicles.
The 4 regiments are:
- 1er-11e Régiment de Cuirassiers stationed in Carnoux-en-Provence, part of the 3rd Mechanized Brigade.
- 6e-12e Régiment de Cuirassiers stationed near Orléans, part of the 2nd Armored Brigade.
- 1er-2e Régiment de Chasseurs stationed near Verdun, part of the 7th Armored Brigade.
- 501e-503e Régiment de Chars de Combat stationed in Mourmelon, 1st Mechanized Brigade.
Characteristics
Armament
The Leclerc is equipped with a GIAT CN120-26 120mm smoothbore cannon. This cannon is theoretically capable of firing the same NATO standard 120mm rounds as the German Leopard 2 and US M1 Abrams, but in practice only custom French-produced ammunition is issued. The gun is insulated with a thermal sleeve and has an automatic compressed air fume extraction system instead of the usual fume extraction cylinder. The Leclerc has a unique autoloading system which was specifically designed for it, and reduces the crew to three by eliminating the human loader. The turret of the Leclerc was designed around the auto-loading system in order to avoid the problems common to other tanks with an autoloader. The Leclerc autoloader allows a rate of fire of 12 shots per minute and holds 22 rounds of ready ammunition; it can accommodate up to five different types of ammunition at once, although like most autoloader systems it cannot change ammunition types once a round has been loaded. The most common types are the armour piercing fin-stabilised discarding sabot (APFSDS) with a tungsten core and the high explosive anti-tank (HEAT) round. There are 18 other rounds available for reload. A Leclerc tank can fire while traveling at a speed of 50 km/h on a target 4,000 metres away (most autoloader-equipped tanks have to stop to reload). The gun is 52 calibres long instead of the 44 calibres common on most tanks of the Leclerc's generation, giving the rounds a higher muzzle velocity; on the other hand, the latest German and British tanks have 55 calibre guns which are even more powerful, and American tanks use advanced depleted-uranium penetrator rounds to compensate for their shorter guns.
The Leclerc is also equipped with a 12.7 mm coaxial machine gun and a remote-controlled 7.62mm antiaircraft machine gun, whereas most other NATO tanks use 7.62mm weapons for both their coaxial and top machine gun mounts; the major exception is the American M1 Abrams, which has a 7.62mm coaxial machine gun and two top-mounted machine guns, one 7.62mm and one 12.7mm.
Protection
The Leclerc has the Galix combat vehicle protection system from GIAT, which fires a variety of smoke grenades and infra red screening rounds, as well as anti-personnel grenades.
The hull and the turret are made of welded steel fitted with modular armour, which can be replaced easily for repair or upgrades over the years. The French army in the late seventies rejected Chobham armour as being overly specialised in its optimisation to defeat hollow charge-weapons; it therefore opted to develop a steel perforated armour system, comparable to that on the early Leopard 2. When the Leclerc was introduced in the early nineties this was still considered adequate, due to the larger thickness of its modules compared to the armour of other modern western tanks, made possible — for a given weight limit — by the compact design of the tank as a whole. However during the nineties standards for tank armour protection increased, as exemplified by the Leopard 2A5, its main rival on the export market, being fitted with an additional spaced armour system. Thus it was decided to follow the Germans (Leopard 2A4) and British (Challenger 2) in their application of a titanium-tungsten system, which was introduced to the Leclerc in 2001, in Batch 10. The inner spaces are filled with NERA.
Fire control and observation
The Leclerc has a FINDERS battle management system and an ICONE TIS digital communication system which integrates data from other tanks and upper levels of command.
The Leclerc' digital fire control system can be operated independently by the gunner or the commander, and it offers real time integrated imaging from all of the tank's sensors and sights, including the gunner's SAVAN 20 stabilised sight, developed by SAGEM and the driver's night/day OB-60 vision system from Thales Optrosys. The system can track six targets concurrently and is very much like a similar system made by the same company for the Challenger 2 tank of the United Kingdom.
Propulsion
The Leclerc has an eight-cylinder, Wärtsilä (ex SACM) V8X-1500 1,500 hp Hyperbar diesel engine and a SESM ESM 500 automatic transmission, with five forward and two reverse gears. The official maximum speed by road is 72 km/h and 55 km/h cross country (speeds in excess of 80 km/h were reported on road). The maximum range is given as 550 km, and can be extended to 650 km with removable external tanks. The "hyperbar" system integrates a Turbomeca TM 307B gas turbine in the engine, acting both as a turbocharger and an APU giving auxiliary power to all systems when the main engine is shut down.
At a combat weight of just 56 tons, the Leclerc is one of the lightest main battle tanks in the world; this gives it one of the best power-to-weight ratios among the Western tanks (27 hp per tonne) and makes it one of the fastest MBTs of its generation (0 to 32 km/h in 5 seconds).
The engine exhaust, exiting at the rear left, is cooled to reduce the thermal signature of the tank. Transmission is a hydromechanical type with five forward and two reverse gears. Fuel tanks carry 1,300 litres and act as extra protection; two 200-litre external tanks can be fitted on the rear of the turret, but have to be jettisoned before entering combat since they limit turret rotation.
The gear box is equipped with a hydrokinetic retarder which can slow the Leclerc down at a de-acceleration rate of 7 m/s² (0.7 g) which can be very useful at the last moment before it could be hit. The crew must be strapped in safely with their harness to use this.
Combat experience
The first Leclerc were commissioned in 1992, too late for the 1991 Gulf war, and have not been used in all-out war.
As for "low-intensity conflicts", 15 Leclercs have been deployed in Kosovo in the context of UN peace-keeping operations, where their performance was judged satisfactory by the French parliament.
Currently 13 Leclerc are deployed in the south Lebanon for a peacekeeping mission with the UNIFIL.
Variants
- Leclerc AZUR:Action en Zone Urbaine, "Improve fighting ability in urban environments"
- Leclerc EPG: Engin Principal du Génie, "main engineering vehicle": armoured engineering
- Leclerc DNG: Dépanneur Nouvelle Génération: repair tank
- Leclerc MARS: Moyen Adapté de Remorquage Spécifique: tugboat tank
- Leclerc EAU: "Tropicalised" version of the United Arab Emirates; it is fitted with:
- EuroPowerPack with the MTU 883 diesel engine of 1,100 kW. The United Arab Emirates have interests in the German company which builds them (MTU) and preferred an engine of their own. This powerplant is more reliable than the French UDV 8X (1,500 HP), though it has small problems with the clutch.
- Externally mounted auxiliary power unit
- Remote-controlled mount for 7.62 mm machine-gun, allowing under-armor operation
- Completely automated driving and turret functions, for use by crew with only basic training.
- Mechanical air-conditionning, to cool the tank without the use of electric current which could reveal the position of the tank
Operators
France - 406[1] + 20 armoured recovery vehicles
United Arab Emirates - 390[2] + 46 armoured recovery vehicles
References
- Chassillan, Marc(2005); Char Leclerc: De la guerre froide aux conflits de demain.
- Chassillan, Marc(2001); Raids Hors-série N.3: les chars de combat en action
External links
- Template:Fr icon www.chars-francais.net (in French; numerous photographs, including interior)
- Leclerc at army-guide.com
- Leclerc program update
- [1]
| Main battle | |
|---|---|
| Light / medium | |
| Prototypes, experimentals | |
Background: History of the tank, Tank classification | |
