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shawn RE:AMX30 French Stratege 4/12/2005 2:01:58 PM

French Stratege said: "Maximum AMX30 armor is 330 mm.I don't know where you find these incorrect values." ----- FS, are we talking about the thickness of the actual armour, or the RHA value against HEAT? Because there is no way that the AMX-30 would have a maximum armour thickness of 330 mm - a Tiger 2 had 185 mm and a Centurion 152 mm! As to where I get my figures: Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Worlds Tanks and Fighting Vehicles (1977) published by Salamander - gave an estimate of 50mm. This website says 80mm: link Hey! The following website states 50mm as well, and its in French... ;) link

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fitz RE:AMX30 French Stratege 4/13/2005 7:25:33 AM

A 36,000kg tank with 330mm armor eh. Exactly what laws of physics were defied to pull that off? Here's some ACTUAL figures; Hull Front - 79mm Front Hull Sides - 57mm Rear Hull Sides - 30mm Hull Top - 15mm Hull Bottom - 15mm Hull Rear - 30mm Turret Front - 80.8mm Turret Sides - 41.5mm Turret Rear - 50mm Turret Top - 20mm From: Janes Armour and Artillery (every edition for the last 20 years).

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fitz RE:AMX30 4/13/2005 7:28:02 AM

The Chieftain could out-accelerate any tank of its day and was very good on soft ground. It had the heaviest armor and the biggest gun of any MBT in NATO at the time and it was truly the only tank the Soviet's were truly afraid of. Afraid to the point they actually went to great lengths to develop counters to it. They certainly didn't feel the need to develop a new tank and new missiles to deal with AMX-30's.

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fullamongo Boris 4/13/2005 7:28:34 AM

Your going to freak when you see the 'armor' article Hutchinson has put up. He makes no differentiation between the iraqi t-72's and the russian ones. Sure the t-72 has its flaws but they're nothing compared to the AMX-30.

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RetiredCdnTanker RE:Boris 4/13/2005 11:17:47 AM

Just a couple of comments, after reading the last week's worth of comments. (hey, I was gone on a trip, OK?) The M60 had a Continental Diesel, not a Detroit Diesel. And upgraded versions of the same engine are still being used in the Merkava today. Having said that, I thought that the M60 and the M60A1 were truly horrible tanks. Until I was lucky(?) enough to get into an AMX30. How the French managed to design such a piece of trash after years of collaboration with the Germans on a new tank, I will never be able to figure out. The original Leo 1 was no great shakes, either, but it was head and shoulders above the AMX 30, and the Leo1A1 stretched that advantage. The Chieftan's biggest weakness, in my opinion, was its engine. A massively massaged bus engine, which was simply undermatched for its intended role. Superb armour, good gun, decent FCS. The T62 really sucked, from almost every point of view except for size. Poor ergonomics, poor loader design, poor FCS, heck, what can anyone say? As an aside, I still think the US dropped the ball when it brought the M60 into service. The original M60 had no stab either, and had few improvements over the M48. In fact, it could have been called the M48A6E4 or some such nomenclature. No real improvements in the areas of mobility, protection or FCS. The M60A1 managed to have a stab, but the original AOS (add-on stab) that it incorporated wasn't even as good as the stab on the Centurion, which incorporated a metodyne using tube technology, for crying out loud. Oh well. The Americans simply didn't know better, I'm thinking.

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boris the romanian RE:Boris 4/13/2005 11:58:02 AM

"Your going to freak when you see the 'armor' article Hutchinson has put up." That's nothing. In an article about AShMs, he mentions Styx, Gabriel, Exocet and Harpoon. He goes on to say that all these missiles have received some kind of upgrade over the years, but the Harpoon is clearly the best. I completely agree with him, the Harpoon is the best of those missiles. But he (very conveniently )overlooked the little fact that the Styx hasn't been produced in Russia since '75, and missiles from the '80s like Bazalt and Granit have huge advantages over Harpoon.

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french stratege AMX30 4/13/2005 12:46:45 PM

The site given by boer link give values close for reality with of course by uncertainty on new tanks with still secret values for their composite armor. AMX30 front armor is about 80 mm on glacis only which is sloped of course given a global value for front close to 300 mm and 330 mm for AMX30B2.Chieftain was probably around 400 mm front but still perforated by AMX30 shell (or Russian T64) (Brenus AMX30 B2 added re active armor.) A 80 mm plate with a 15° slope from horizontal give an armor equivalent to 300 mm. The 330 mm value is for mantlet (mobile part around gun extended from 300 mm in early AMX30 to 330 mm in late AMX30) which is thicker because it is vertical. Front protection value of AMX30 are close from a centurion of a M60 in fact and lower on side.But the tank is more compact and compactness is essential to survivability as surface reduction reduce probablity of hit. For the firecontrol the gun is not stabilized because it is slaved to commander sight (a concept initiated on AMX30 for hunterkiller mode when commander pretarget gun and now adopted by modern tanks like Leopard 2 or M1A2). On old tank probability of hit was very low when tank was on move even at 800 m. The slaved mode enable similar capacity even it is not the main gun which is stabilized. AMX30 is very compact and cramped so I understand a tall tanker do not feel confortable in it, but its firepower was above average and also mobility compare to tank of its time (sixties vintage).The problem was reliability of gear box. Remember that if you design your tank around maximum height for the crew, adding 10%, increase tank weight of almost 30% (nearly cubic power law). To limit maximum tanker height to 175 cm save a lot vs 190 cm ! Remember Guderian said: first quality is firepower, second is mobility and the last is armor (even crew feel more comfortable with a thicker armor). AMX30 is below Leopard, but not M60.In fact even better by mobility, even crew don't like to be cramped in. Still a little to learn on armor guys!

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Eagle601 RE:Boris 4/13/2005 9:56:09 PM

I think the article about ASMs was only covering those that have seen combat use. As far as I know, none of Russia's newer ASMs have been fired in anger.

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fitz RE:AMX30 - FS 4/13/2005 10:08:14 PM

I gave AMX30 armor figures, exact figures, so lets use them. The hull front of AMX30 is 79mm thick which at a 60 degree slope (give or take) gives a rough equivilant of 159mm RHA, not 330mm. The turret front is only 80.8mm thick but nearly vertical - and no I don't believe for a second the mantlet is 330mm thick and it would have to be to meet your figures since it is vertical. By comparison the glacis armor of a Centurion or M48 is 120mm at roughly the same slope giving roughly 240mm equivilant protection. Chieftain of course is on a whole nother level. As far as firepower goes, the French erred in the preference of HEAT to the exclusion of all other types of anti-armour rounds. The HEAT round quickly became obsolescent. At least all the other nations who were using the (ballistically nearly identical) L7/M68 gun had the option of any combination of HEAT, APDS or HESH. And don't give me all that blow about APFSDS because the L7/M68 got it first and only AMX30B2's could fire the French equivilant and they accounted for less than half the production.

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fullamongo RE:AMX30 - FS 4/14/2005 7:20:38 AM

Yeah the ASM article was 'missiles you've heard about. ie. those that have been in combat. But the worst tank article was absolute drivel.

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