gatnerd said:

Which to be fair is an entirely reasonable force design up until the last year.

And probably still is, since it seems far more likely that in the future the French will be continuing to "police" Africa, than conducting a land war against Russia or China.

French police African countries that are combined the size of continental US , and since the ww2 they built a mostly wheeled force for it , off course they had a conventional capable military till the end of the cold war but Leclrec has to be seen as cold war remnant irrespective of being fielded in 91. Project started at the height of cold war , numbers purchased reflect much reduced need for it , while Leopard 2 has been built in thousands France purchased what 250 or less , rest went to UAE after intensive greasing (200+ millions $ worth). If Leclerc project started any later they probably would not have bought as single one. Ukraine war doesnt change much for France its still mostly concerned with Africa , not threatened by land war at home except in own ghetos .

A long lineage of big gun recce vehicles from Panhard EBR to AMX10 RC  continues with Jaguar , they just correctly decided to replace 105mm with 40CTA , there is no mud hut a 40mm cant take down and no half  modern tank  short barrel low recoil 105mm can reliably destroy, so they augmented 40CTA with ATGM missiles. Tank has not been a major feature of African wars and infrastructure mostly does not support it. 

qph.cf2.quoracdn.net

stancrist said:

If that is true, then why equip the French army with a tracked MBT?  Would not a wheeled gun system make more sense?

Because the "Leclerc" MBT program started as a cooperation with Germany, and wasn't destined for "policing Africa".

In the US, you have the US Army and the US Marine Corp which are separate entities. In France, we don't have enough resources for separate entities, but we have regiments that are following the tradition of the "troupes coloniales", or "de marine" (equivalent to US Marine Corp) and other regiments that are following the tradition of "troupes de ligne" (equivalent to US Army).

Most regiments have unique capabilities, some with very, very long history (the 11th RAMA was founded in 1622 by Richelieu under the name "compagnies ordinaires de la mer").

The AMX-10 RC was destined to equip the various "char de marine" regiments, while the Leclerc was destined to equip the "char de ligne" regiments.

Very informative.  Thank you.

Had to make a double take , at this driveline  , while French played with H type drive line a lot , did not know Fenek recon vehicle had one 

At least in the Gaza breakout , Tracks were awol and wheels Eitan not jet operational in any numbers so brunt of the fighting seems to have been carried with troops in unarmored and armored 4x4 .

Mr. T (MrT4) said:

brunt of the fighting seems to have been carried with troops in unarmored and armored 4x4 .

What fighting?  I saw video of a couple Humvees driving past the news crew, but I have not seen any fighting.

There have been quite a bit of Israeli bombs/rockets blowing up Palestinian buildings, but that is not fighting.

YouTube

Moment Israeli airstrike hits Gaza tower block after Hamas attack

Israeli airstrikes destroyed a tower block in Gaza City after Hamas militants launched a rocket and air attack on Israel in the early hours of Saturday morni...

There are couple of videos hamas posted ambushing some some armor , and real old fashioned stuff, RPG and some sort of handgrenades.

And israelis rolling into firefights with civilian pickups ,open top humvees and lightly armored 4x4 ,  even non uparmored M113 .Where is all the high speed low drag gear?

i.guim.co.uk

Yes blind bombing of the most prominent buildings , is not figting , its also kinda daft to expect intel that missed the whole thing and military that took 7-8 hours to collect itself to suddenly bomb on actional intel, this is bombing just for the sake of destroying something  for TV cameras and press releases oh we hit that and that command post are BS for gullible expecting results.

In mean time APS not showing off ,  folks bolting on Trophy APS on Abrams, Leopards,Challengers , need to take a peek under the hood as so far it seems they are duds

Hits on 2 Merkava mk 4 tanks on the border. The second tank was hit in the mechanized stowage in the turret bustle. No APS activations were noted.

Streamable

ssstwitter.com_1696850028778

Watch "ssstwitter.com_1696850028778" on Streamable.

Mr. T (MrT4) said:

israelis rolling into firefights with civilian pickups ,open top humvees and lightly armored 4x4

Hmm.  Sounds like "firefights" may be an overstatement?  In the pics, most of the Israeli troops look quite relaxed, not even remotely like they are about to be in a real fight.

Mr. T (MrT4) said:

Yes blind bombing of the most prominent buildings , is not figting , its also kinda daft to expect intel that missed the whole thing and military that took 7-8 hours to collect itself to suddenly bomb on actional intel, this is bombing just for the sake of destroying something  for TV cameras and press releases oh we hit that and that command post are BS for gullible expecting results.

My thoughts exactly.

APS was probably turned off.