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Leopord Best tank in the world??

Reddog said:
Explain to me how the M1A1 Abrams is proven in combat?

Fighting assholes with rags wrapped around their heads and 30 year old RPG's or demoralized and poorly trained Iraqi soldiers in barely running 20 year old tanks is nothing.

I'm talking serious tank on tank fighting against a capable enemy.
Ignoring the inflamatory description, it's still more than anything a Leopard, Leclerc, or other tank has experienced. I don't think this is the kind of argument you want to make.

The last tanks that experienced "serious tank on tank" fighting were:

Centurions
M60's
M48's
Upgraded Shermans
T62's
T55's
T54's

Still, this doesn't alter the fact that the Abrams, Challenger, and Merkava have been used for extended periods of time in battlefield conditions. If nothing else, I have evidence of how, say, a Challenger will perform in desert conditions. I have no such information about a Leopard.

I'm saying nothing about the relative quality of a Leopard vs an Abrams, since I don't know anything about them, but you can't just discount the experience of the Abrams, Challenger, et al. The Soviets had little experience with desert fighting and it showed in their tanks during the middle east wars.

For interests sake, does any other MBT feature something similar to the electronic Embedded Battle Command in the Abrams?
 
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Well I'd agrue that none of totday's MBT's are really combat proven in the sense of armoured warfare.

So you can sit around comparing their various features till the cows come home, but realistically the only way we can say which one is the best is by lining them up and having a fight. But even then you still have the human element, ie. which crew is the best.
 
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Ghad said:
In a high intensity Battlefield with two modern armies as adversaries MBT's will have a very difficult time.

Airpower in the form of fighterbombers, choppers, cruise missiles, as well as tankhunting units with advanced AT missiles will be a serious threat.

But isn't this essentially the same situation as in WW2?

Any ground force trying to operate in an environment where they don't have at least parity in the air is going to have trouble.

Cheap, man-portable anti-aircraft missiles make life difficult for choppers as well.

And finally, choppers can't take and hold ground.
 
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Recon said:
My vote goes to the M1A2 Abrams. It is far from technologically inferior and has some very high quality equipment. The Leopard 2A6 is a great tank however, it is just not better than the Abrams.

T80 and T90 are nothing but talk.
The M1A2 Abrams isn't technically superior because it uses the LV100-5 gasturbine engine.
Which means it's range is 391 kilometers when it has no ammo onboard and it's uses crazy amounts of JP-8 fuel which is known for it's hazardous fumes which cause various heavy cancers.
Even the exhaust gas has a MAC value of C3!

It's heatsignature is huge!

Compared with other tanks like the Challenger 2 and Leopard 2A6, which uses the Perkins-Caterpillar CV12 turbocharged dieselengine and the French MTU MB873 turbo supercharged diesel engines, the M1A2 Abrams would make very easy targets for Flankers, Frogfoots and their likes.
Until now the Abrams have only proven itself against outdated Russian main-battle tanks.
But it won't survive from the French A1 LeClerc, the German Leopard 2A6 or the British Challenger 2.

EDIT: The fumes are too hot and too toxic to make them usable for urban infantry support.
They have to use M2A2's for that!
 
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DingBat said:
Cheap, man-portable anti-aircraft missiles make life difficult for choppers as well.

And finally, choppers can't take and hold ground.

Imho, choppers are overrated as a fighting force, unless they are employed under a state of complete air superiority.

Apaches deployed to the Kosovo war werent very impressive
 
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Reddog said:
Explain to me how the M1A1 Abrams is proven in combat?

Fighting assholes with rags wrapped around their heads and 30 year old RPG's or demoralized and poorly trained Iraqi soldiers in barely running 20 year old tanks is nothing.

I'm talking serious tank on tank fighting against a capable enemy.

If the Abrams isn't combat proven, then I don't know what is. It has faced a huge batallion(s) of t72s and t80s and destroys it with very few casualites, in teh first gulf war (and yes they have taken hits). In the second, it takes RPG's like it's eating ice cream but most of those survive. Don't know if it was deployed in bosnia or not but it's been in two wars and excelled at what it does.

If combat proven means an abrams going up against a merkava or leopard, then it will probably never be combat proven.
 
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SgtH3nry3 said:
The M1A2 Abrams isn't technically superior because it uses the LV100-5 gasturbine engine.
Which means it's range is 391 kilometers when it has no ammo onboard and it's uses crazy amounts of JP-8 fuel which is known for it's hazardous fumes which cause various heavy cancers.
Even the exhaust gas has a MAC value of C3!

It's heatsignature is huge!

Compared with other tanks like the Challenger 2 and Leopard 2A6, which uses the Perkins-Caterpillar CV12 turbocharged dieselengine and the French MTU MB873 turbo supercharged diesel engines, the M1A2 Abrams would make very easy targets for Flankers, Frogfoots and their likes.
Until now the Abrams have only proven itself against outdated Russian main-battle tanks.
But it won't survive from the French A1 LeClerc, the German Leopard 2A6 or the British Challenger 2.

EDIT: The fumes are too hot and too toxic to make them usable for urban infantry support.
They have to use M2A2's for that!


Sources for the exhaust gas claims? BTW we used the rear of the tank as a kind of portable heater. Your claims ff it not surviving against a LeClerc, Leo2 or Chally 2 are mute because they are all damn good and fairly equal pieces of armor, it would most likely come down to who spots who first, and which crew gets off the first shot(s).

All tanks make very easy targets for aircraft.




Against Kinetic Energy
(in mm of RHAe)

RHAe = Rolled Homogeneous Armor Equivalent; an equivalent RHA thickness of a given armor type against a given armor piercing ammunition or missile (i.e. Kinetic Energy penetrators, like APFSDS DU long-rod penetrators or Chemical Energy projectiles, like HEAT ammunition and ATGM's). Modern composite (Chobham) armor may be several times more efficient against Chemical Energy than RHA of the same thickness.


M1A2 SEP
KE/Kinetic - Turret: 940-960 Glacis:560-590 Lower front hull:580-650
CE/Chemical Energy - Turret: 1320-1620 Glacis:510-1050 Lower front hull:800-970
Leopard 2A6
KE/Kinetic - Turret: 920-940 Glacis: 620 (Note: Lower Front Hull for 2A5 - 620)
CE/Chemical Energy - ? Unkown.
Challenger 2
KE/Kinetic - Turret: 920-960 Glacis:660 Lower front hull: 590
CE/Chemical Energy - Turret: 1450-1700 Glacis:1000 Lower front hull: 860

It would surely come down to who sees and fires first. Yes the 2A6 Leo has the L55 Rheinmetal now, but the US M256 L44 (Licensed by Rheinmetal made in the US) with DU penetrators us still superior to the tungsten rounds fired by the Leo2 through the L55.
 
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SgtH3nry3 said:
Compared with other tanks like the Challenger 2 and Leopard 2A6, which uses the Perkins-Caterpillar CV12 turbocharged dieselengine and the French MTU MB873 turbo supercharged diesel engines..

Hm, MTU GmbH Friedrichshafen, Germany etc...

http://www.mtu-online.com/de/ap/mibare.htm#
 
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The Abrams is certainly the most battle proven tank in the world, and it's also the reason it's being as heavily criticized as it is right now (because it has been through so much combat). I think the fact is, if you put the Leclerc and the Leopard II in the same street fightings situation as the Abrams is currently experiencing, you're going to get about the same results. These tanks have all been designed for dominating the European battlefield against the "mighty invading Russian hordes", not urban desert warfare where that harmless civilian you just passed pulls out a rocket launcher and shoots up the tank from the backside.

As war changes, all these beasts of steel and ceramics will be rendered useless: Abrams, Leopards, Leclercs, Challengers, etc. The Merkava on the other hand is an interesting tank because it's designed specifically for the Israeli's needs, but I wouldn't be surprised if it saw the same fate too.
 
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