Comments on: Rheinmetall Leopard 2 Evolution

By: Wolfshark

Wolfshark — Sat, 03 Jan 2015 13:16:26 +0000

But does it blend?

By: WinG_HU

WinG_HU — Fri, 02 Jan 2015 14:57:59 +0000

Neither Qatar nor Saudi Arabia is dictatorship. Monarchy, yes, but not dictatorship. They have a different culture, different society than yours. Be a little more tolerant of other people, even it’s not easy for a German.

By the way, it’s sort of weird to see this superiority complex of Germans. No matter if you are Nazis or Democrats, you always feel superior to everyone else.

By: WaffulMann

WaffulMann — Fri, 02 Jan 2015 09:21:43 +0000

God dammit Germany, I want the old “oh look something that’s 5 years ahead of any of you faggots” back.

By: Dark

Dark — Fri, 02 Jan 2015 06:15:23 +0000

There is only one quite big problem with merkava. Mainly front armour in the area of gearbox/final drives(there’s very little space there). It’s too thin to effectively protect the tank’s power plant against modern KE rounds, so a first hit/first kill is a must for it. It all comes down to the first merkava, since it was developed with max crew protection in mind, when the IDF did not have access to chobam style composite armour(blazer package does not count). Hence the front engine configuration and quite extreme angles on the turret to maximize the odds for a shell to slip upon hit.
Don’t get me wrong, i’m not trying to piss on it’s design, every mbt has something that could be corrected ( i’m looking at you soviet ammo rack). And i think we can safely assume Merky has better optics and FCS that most machines in the region(save for Turkish Altay at least)

By: mecha_bill

mecha_bill — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 23:15:18 +0000

Marines fitted it to their M60s I believe.

By: mecha_bill

mecha_bill — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 23:13:56 +0000

Higher velocity

By: Chehaut

Chehaut — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 22:35:09 +0000

Not things to come, Singapore allready have some of these in their army.

By: Tobi_1989

Tobi_1989 — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 21:06:22 +0000

Well, bigged bore diameter means better penetration, as long as you compare two guns with comparable barrel lengths, chamber pressures and aerodynamic profile of bullet, which those two you mentioned simply AREN’T.
Luger is round bullet typically fired from 5″ barrel with muzzle energy around 550J, 7,62 NATO is long, pointed bullet typically fired from barrels 16-20″ long with muzzle energy of over 2700J.

Now of course you can allways just increase chamber pressure or elongate barrel (or both), but let’s face it – Rheinmetall’s 120mm is at limits in both of those terms – chamber pressures are so great the thing has barrel life of about 260 rounds and every noticable increase in pressures would increase barrel wear exponentialy. Gun with barrel life of 60 rounds? Not very desirable in battlefield conditions, is it?

Also – barrel lenth of 55 calibres, i.e. 6,6m is quite a lot – longer barrel would be possible, but also more vulnerable and a LOT more expensive, not to mention problematic in terms of torsion strain and oscillation.

By: Hairysteed

Hairysteed — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 20:54:31 +0000

Oh yes… “Bigger bore diameter must mean better penetration”
9mm para vs 7.62mm NATO, anyone?

By: Hairysteed

Hairysteed — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 20:50:20 +0000

Only Brits use Chobbham. Not even Abrams has Chobbham contrary to what a lot of people might have heard