Leclerc Tank Autoloader Reliability

AJChenMPH

AJChenMPH

Forum Health Inspector
So I was watching a piece on the Military Channel tonight on tanks (thank God we've got a DISH receiver at work, otherwise these 1900-0700 shifts would be pure agony), and they briefly discussed how the autoloader in the Leclerc allowed the tank to be smaller while still having the same firepower.

Anyone know if reliability has been an issue? I mean, it'd suck to be in the heat of battle only to have your autoloader fail. Search didn't really come up with anything...
 
autoloader has always been seen as a compromise... one that very very few countries have been brave enough to risk their soldiers for. Americans, Germans, Italians, English, South Africans, and Israelis view it as a compromise that puts soldiers at an extremely unneccesay risk of death.
 
Whispering Death said:
autoloader has always been seen as a compromise... one that very very few countries have been brave enough to risk their soldiers for. Americans, Germans, Italians, English, South Africans, and Israelis view it as a compromise that puts soldiers at an extremely unneccesay risk of death.
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Plus an Autoloader is generally slower than a trained loader. In saying that though, when the technology improves further I think we'll see Autoloaders in all tanks. It makes sense if you can shrink the turret and reduce the number of trained crew per tank.
 
Whispering Death said:
autoloader has always been seen as a compromise... one that very very few countries have been brave enough to risk their soldiers for. Americans, Germans, Italians, English, South Africans, and Israelis view it as a compromise that puts soldiers at an extremely unneccesay risk of death.
Click to expand...
Could you be more specific? A compromise between what?
 
AJChenMPH said:
Whispering Death said:
autoloader has always been seen as a compromise... one that very very few countries have been brave enough to risk their soldiers for. Americans, Germans, Italians, English, South Africans, and Israelis view it as a compromise that puts soldiers at an extremely unneccesay risk of death.
Click to expand...
Could you be more specific? A compromise between what?
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It' a tradeoff of having a load of live rounds in the turret with the crew and a little gain in speed of loading. In a manual loader, the rounds are kept in a container that has outer blast panels which direct an explosion to the outside of the tank. Actually, most loaders have another round in the breech before another target is acquired anyhow.
 
The first production runs of the tank had a lot of reliability problems, not just with the loader but with the engine, FCS, and other things.

I believe they fixed most of them now. A Leclerc commander said he's never had any trouble with the autoloader.

This doesn't change the fact that autoloaders are slower, less versatile, and reduce situational awareness.
 
Not to mention the fact that a human loader is going to do everything he can to get that shell in the breech because his life depends on it.

If an autoloader jams it jams. As sure as assault rifels and machine guns jam, autoloaders jam. I'd also think autoloaders could easily break if it by an RPG to ATGM whereas in a conventionally loaded tank if the loader is injured another crew member can get that round in the breach. In Iraq we've seen many situatins where tanks have been rocked by multiple hits that break equipment but the crew and the tank itself are still operational.
 
It don't. In a live loader tank, the loader loads what the gunner tells him too. In an auto loader tank, you have to use what is in the spout. They can be dangerous too. the early soviet ones tended to load the gunner. Tank crewmen wore loose coveralls and the machine would grab them. Also, a fourth crewman is very handy for guard duty, maintenance, and general fatigues. Auto loaders have been around for forty years but most armies still don't use them. must be a reason.
 
That's not entirely true masterblaster. The problems with getting caught in an autoloader where because the Soviets where trying to stick an autoloader in a chassis designed for a human to be in that part. The Leclerc was specifically designed around the autoloader.

Also, the Leclerc's autoloader can switch between ammunition types.
 
masterblaster said:
It don't. In a live loader tank, the loader loads what the gunner tells him too. In an auto loader tank, you have to use what is in the spout. They can be dangerous too. the early soviet ones tended to load the gunner. Tank crewmen wore loose coveralls and the machine would grab them. Also, a fourth crewman is very handy for guard duty, maintenance, and general fatigues. Auto loaders have been around for forty years but most armies still don't use them. must be a reason.
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Ditto.
 
When running fast,Auto loader is advantageous.
Shaking make loading difficult.
catalogue spec of Leclerc's can destroy a target 3000m away with moving 50km per hour.
I think that
United States tank will adopt the automatic loader.
 
sandy said:
When running fast,Auto loader is advantageous.
Shaking make loading difficult.
catalogue spec of Leclerc's can destroy a target 3000m away with moving 50km per hour.
I think that
United States tank will adopt the automatic loader.
Click to expand...

The French millitary has a history of "innovative" design that turns out to be very poor in reality. Not knocking the French, just the Sho-Sho gun and the Aircraft Carrier Charles DuGaulle are two prominant flops.

Mabe the French have it working perfectly but I'm not on-board until we see the Leclerc in the same degrees of combat as the M1 Abrams.
 
sandy said:
When running fast,Auto loader is advantageous.
Shaking make loading difficult.
catalogue spec of Leclerc's can destroy a target 3000m away with moving 50km per hour.
I think that
United States tank will adopt the automatic loader.
Click to expand...


The M1 can destroy a target at three miles, while going 45 MPH, in a dust storm, while jumping off a small embankment, while under small arms fire.

The US will not adopt an auto-loader because of the loss of the forth crewman, who can provide extra sercurity, manpower, and can load rounds faster than a auto-loader.

Not to mention the need for extra man hours spent for fixing broken or destroyed loaders and the money spent on teaching mechanics how to fix them and the money spent reconfigerating of the tank and then what do you do with the human loader?

I'm also going to add that the M1 has been around for 26 years, praticipated in five conflicts and also the same platform has kept up with the times.
 
Koz said:
This doesn't change the fact that autoloaders are slower, less versatile, and reduce situational awareness.
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I am curious how the autoloader reduces situational awareness?
 
sandy said:
When running fast,Auto loader is advantageous.
Shaking make loading difficult.
catalogue spec of Leclerc's can destroy a target 3000m away with moving 50km per hour.
I think that
United States tank will adopt the automatic loader.
Click to expand...

US Army loaders have no trouble loading a shell every 5 seconds on the move.
 
But it takes up more space and therefore less ammunition, more wieght, heavier tank, easier target, more power consumption, and possible failures of jamming, and more cramped space
 
I would say that from a tactical point of view it does not make sense to replace a human loader with an autoloader. BUT from a political viewpoint it does to many people in power now. The US Department of Defense is pursuing programmes that remove humans from the danger of combat as much as possible. For a soldier on a personal level this is a wonderful thing as no one wants to be sent into harms way. I would offer though that they are not doing this for an altruistic reason but for a more sinister and far more deadly reason. The logic of Rumsfeld and others of his ilk follows that if fewer soldiers are in harms way, fewer soldiers are killed and if fewer soldiers are killed, then the opposition to military actions will be lessened as a result. I think it is extremely dangerous to our society and world as a whole although it is wonderful for the individual in uniform. So I would think that it is premature to think we won't see an autoloader on American tanks when ultimately THAT decision falls to the politicians and not to the generals.
 
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