Forrest International (a defense consulting firm), from 1999, ranks them as follows, 1. Leo 2A6 2. M1A2SEP 3. Japanese Type 90 4. Leclerc 5. Chally 2 6. T-80UM2 7. Korean Type 88/120 8. T-90 9. T-72 10. Merkava Mk. III http://www.ciar.org/~ttk/mbt/mbt/mbt.assessment.best-tanks-and-why.pdf

Cross country movement while firing is a true misnomer. Let's think about it for a minute. Where will you most likely find tanks manuevering and firing? Is it going to be on plains and hills, or very rugged badlands or mountains? When tanks move through badlands or mountains they stick to the roads and pray to god that the infantry is doing their job. So, the reality is that tanks manuever while firing in reasonably open terrain, plains or hills, not rugged off country situations. Okay, given that, let's consider the provisions in the M1 for cross country movement and reloading the gun. The M1's loader can uncouple the gun from the FCS in the vertical plane. So, the gun remains completely level up and down while uncoupled. The FCS continues to stabilize and track the target. Once the round is loaded, the loader recouples the gun (it's a simple switch). The gun restabilizes in the vertical plane in about 1/2 second and the gunner fires. I have in fact moved cross country in many different environments, including the US National Training Center (very rugged desert) and southern Iraq and fired while manuevering with no problem reloading. We did NOT stop the tank to reload. The main advantage to an autoloader is that, by reducing the crew size, the tank can be reduced in size, providing for a smaller tank with the same firepower, armor protection, etc. However, the US considered an autoloader for the M1 and rejected it. The main cons are additional complexity, smaller crew size, and slower load times. A human loader can load the main gun in 4 to 6 seconds, depending on training levels. Autoloaders generally require 6 seconds or longer.

B.Smitty why did you put the SEP down on the m1? The m1a2 SEP wasnt in that study test it was only the m1a2.The army didnt start upgrading its m1 to SEP config untill 2001. Also to mike_golf I seen on modern movels on the discovery channel about the M1 they can reload at 2-3 seconds :) auto loader around 6-10

"B.Smitty why did you put the SEP down on the m1?" My mistake. I'm just used to referring to it that way. Good catch.

You're right, a really good Abrams crew can reload in less than 3 seconds with everything perfect. Under combat conditions, tired crew, tank moving, direct and indirect fire coming in it's more like 4 seconds. Since an autoloader will always be the same speed I'd rather compare the worst case of a human than the best case :-). In either case in combat a second or two can make all the difference. Remember, a tank round travels from muzzle to target in about a second. Getting your round off one second earlier could mean life or death. Give me a human loader over an autoloader any day. For that reason alone I will never rank the LeClerc above the M1, Challenger or Leopard.

I know i was thinking about join the army and still am.If i was gonna go into the army and pick a field driving a m1a2 would be on TOP of my list followed by flying around in a ah64. The thing that scares me the most if a tank with a auto loader failed or jammed or the tank took a round and somehow knock out the loader and then leaving you hopeless on the battlefield.

Contrary to what certain posters would have you believe, the autoloader, like any other subsystem on the tank, can be disabled by direct fire even though the armor is not penetrated. There is a reason why the US Army gunnery training includes engagements where the main sights, FCS and thermals have failed. You have to know how to continue to fight your tank even though the primary systems are disabled due to battle damage. It is rather difficult to fight your tank when you have lost your autoloader. If a crewmember is killed or wounded on a tank with a human loader you can continue to fight, although with a huge degradation in effectiveness, with only 3 crewman.

My understanding is that it takes a lot of physical work to keep a tank running in combat conditions. I would guess that the tank commander is excused from doing a considerable portion of that work, at least in most military organisations. Installing an autoloader increases the maintainence at the same time as the work crew is severly reduced. The actual _work_ of keeping operational tanks up to those legendary specs being thrown around on this board are at least as important as the specs themselves. Which, of course, brings up the whole question of performance under battle conditions which some tank types (and all their crews) have, by choice, been excused from.

I would guess that in battle commanders don't have the easiest job. They're concentrating on pretty much everything, coordination of the crew, with the rest of the platoon/formation, not to mention scanning for the enemy, as well as checkinng and keeping an eye on the tank's systems and running. I have no experience in this, by my guess is that'd only be half of what goes on. All crewmen have essential jobs, and traing for all of them is vital for everyone..

you are suffering so much for your leclerc which failed in compettion in greece in 1995 if i am sure of the year!!!!!all you say about your leclerc is only propaganda .During that competion which took place in greece for replacing greece army main battle tank, your leclerc arrived only in fourth position the winner of the competition was abrahm tanks the second the challenger and the leopard arrived in the third position!!! It is the propaganda when media french claimed that the leclerc was the first tank in the world which can fire when moving!!! the truht is that abrahms wre the first in the world to fire when moving and it entered in service at the beginging of 1980s when the leclerc enter only in just before the end of 1990s probably in the 1997. i follow of the developpement of these tanks abrahm , leopard challenger, t80, t90 and so on so you must keep your propaganda for you !!!