Leclerc Totally Explained

Everything about Leclerc totally explained

The AMX-56 Leclerc is a main battle tank (MBT) built by Nexter of France. It was named in honour of General Philippe de Hauteclocque "Leclerc" who led the drive towards Paris while in command of the Free French 2nd Armoured Division (2ème DB) in World War II.
The Leclerc is in service with the French Army and the army of the United Arab Emirates. In production since 1991, 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 aging and, in 1977, the French Military 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 modernized 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 four regiments, each of 80 Leclerc vehicles.
   The four regiments are:

1er-11e Régiment de Cuirassiers stationed in Carnoux-en-Provence, part of the 3rd Mechanised Brigade.
6e-12e Régiment de Cuirassiers stationed near Orléans, part of the 2nd Armoured Brigade.
1er-2e Régiment de Chasseurs stationed near Verdun, part of the 7th Armoured Brigade.
501e-503e Régiment de Chars de Combat stationed in Mourmelon-le-Grand, 1st Mechanised Brigade.

Characteristics

Armament

The Leclerc is equipped with a GIAT (Nexter) 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 can't change ammunition types once a round has been loaded. The most common types are the armour piercing fin-stabilized 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. The gun is 52 calibres long instead of the 44 calibres common on most tanks of the Leclerc's generation

United Arab Emirates: 388 + 46 armoured recovery vehicles + 2 driver training tanksFurther Information

Get more info on 'Leclerc'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://leclerc.totallyexplained.com">Leclerc Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.