Comments by "" (@RedXlV) on "British Army Orders Challenger 3 MBTs" video.

  1.  @DH.2016  Which is why you'd buy a license to manufacture the Leopard 2A7 domestically, like what Switzerland did for the 2A4 and Sweden for a modified 2A5. You'd still get to build the tanks in Britain and produce British jobs, but you get brand new tanks at a lower cost. Whereas with these Challenger 3s, Britain is spending more simply to avoid admitting they're still fielding a de facto German tank.
    3
  2.  @alganhar1  That's why every prototype/experimental MBT with a 130mm or 140mm gun has been an autoloader. Everybody is well aware that a shell that big won't be viable with a human loader.
    3
  3.  @BadwolfGamer  That might well be why Britain didn't go for the 130mm in the Challenger 3. The possibility that NATO might decide to go with 140mm instead, leaving Britain yet again fielding a non-standard gun. Otherwise, the small number of Challenger 3s that they'll field really would seem like it would make sense to enhance their individual lethality by installing the bigger gun.
    2
  4. Given that the hulls are existing Challenger 2s with a new turret, building more would presumably involve taking the remaining Challenger 2s that don't get upgraded and dropping the new turret onto them as well. There's no active production line for building Challenger 2 hulls, so there's a limit to how many additional Challenger 3s could be made. By the time Britain might decide to add additional tanks to their force, they'll probably end up buying whatever the Franco-German MGCS program comes up with.
    2
  5. Long-rod APFSDS cannot be spin-stabilized in the first place, they're too long relative to their diameter for that to work. And for HEAT shells it's actually detrimental to spin them, because it disperses the molten jet. Hence fin stabilization. You can still fire fin-stabilized rounds from a rifled gun, but it doesn't work as well.
    2
  6. If nothing else they'll probably keep those hulls in storage to cannibalize for parts. Or as testbeds for potential further upgrades without needing to take any of the 148 active Challenger 3s out of service.
    2
  7. Their thinking was probably "if we adopt the Rheinmetall 130mm, NATO will end up standardizing on the 140mm instead."
    1
  8. Britain simply isn't that large a nation.
    1