Stealth Tanks?

[Sewter]

Has anyone heard this? The French have been working on stealth tanks! It uses radar absorbing material and looks pretty strange. It is interesting.

Below are the 'facts'

I have also added an attachment (I'm obviously not much of a techie)

AMX-30 Stealth MBT

"Giat Industries of France has revealed that several years ago, under contract to the French Delegation Generale pour l'Armement (DGA), the company developed and produced the prototype of a Stealth vehicle, based on the Giat Industries AMX-30 Main Battle Tank (MBT).

Although full details have yet been released, according to Giat Industries this Stealth AMX-30 MBT underwent an extensive series of trials which were very successful.

This Stealth kit was designed to reduce the infra-red and radar signature of the platform and proved difficult to detect using thermal devices operating in the 8-12 micron band, radars and mmw (millimetre wave) devices.

The complete AMX-30 was fitted with a specially designed Radar Absorbing Material (RAM) with the turret and chassis being carefully shaped to reduce the radar signature to a minimum.

The sides of the hull, for example, were angled inwards, while an additional covering was fitted to the lower part of the special skirts to cover the road wheels of the MBT. The 105 mm gun was also fitted with a special covering.

To reduce the thermal signature of the vehicle, cold air was pumped between the outer RAM and the inner layer. Unlike virtually all MBTs, there was no external stowage on the turret and hull. The turret was also specially sloped outwards over the frontal arc and a new mantlet cover designed and fitted for the 105 mm gun.

More recently, the DGA has awarded Giat Industries another contract to develop a Stealth version of the Leclerc MBT, which will undergo an extensive series of trials."

Wierd huh?

[JaM]

I dont understand how this help them against something like Al-Kaida insurgents...

[Pergite]

Last time i checked France didnt have any plans to fight any AQ insurgents. Especially not with tanks anyway.

[PlasmaKrab]

Uh, the Leclerc was already a "child of the Cold War" over-expensive, over-ambitious program, all the worse coupled with French "let's do better than the Americans" defence policy... Which explains why French Leclercs are fewer and less equipped than the exported ones...
Now the DGA wants to make it stealth? I wonder (naively) if they have asked the tankers about this before... As JaM said, possibly they think there is a greater chance of having to fight off Soviet armored hordes than hunting down terrorists or insurgents anywhere (Bosnia, Kosovo, Ivory Coast, Afghanistan...). Or equally possibly they fear the insurgents can get their hands on some hi-tech hardware in significant quantities (like some US analysts do, mind you)...

I heard about this stealth AMX demonstrator before, and people working on the Leclerc (both designers and tankers) mostly agreed on something in the line of "fine, but how will the RAM coating behave when showered with mud, rocks, trees, ice, shell splinters, bouncing AT rounds, SA fire... A tank is no plane and has to be rugged enough to survive on the field, and stealth coatings tend to be fragile."

[JaM]

exactly

[JaM]

French are really funny. They develop 3rd gen tank from 1970, but came with nothing, then they change plans to 4th gen tank, to this day it has 10-11 versions becouse it is not what they thought it would be (superior in every aspect to American equivalent), and now they come with stealth tanks... i think that if they develop one, it will be after 40-50 years and by then it will be totaly obsolete, and they will allways have AMX-30...

[PlasmaKrab]

As I said, this is mainly because of the policy (dating back to De Gaulle) saying that [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/MusicalNote.gif[/img]"small though we are, we can still do better than these arrogant American imperialists and take market shares / political influence that they won't have"[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/MusicalNote.gif[/img]. As a result, French procurment programs run happily over budgets and deadlines (the French generally are no friends to these ), and though generally pretty interesting all in all, end up in service some ten years too late to make any difference. In the mid 90s the Leclerc would have been astounding (early hunter-killer, fast, agile, light, evolutive...), but by now there are many equals on the market and on the field.

[Sewter]

It really is silly when it comes down to it. I really wonder what a tank would be 'stealth' to. In a battlefield situation, how much would stealth RAM tech matter? Especially on the ground... in a tank! I mean, wouldn't a tank be a mighty big piece of equipment rolling around on the field of valor? Not like this applies to the game at all!

[Listy]

GSR's would be effected.

If you look at the shape of the Chally 2's turret, I'm told it is like that to improve it's signature agaisnt GSR's.

Also the Camo nets the UK use's are Thermal vision proof.

[JaM]

This tech is good for recon vehicle and only during the night, not for a tank. It is not a good idea have a fragile coating over whole armor... even small arm fire will broke it