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LAND WARFARE
IDEX 2017: New lease of life for Leclerc
21st February 2017 - 8:00by
in Abu Dhabi
Following France's decision to
main battle tanks, manufacturer Nexter is now hoping the United Arab Emirates – the type's only export customer – will take the plunge and begin upgrading its own fleet as well.
At this year's IDEX in Abu Dhabi, Nexter displayed a
along with a host of potential upgrade options that are available to them. The French company delivered 388 MBTs and 46 recovery vehicles to the UAE as part of a contract finalised in the early 1990s.
Twenty years on, the tanks are now in need of a refresh. This has been brought into even sharper focus recently due to the UAE's intervention in the Yemeni civil conflict, where an undisclosed number of Leclerc MBTs have reportedly been deployed and subsequently hit with anti-tank guided missiles.
Gerard Griseri, who heads up commercial relations with the UAE for Nexter, said the country had not yet modified the Leclerc to adapt to Yemen operations, instead choosing to utilise the Azur protection kit that it ordered at the IDEX exhibition in 2011. This kit includes extra side armour protection and the addition of bar armour around the rear section of the vehicle.
If the UAE decided to go down the modernisation route, a future upgrade kit could include additional underbody mine protection as well as an upgrade to the front armour blocks of the turret, which would leverage the French Army's decision to improve front turret protection for its last batch of 100 Leclercs.
Other potential upgrades include a Krauss-Maffei Wegmann 12.7mm
, the Safran Electronics & Defense
– which is also fitted to the French Army's new Jaguar vehicle – and an upgrade to the gunner's infrared sight to provide improved hunter-killer capabilities.
'The other important modification regards the man-machine interface, we've redesigned the core of the system similar to the French Army,' said Griseri. 'We will replace the three main computers of the tank - the fire control system, the man-machine interface and radio controls – with one computer.'
Using an Ethernet-based electronic architecture, the three-man crew will be able to share data such as sensor feeds and C2 information across multiple screens as well as control the RWS. This architecture also enables the use of small cameras around the vehicle, used for 360 degree situational awareness by the crew.
Much of this is common with what is being offered for the French Army's Leclerc modernisation under the army's
which was funded in 2015 to the tune of €300 million. With the addition of the Paseo, the proposed UAE upgrade package potentially adds even more capability than the French domestic upgrade programme.
Some of the upgrade proposals are also UAE-specific, owing to the fact that there are slight design differences between UAE and French Leclerc platforms.
The design differences include a different powerpack, transmission, APU configuration, commander's sight and battle management system (BMS). On the latter, the UAE Leclerc was one of the first MBT fleets to integrate the 'Finders' BMS developed by Nexter, which has only been fitted to around 100 French Army examples.
The UAE is yet to formalise any upgrade programme, and the cost and timeframe of such an endeavour is still unknown. In comparison, the French Army's Leclerc upgrade programme will ramp up to full production in around 2020, with several prototypes now in testing.
1- اضافة درع سفلي للحماية من الالغام
2- تطوير الدرع الامامي للبرج
3- تطويرات تشمل اضافة برج السلاح KMW عيار 12.7 الموجه عن بعد اضافة لنظام رؤية القائد ( Paseo Commander sight ) وتطوير نظام الرؤية الحرارية للرامي .
4- تطوير الواجهة التفاعلية بين الطاقم والدباة .
5- تطوير هندسة الدبابة الالكترونية باستخدام الايثرنت لاعطاء القدرة على تبادل بيانات المستشعرات وبيانات C2 على عدة شاشات اضافة للتحكم ببرج السلاح الغير مأهول RWS كذلك تسمح هذه الهندسة باضافة كاميرات حول الدبابة لتعطي رؤية 360 درجة .
6- هذه القدرات مقدمة للجيش الفرنسي كحزمة تطويرات , ولكن التطويرات الاماراتية ستكون اكثر منها وبعضها سيكون خاصا بالامارات UAE-Related ..
7- بحسب ناشر المقال , لا زالت الامارات لم تقرر برنامج التطويرات ولا الكلفة ولا الجدول الزمني بينما ستصل توليفة الترقيات الفرنسية لذروة الانتاج بحلول 2020 مع عدة نماذج بروتوتايب قيد الاختبار حاليا ..
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كلام كبير
الليكليرك الاماراتية اتوقع ان تحظى بتطويرات ستجعلها في طليعة دبابات العالم ..