Disclaimer: This article is here for your information and “entertainment” not for political discussions. Please refrain from making the discussion political. Thanks.
Apparently the Turkish army has lost 3 Leopard 2A4 tanks in Syria over the last 2 days. IS claims the kills. Media reports that it is “scary” that such a modern MBT can be taken out with relative ease. Some side notes however need to be made.
The Leopard 2A4 is an older version of the Leopard that was built until 1992 and has the old “square” turret. The armor layout in general is considered to be obsolete by modern standards and has no reactive capabilities.
Since this is the first larger conflict that features the Leopard 2 in battle, the media are paying a lot of attention to it debunking the Leopard as being one of the top notch MBTs of its era. The performance of the Leopard 2 in Afghanistan is not mentioned as such as they were small incidents rather than full-on battle. One also needs to see the Leopard 2A4 from the original Leopard 2; a true Cold War tank with lots of armor on the front, but to save weight; the sides are not as thickly armored; this is where these tanks were hit.
This also means two other things; the anti-tank crews were pretty ballsy in their movements, as they had to remain patient until they had the side of the tank; furthermore it can be said that the tank commanders probably advanced too far forward. In 2 cases the tanks exploded with no chance of survival for the crew.
A ship is only as good as its captain, but also anti-tank rockets are called as such since they are purposely designed to take out enemy armour; it is hard to make your tank fully anti-tank proof.
Survivability Onion
Military literature suggests the survivability onion as a measure of how to protect yourself. Pretty interesting concept (which you can also use in WoT). In follows the following procedure:
- Don’t be seen
- If you are seen, don’t get hit
- If you get hit, don’t get penetrated
- If you get penetrated, don’t get killed
