What’s the truth about the world’s most expensive main battle tank, France’s Leclerc? For starters the only way it was able to be produced in the first place was thanks to an international web of bribery and intrigue. Which ultimately led to the Leclerc ending up in combat in Yemen against Houthi rebels. But we’ll get into that can of worms later. The Leclerc’s new XLR upgrade program will be a part of the massive 400 billion dollar defense modernization budget that will transform France’s army by the year 2030. Wow Leclerc, you’ve really changed and matured over the summer. The story of this vehicle’s development encapsulates the entire French defense industry philosophy. And keep in mind this analysis will be more accurate than usual thanks to the Leclerc having its classified manual leaked on the Warthunder by a crew member. He did this because the turret rotation speed in game wasn’t accurate enough. Fair enough that would bother me enough to risk going to prison too. Fire off a french tank round at the like and subscribe button and lets get started. The origins of the Leclerc can be traced back to 1789 with the invention of the guillotine wait no wrong French weapon. The tank traces its roots to the 1970’s when France decided to replace their old AMX-30 which was seen as inferior to the soviet’s brand new T-72 tank. In the 1986 France’s Directorate of Land Armaments ordered work on the Leclerc tank project immediately. The DGA is the French Government Defense procurement and technology agency responsible for the program management, development and purchase of weapon systems for the French military. French Generals envisioned the leclerc as an upgrade to the existing AMX-30 tank philosophy which prioritized speed instead of armor weighing only 40 tons. It had only 80 mm of armor opposed to the contemporary American M47 Patton that had 243mm of armor. The French reasoning was that anti-tank weapons technology was advancing at such a fast rate that slower heavily armored tanks would be more vulnerable than lighter and faster ones. Fast forward to today and modern warfare may be proving this theory correct. The way military design works in France is interesting because the Directorate of Land Armaments also supervises engineering schools that operate under the scrutiny of the Ministry of Defense. (Editor note: École polytechnique , ENSTA) So this means The high-level military staff of the DGA are themselves Armament Engineers.