Challenger variants

[JFC Fuller]

A Challenger I hull was trialled with the Marconi Marksman anti-aircraft turret (pictures attached) and according to multiple publications a Challenger I hull was also trialled with the Vickers GBT 155mm turret, does anyone have any pictures of this combination? There seems to be a distinct lack of any images of this turret at all.

 

[CostasTT]

Marksman and GBT brochures:

 

[CostasTT]

I also found a picture of the GBT turret on a Mk 3 hull. Thought you might be interested.

 

[xiaofan]

Marksman turret on Challenger I and GBT turret on Vickers Mk 3.

 

[Rickshaw]

Marksman was bought by Finland for use on T-55 hulls IIRC.

GBT was an expensive and overly heavy solution to the SPG concept. Why have a fully MBT level armoured hull hauling around a (comparatively) light-weight turret?

 

[CostasTT]

One more of the Challenger GBT that I just stumbled upon:

 

[Grey Havoc]

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CWeino-wu0

 

[Grey Havoc]

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RaBEtb3LWw

 

[Grey Havoc]

Speaking of the Finnish Marksman turrets: http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?245310

 

[Grey Havoc]

Via Tanknet: http://www.defensenews.com/story/de...k-surges-ahead-challenger-2-upgrade/78841260/

 

[Grey Havoc]

Challenger II Black Knight upgrade

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVyhpK_mjqQ

 

[Grey Havoc]

View: https://youtu.be/Wlap4hoFoXw

Time will tell if Streetfighter is anything more than a PR/morale building exercise. As the name suggests, it is optimised for infantry support in MOUT conditions. Still messing around with the rather ill-advised smartphone based soldier systems (Autonomous Warrior) I see. The Russians or the Chinese for one would have a field day against any unfortunate troops actually trying to use these on the battlefield.

 

[Pioneer]

I don't mean to deviate off topic, but can anyone direct me to any information as to why/on what grounds the Finnish Army selected the Marksman turret system over other obvious established in-production and service proven SPAAG systems?


Regards
Pioneer

 

[Grey Havoc]

For one thing, the Marksman turret meshed very well with the T-55AM chassis, I believe. The Marksman's lack of success in general resulted more from poor marketing (and some questionable decisions by the British government) than any shortcomings with the system itself. Another factor was that there were major political barriers to any procurement of the other likely candidate, the Gepard or a Gepard based system.


Didn't get around to posting this earlier.
BAE Systems sells control of vehicles arm to Rheinmetall (BBC News)

Not good, to say the least. Discussion on this over in Military: https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,31320.0.html

 

[Foo Fighter]

Short sighted move imho.

 

[bobbymike]

British Streetfighter II Tank Has X-Ray Vision And Is All About The Urban Fight

The British Army has modified a Challenger 2 to be ideally suited for fighting tomorrow's wars in megacities.

www.thedrive.com

 

[Foo Fighter]

One more of the Challenger GBT that I just stumbled upon:

That is a Chieftain hull. Yes I know it was a while ago now.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Giraffe tank version of Challenger I. Armed with the TRIGAT LR missile. The cannon in the weapons/sensor pod may be the British version of the Bushmaster II cannon, firing 30 x 170 mm RARDEN ammunition.
(h/t Jazz and Jemiba)

 

[Grey Havoc]

With regards as to the reloading system:

With the crossbar behind those two groups of missile containers, I would expect some sort of
reloading mechanism. Difficult to imaginefor me is, how they would be aligned with the firing
unit.

If you look at the reload magazines, they are mounted on a parallelogram like arrangement of struts. That would allow them to tilt to become in line with the retracted firing unit when it was depressed rearwards. I would expect there was some means on the firing unit to match the tubes up and allow the new missiles to be inserted. It is an ingenious design but I'd have been more tempted to keep the reloads vertical and have the firing unit depress to over their tops. Perhaps put a rotating mechanism so that they could present a new missile to each tube in turn.

 

[alejandrogrossi]

https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/al-hussein-mbt.168386/
Hi to all
The is the Al Hussein Hybrid MBT ( jordanian upgrade of Challeneger I) Only 1 prototype built
Anyone knows another photo about him?
Thanks

 

[stimpy75]

here you go, have to dig if i have other pics, but most are with the Falcon turret

 

[alejandrogrossi]

here you go, have to dig if i have other pics, but most are with the Falcon turret

Stimpy75
Thanks
They are diferent version (apart of Falcon turret)
No aditional armour in the turret in the version of your photos

 

[stimpy75]

Another 2 pics from the Al Hussein, but again without add-on armor

 

[alejandrogrossi]

Another 2 pics from the Al Hussein, but again without add-on armor

Thanks again
Frist pic is Challenger 2E. Second yesss.

 

[stimpy75]

My bad i found the pic in a forum taken @Sofex with the description of Al Hussein equipped with a commander periscope mockup

 

[Jason Dykstra (Wyvern)]

Was the Al Hussein originally designated the Shir and was marketed to Iran pre-1979? If my memory serves me correct, it combined the hull of the Challenger with the turret and weapon system of the Chieftain. The program was cancelled due to the Revolution of 1979, but the tanks, which had already been built, were sold to Jordan. However, this completely relies on my memory. If i find something new I will follow it up later.

 

[TomS]

Looking at Jane's, it's a bit more complex.

Iran ordered and received about 700 Chieftains. They subsequently ordered another 187 improved Chieftain (FV4030/1). Then they ordered 125 Shir 1 (FV4030/2) and 1225(!) Shir 2 (FV4030/3), which were cancelled in 1979. Shir 1 became the Jordanian Khalid with very minor modifications. It is basically Chieftain with a much improved power pack (1200hp vice 750hp, and an automatic transmission) and the modernized Chieftain fire control system. The turret is definitely Chieftain in this version.

Shir 2 is the basis for Challenger 1, which was bought by both the UK and Jordan. So, a chassis derived from Chieftain plus the new turret.

Al Hussein is a locally upgraded Jordanian Challenger 1.

 

[Jason Dykstra (Wyvern)]

My mistake, I was about to comment to try fix my mistake after I had done a little bit of research, but you beat me to it.

 

[stimpy75]

while digging in my pics i found these by chance

 

[Grey Havoc]

A brief mention of the Challenger 3 Man Crew design, the proposed 140 mm upgrade to the existing Challenger tank design (as well as two autoloader designs for the 120mm armed Challenger from Fairey Engineering Ltd and RARDE respectively), and the related Future Tank Gun project can be found in the below interesting video on the ENT program which A Tentative Fleet Plan discovered late last year:

View: https://youtu.be/RvlfWqCcMdk


Essentially a British equivalent to the American Block III MBT, and Soviet Object 477.

 

[Grey Havoc]

One of the interesting things to emerge from last year's parliamentary defence committee hearings was the revelation that a Challenger 2 had been tested with a 150 mm gun (apparently complete with autoloader) back in 2003, not long before the Iraq War. Despite successful trials it was not adopted for service, primarily due to the fact that a brand new turret would have had to be procured for the Challenger 2 fleet in order to make it practical. Given the idiotically tight defence budget of the day, not to mention that the 'tanks are obsolete' crowd were at the height of their influence, that was a non-starter unfortunately.

 

[Old_ROF]

One of the interesting things to emerge from last year's parliamentary defence committee hearings was the revelation that a Challenger 2 had been tested with a 150 mm gun (apparently complete with autoloader) back in 2003, not long before the Iraq War. Despite successful trials it was not adopted for service, primarily due to the fact that a brand new turret would have had to be procured for the Challenger 2 fleet in order to make it practical. Given the idiotically tight defence budget of the day, not to mention that the 'tanks are obsolete' crowd were at the height of their influence, that was a non-starter unfortunately.

Do you have a link to where this is referenced.
Be really interested if this was truely in metal rather than just a paper study. As far as I know RO didn't make any ordnance of this calibre. RARDE/DRA have had barrels made in the US by Watervliet in the past for FTMA but not heard of this.
I assume any autoloader would probably have been based on the work originally done by FHL for DRA in support of the UK government 140mm FTMA program. I don't think this ever got as far as being integrated into an actual turret though just test rigs.
I can't imagine any ammunition would be any smaller than the FTMA round and I've not heard of any made by RO who normally produced them for DRA.

 

[Grey Havoc]

It was in the televised (BBC) coverage of the committee hearings, the November round I believe. The project was mentioned by General Carter when he was responding to questions from the committee on what sort of gun a hypothetical 'Challenger 3' design could have. When he first said 150 mm, I was pretty surprised and thought he had actually meant to say 140 mm, but no, seemingly not.

It was interesting to see Sir Carter being an apparent late convert to the idea of a new main battle tank; back during the summer hearings of the committee he had been among other things advocating for what was effectively an FCS redux without even token heavy armour elements as a replacement for the tank fleet. Of course, in the intervening period, the full scale of the ongoing disaster that are the Ajax & Boxer procurements had become all too evident alongside various other defence related fiascoes, leading Parliament to warm quite a bit towards the idea of a clean sheet Challenger 3. He more than likely thought that belatedly jumping aboard that train would help salvage his increasingly shaky position (it didn't of course).

 

[Old_ROF]

Many thanks. No idea why he talked about 150mm - definitely not something I'd heard off when I was still in the system. Maybe a 'senior' (officer) moment.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Indeed, I would love to know just who provided the gun and ammunition used.

 

[Old_ROF]

Indeed, I would love to know just who provided the gun and ammunition used.

Just thinking about this.
I suppose he could have been thinking of the CR2 LEP work, and the proposal that has been put forward with the Rheinmetall 130mm ordnance which has been fitted and fired in a revised turret. 130 : 150 ?
At least this is a known ordnance + ammunition system, only problem would be relative timescales between when the CR3 concept proposals were supposedly tested and when the Rh 130mm system was available.

 

[Grey Havoc]

It is a right mystery, and no mistake.

 

[Rickshaw]

Indeed, I would love to know just who provided the gun and ammunition used.

The Russians?

 

[JohnR]

Could the gun have been derived from an FH70 lined down?

 

[Jason Dykstra (Wyvern)]

One of the interesting things to emerge from last year's parliamentary defence committee hearings was the revelation that a Challenger 2 had been tested with a 150 mm gun (apparently complete with autoloader) back in 2003, not long before the Iraq War. Despite successful trials it was not adopted for service, primarily due to the fact that a brand new turret would have had to be procured for the Challenger 2 fleet in order to make it practical. Given the idiotically tight defence budget of the day, not to mention that the 'tanks are obsolete' crowd were at the height of their influence, that was a non-starter unfortunately.

I do believe there is a limit to how large tank shells will get, as the larger a tank shell, the smaller number of rounds carried. A 150mm gun seems a bit much, in my opinion, for a normal main battle tank, at least. I am of the opinion that 130mm will be the largest we'll see for current generation MBTs, as these can be retrofitted to existing tanks without the need to make massive changes to the turret, and layout. Next-Generation MBTs may feature 140mm cannons (these have been tested, in the UK for sure). Again, this is based wholly on opinion.

Do you have any pictures of the tank? Any further diagrams or further reading?


Thanks in advance