Chally 3 Announced!
I’m a bit late on this one, but the British Army have finally persuaded BoJo to finance an upgrade on the MBT front... Here’s some out-of-touch thoughts from someone who isn’t at all qualified to understand this stuff, but likes tanks anyway and has an opinion.
TL:DR it’s good, but should have been either a small~ish upgrade / patch-up now or a brand new tank a bit later, I’m not sure this is worth the cost.
1) Rheinmetall 120mm smoothbore - definitely an upgrade but is it enough for the cost? It’s good but we could have waited a bit longer and been world leaders jumping to the new Rheinmetall 130mm or 140mm guns under development, for far more power as the 120mm is starting to reach it’s upper limit RN. It’s not as if they’re too big, slap a bustle-style autoloader on and job’s a good one. Hell, Rheinmetall built a Chally 2 with this set up and it seems to work (I think - can’t verify that at all).
2) Protection upgrade - Turret = nice to have, already have one of the strongest turrets out there but some more protection against APFSDS would be useful. Hull = badly needed, they usually add ERA blocks when in theatre but they aren’t much use Vs mines, so some mine protection is *GREAT*.
3) Tech / battlefield management systems / etc. - Needed. Chally 2 is still a modern tank but hasn’t had as many updates in its life as other MBTs have, so this is long overdue.
4) Powerpack upgrade - mainly a good reliability update, can’t be bad but it isn’t getting more powerful. The tank started out quite heavy, and it isn’t getting lighter with all these add-ons...
5) APS - “fitted for but not with” WELL WHY NOT? The yanks have M1A2 SEP V2 with Trophy APS, the Israelis invented Trophy, the Russians have a similar set up, seemingly everyone else is developing / testing it. This isn’t experimental or untested tech, it works so why aren’t we actually fitting it?
5) Numbers - 148 tanks isn’t enough. Not nearly enough. As an island we need a Navy and Air Force more than an Army, but we still need SOME ground forces, our expeditionary commitments with NATO are still important as well as our deterrent threat so we should be prepared. The USA is on the decline in international stature so we can’t rely on their army, we need to be ready ourselves. Some say we need over 1,000 MBTs but IMO we should have 450 to 500 Chally 3 tanks; that’s not too many but about right for Britain’s position, 148 is just disgraceful.
There’s other things I’ll’ve missed, but those are the 5 big ones that I was thinking about.