Now that we’ve figured out how to point out a Swedish S Tank, with all its weird little special rules and edge cases, let’s try with something more modern: the French Leclerc main battle tank.
Why? Because Battlefront has just come out with models for it, and one of the guys in my group wants to play with something other than the wildly obsolete AMX-30, even if it arguably is a little too modern. Let’s pretend we’re in an alternate timeline where the French prioritized their conventional ground forces a bit more – or we’re playing a scenario where the Cold War doesn’t end abruptly, but drags on a bit.
Let’s get to it.
Armor
This is somewhat speculative, because again, we don’t have a lot of great combat data for modern French main battle tanks, but the Leclerc was definitely built in the spirit of most Western MBTs, which is “They should be able to take hits and keep going” rather than the AMX-30’s attempt to use speed and not getting hit as a defense. Looking at the “peer” tanks in the list – the Challenger, the various M1s, and the Leopard 2, that puts it at either 18 or 19 Frontal armor.
I found this quote on Wikipedia, which sums up the philosophy involved: “Over its 60-degree frontal arc, the tank should be able to withstand multiple impacts of APFSDS ammunition belonging to the largest caliber currently available on the market.”
But referencing some old Swedish documents I found here there’s definitely a suggestion that the armor of the Leclerc is the worst out of the M1, Leopard 2 and Leclerc lineup.
Lets go with 18 – the lower end of the Western modern MBT range, but not particularly deficient. That would give us 16 armor on the side.
Weapon
The main gun on a Leclerc is similarly nothing to sneeze at – a 120mm smoothbore gun, with a longer barrel than most tanks of its tier, giving it a higher muzzle velocity. At this point in the game, we’re splitting hairs a little bit in terms of killing power – there’s nothing higher than an 11 in the game. So, allowing the Leclerc to hang out with it’s peers…let’s give it an 11. That gives it a 50% chance of penetrating a T72B, and a 12 would be a 10% step up from that, which seems a little bit excessive. It’s probably better at penetrating armor with the longer gun, but is it that much better?
To Hit
As with many of the stats here, I’m going to wave vaguely in the direction of the M1A1, Challenger 1 and Leopard 2, and say that 4+ seems to be the cap on To Hit values, and thus what we’re going to go with.
Morale
While France has had a somewhat tepid relationship with NATO over its history, in the context of 7DRR, France is very much on their side, and so it makes sense to use the standard NATO morale and “our tanks don’t blow up quite as spectacularly” rules.
Special Rules
Fast: The road speed of the Leclerc is 44 mph – this is a little faster than the M1A1’s governed speed, and seeing as the M1A1 is a “Fast” tank in 7DRR, it follows that our French tank should be as well.
Thermal: Like most modern MBTs, the Leclerc has thermal optics, so once more, this special rule is a yes.
Special: Covered in all manner of composite and semi-reactive armor, it seems reasonable that like most of the “Top Tier” tanks in 7DRR, that the Leclerc be equipped with special armor.
Special-Special Rules
One of the centerpieces of the Leclerc’s design is an autoloader, which allows it to have a smaller 3-person crew rather than the 4 required by the M1 series, Challenger 1, or Leopard 2. Again turning to the limited data that’s available, the Greek army performed tests when it was considering acquiring a new tank. The Leclerc and Leopard 2 both achieved nine firings per minute, while the T-80, T-84, M1A2 and Challenger 2 were slightly slower. As there are no rules for autoloaders, and I do think this is getting a little too in the weeds for a game like 7DRR, I’m going to treat the autoloader the same way I did in the S Tank – it offsets the smaller, slightly more taxed crew. Which nicely means we don’t have to deal with figuring out new special rules for it either.
This same data validates the choice for weapon value above – the Leopard 2 beat the Leclerc in the number of lethal hits during testing, but in both cases it falls in the range of “Really quite dangerous”.
Points and BP
So where do we stand with our modern French MBT?
Plugging into our formulas, for points: 85.7285
For BP: 10.81616
Rounding those off, we get 86 and 11. Almost right in line with the Leopard 2, and slightly less expensive than the M1A1 or Challenger 1. A fitting addition to the French army list in 7DRR.
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