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The Leopard-2PL improved main battle tank is the latest modification of the Leopard-2 family, and its performance is very advanced.
It was originally developed for the Poland Army
If we want to talk about the origin of the latest member of the "Leopard"-2PL main battle tank, the "Leopard"-2PL family, we cannot fail to mention the main battle tank upgrade and improvement program of the Poland Army. The Poland Army's active main battle tank is the predecessor of the "Leopard"-2A6 - "Leopard"-2A4 main battle tank, this model of tank, Germany sold to many countries around the world, and the Poland Army also purchased 128 units at one time in 2002 as the main combat force of the army.
The Poland Army's Leopard-2A4 main battle tank, with its boxy turret, is the main identifying feature of the A4 batch
Technically speaking, although the "Leopard"-2A4 is not the latest product compared with the "Leopard" 1-2A6, its performance is not weak at all among the third-generation main battle tanks in service in various countries around the world, and it is still at the first-class level, and there is no need to rush to upgrade. However, in recent years, Poland's old enemy and neighboring Russia suddenly launched the fourth-generation main battle tank T-14 "Almata", which outperformed the T-72/90 series, making the Poland Army's original technical and equipment advantage over Russia's main battle tank disappear.
In order to rebuild its technological superiority, the Poland Army decided to spend 600 million euros starting in 2016 to take advantage of the mid-term overhaul of its current Leopard-2 main battle tanks to carry out a comprehensive upgrade and improvement of the current Leopard-2A4, combining the mid-term overhaul and technical upgrading and improvement. Because the upgrade and improvement plan is very comprehensive and large, different from the previous mid-term overhaul and small upgrades, Germany Rheinmetall specially named the Poland Army "Leopard"-2PL improved main battle tank after the implementation of this upgrade and improvement plan, PL is the abbreviation of Poland's national name Poland.
Armor protection has been fully upgraded
On the "Leopard"-2PL, in addition to the installation of armor components in the front arc area of the turret, a group of wedge-shaped armor components were installed on the two sides of the front of the turret, that is, behind the wedge-shaped armor side of the front arc area, so that the protective area of the front of the turret was greatly increased, and even if the enemy used anti-tank missiles to attack the front side of the turret, it could be effectively resisted.
The Leopard-2PL prototype on display at the Abu Dhabi Defense Exhibition shows four sets of wedge-shaped armor assemblies attached to its turret
In addition to the turret, the Leopard-2PL has been comprehensively upgraded in the overall body armor, using the AMAP advanced modular armor developed by the Germany company IBD Deisenroth. However, according to open sources, its performance has been significantly improved compared to the ceramic composite armor that is currently widely used. After the United States "Stryker" wheeled armored vehicle is equipped with a composite armor kit developed by the Germany company IBD Deisenroth, its protection level is greatly improved compared with the benchmark protection (7.62 mm rifle round), reaching the level of frontal resistance to 30 mm tail stabilized disarming armor-piercing shells. In addition, the Leopard-2PL also adopts a new fire extinguisher and a fire/explosion suppression system, which is more sensitive, faster and more efficient in extinguishing fires, which will reduce the probability of fire and death of the main battle tank and ensure the safety of the crew to the greatest extent.
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Turret drive system optimizations and improvements
The turret turret mechanism of the "Leopard"-2A4 adopts hydraulic drive and stabilization device, which has the advantage of being reliable and not easy to damage and fail, but the disadvantage is that the flexibility of rotation control is not high enough, the accuracy is slightly poor, and the hydraulic components are heavy and large, occupying more space and part of the load inside the turret. In order to solve this problem, an electric drive device was introduced on the "Leopard"-2PL, which drove the turret to rotate, which greatly improved the accuracy and stability, which was conducive to improving the shooting accuracy of the gun. At the same time, the electric mechanism is lighter than the hydraulic mechanism and occupies less space, which can increase the space occupied by the occupants and improve its working environment.
In order to improve the situational awareness of the occupants of the rear of the tank, the "Leopard"-2PL installed a video camera at the rear of the hull, which has been used on improved main battle tanks such as M1A2SEP, and is conducive to the driver's effective control of the vehicle in the case of reversing.
The Leopard-2PL will fully adopt advanced modular armor to improve the protection capability of the whole vehicle
The observation and sighting fire control system has been fully upgraded
The upgrade of the sighting fire control system of the Leopard-2PL is divided into two aspects. On the one hand, it is to upgrade the two independent thermal imagers of the tank commander and gun commander, and upgrade them to the latest generation of thermal imagers, which have been upgraded from the XXX×XXX level to the XXXX × XXXX level in terms of thermal imaging array modules, and the geometric multiple of imaging resolution has been improved, and the effective imaging distance at night has also been expanded from less than 2 kilometers to more than 4 kilometers, which greatly improves the all-weather combat capability of the main battle tank.
On the other hand, it is a comprehensive upgrade of the fire control system, which is different from the upgrade of the observation and sighting system, which focuses on hardware updates, and the upgrade of the fire control system is more focused on software upgrades. In terms of on-board integrated electronic systems, the "Leopard"-2PL has comprehensively improved its information-based combat capability by using the most advanced electronic components, making its electronic informatization level advance by leaps and bounds. After all, before the upgrade, the Poland Army "Leopard"-2A4 was mostly produced around 2000, and there was an extremely huge gap in the level of electronic information technology compared with now.
The sighting and fire control systems of the Leopard-2PL will be fully upgraded
New ammunition is available
The tank gun of the Poland "Leopard"-2A4 main battle tank is the Rheinmetall L44 120mm smoothbore gun, and in the "Leopard"-2PL improvement project, the more powerful L55 tank gun was not replaced, but the L44 tank gun was slightly adjusted to make it compatible with some new ammunition, and its firepower performance was improved in this way.
For example, the "Leopard"-2PL can use the DM63A1 armor-piercing projectile, which is a new model improved on the basis of the famous DM53 by replacing it with a new high-energy projectile, with a maximum frontal penetration depth of 900 mm of homogeneous armor, which is enough to easily penetrate the frontal main armor of all active third-person fourth-generation main battle tanks in the world. The DM11 multi-purpose projectile equipped with it uses programmable intelligent fuze technology, and this advanced multi-purpose artillery shell has three detonation modes: immediate detonation, delayed detonation, and aerial detonation. The gunner can choose different detonation methods according to the target of different natures. The technical core of the artillery shell is in data control. When loading, the ammunition programming module connected with the tank fire control computer transmits the data to the control box used by the loader through the data bus, and the control box then transmits the data to the fuze through the signal cable in the projectile body, and when the various data of the target are set, the fuze can explode in a suitable form to complete the optimal destruction of the target. Because multi-purpose tank shells can provide tanks with flexible combat capabilities, can replace special types of ammunition such as armor-piercing shells, shotgun shells, and obstacle breaking shells, and reduce the burden of logistics support, they are very popular among troops.
DM11 multi-purpose ammunition
Install an auxiliary power unit
In terms of power plant, the "Leopard"-2PL still uses the original MTU European power unit, and the total power has not increased. But in addition to the main power unit, an auxiliary power unit was added. The auxiliary power unit has many advantages, such as the power supply for cold start-up or engine shutdown. Unlike ordinary car engines, tank engines are not as easy to start as the latter, and the engine needs to be warmed up first, and it can only be started normally after reaching certain starting conditions. The auxiliary power unit can quickly warm up the cold car in a low temperature environment, improving the cold zone starting and working ability of the "Leopard"-2PL, which is of great significance for Poland, which is located in the East European Plain and has a low ambient temperature in winter.
Many main battle tank models in Poland's immediate neighbor Russia, such as the T-14 and T-80UD, are equipped with auxiliary power units.
Future outlook
In this upgrade, Poland emphasizes the participation of domestic enterprises and increases the localization rate, and many of the upgraded components and equipment are provided by local enterprises in Poland. According to the plan, if all goes well, all 128 improved Leopard-2PL main battle tanks will be delivered to the Poland Army in 2020, when the country's army strength will be significantly improved.