France’s Leclerc Super-Tank: Better than American or Russian Armor?

Sebastien Roblin

Security,

Does Paris have the world's best tank? 

“So what do you think of France’s new super tank, the Leclerc?” a retired colonel in the French army’s logistical brigade jokingly asked me in 2002. “You know, the one we paid a fortune for and that we’ll never use in battle.”

So far his prediction has proved true. The French military has deployed light armored vehicles and air power in its combat missions in Afghanistan, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Central African Republic and Mali.

But the French army’s main battle tanks haven’t fired in anger since the Gulf War.

But in the summer of 2015, the United Arab Emirates threw two battalions of Leclercs into the civil war in Yemen — and from the few sketchy reports, it seems the tank has fared better than the American-made M-1 Abrams has done in the same conflict

France, along with England, has been a pioneer of armored warfare since World War I. At the beginning of World War II, it actually fielded more tanks — and better-armed and -armored ones — than the Germans did, but the French army’s poor doctrine and organization doomed the vehicles.

During the Cold War, France produced two major tank designs — the AMX-13 and AMX-30. The AMX-13 was a light tank. Debuting in 1953, it weighed a mere 13 tons and boasted a long-barrel 75-millimeter gun.

Israel and India both deployed the AMX-13 in heavy fighting against Arab and Pakistani opponents, respectively — and the consensus was that the AMX-13’s mobility was useful, but it was too lightly armored for pitched battles against other tanks.

The French army, however, was convinced that anti-armor weapons were becoming so effective that adding thicker armor was pointless. It preferred to emphasize speed and firepower. Thus, when the AMX-30 tank arrived in 1966, it had only 80 millimeters of armor, compared to the 243 millimeters of armor that protected the United States’ contemporary M-47 Patton tank.

But the AMX-30 still had a decent 105-millimeter gun and, despite its light armor, managed to attract significant foreign orders. It also proved readily adaptable into various support vehicles.