The tank is named after French WWII general Philippe “Leclerc” de Otcloak. He is credited with liberating Paris from German occupation by his armored division in July 1944.

The AMX-56 Leclerc was developed by state-owned Giat Industries in the late 1980s. Since the beginning of mass production, the state arsenal located in the city of Rouen has produced more than 876 Leclerc tanks. About half of these machines are in service with the French army, the other half with the army of the United Arab Emirates (some of them were transferred to Jordan).

The car is still considered one of the most expensive in the world. This is because Leclerc is saturated with electronics. To understand: the cost of electronic equipment is about half the cost of the entire tank. In other words, the price of a Leclerc can go up to 10 million dollars.

In addition to the electronics used by French designers, Leclerc armor technology also deserves attention. The front and sides of the hull and turret of the tank are made of multilayer armor using ceramic and tungsten plates. The frontal armor is covered with additional modular layers of protection. This type of reservation has two main advantages: First, if one or more modules are damaged, they can be easily replaced even in the field. Secondly, in the future, the armor protection of the tank can be improved by installing more effective armor types. The engineers, first of all, paid special attention to the strengthening of the protection of the roof of the tower against modern anti-tank weapons hitting the tank from above. The sides of the hull are covered with anti-accumulation armor bulkheads, and steel boxes are also hung on the front of the hull as additional armor.

The AMX-56 Leclerc is equipped with a defense system against mass-effect weapons. If the enemy uses nuclear, chemical or bacteriological weapons, excessive pressure is created in the combat compartment to prevent radioactive dust or toxic chemicals from entering the machine.

The survivability of the “Leclerc” tank was also increased due to the automatic rapid fire extinguishing system in the combat and engine-transmission compartments.

Another detail: during the modernization all hydraulic drives of the guidance tank were replaced with electric ones.

The tank is equipped with a grenade launcher that can create a smoke screen or hit enemy infantry at close range. Leclerc is also equipped with a warning system when laser beams are aimed at it – so the crew has time to maneuver to avoid hitting a tank. For this, “Leclerc” has a fairly high maneuverability on rough terrain, which allows you to avoid the threat. External grenade launchers are also equipped with infrared traps that fire when guided missiles are aimed at the tank. Such traps are often used in aviation, their high temperature cuts off the heat trace from the engines of the equipment, and rockets usually do not hit the target.

Leclerc’s main armament is the 120 mm smoothbore gun SN120-26 with a barrel length of 52 calibers (the guns of the M1A1 “Abrams” and “Leopard-2” tanks have a barrel length of 44 caliber). The barrel is equipped with a heat-insulating cover. The gun is stabilized in two aiming planes for effective shooting while on the move. Ammunition includes armor-piercing sub-caliber and cumulative shells. The increased length of the gun provides an armor-piercing projectile velocity of 1750 m/s. As you know, projectile speed is very important for penetrating enemy armor. Therefore, the SN120-26 cannon allows “Leclerc” to fight even with heavily armored vehicles. Currently, French experts are developing a new 120 mm armor-piercing sub-caliber projectile made of depleted uranium and a high-explosive fragmentation projectile with the possibility of radio explosion to combat combat helicopters. A special feature of the Leclerc tank is the presence of an automatic loader, which made it possible to reduce the crew to three people. The ammunition of the reloader has 22 rounds, the remaining 18 are in the drum-type ammunition magazine to the right of the mechanic-driver. The autoloader provides a practical rate of fire of 12 rounds per minute, both at rest and on the go.

Manual reloading of the gun is also provided if required. American experts are considering the possibility of using such automatic loading on Abrams tanks after the third stage of their modernization.

At any time of the day, the tank commander can use the H1-15 panoramic periscopic sight. The binoculars have day and night visual channels. The system allows a circular view. The commander also has a screen that displays the image from the gunner’s field of view, equipped with a thermal imager.

We repeat: Leclerc tanks are characterized by a concentration of electronic means – on-board computers monitor the operation of all main systems and equipment. All available parameters of the combat vehicle are displayed on a separate screen.

Drive. French engineers installed an 8-cylinder V-shaped turbocharged V8X 1500 diesel engine in the 1500 horsepower tank. It is made in a single unit with the EZM 500 automatic transmission, which can be changed in the field in 30 minutes if necessary.

The automatic box provides five forward and two reverse speeds. Leclerc can accelerate to 32 km / h in 5.5 seconds. All this provided the tank with dynamism and maneuverability, as well as a maximum highway speed of 71 km/h.

Bohdan Tuzov, Kyiv

Infographics Oleksandr Shingur