How fast can a tank go?
Type 97 Chi-Ni medium tank
Tank designers recommended research on a new tank design, a medium tank capable of going 35 km/h and weighing 15 tons with offensive and defensive abilities greater than the Type 89 I-Go. The Chief-of-Staff Operations was not enthusiastic for the project as it was peace-time and the military had a limited budget. The army thus issued peace time requirements for a new tank design. Rather than focusing on performance improvements, the Chief-of-Staff Operations made a lighter weight the main requirement in order to lower production costs. The finalised requirements were for a lighter weight tank that was capable of going 35 km/h, and armed with a 57 mm main gun. The Engineering Department believed that it was highly regrettable that their efforts would be devoted solely to weight reduction, so instead, two concurrent projects were built. The first plan was for a lower-weight, low-cost medium tank that was to be made by the Osaka Army Arsenal, which would become the Chi-Ni. The second plan was contracted to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for a higher performance medium tank, which would become the Chi-Ha.
Tanks of the post–Cold War era
The "Leclerc" is equipped with a GIAT (Nexter) CN120-26 120 mm smoothbore cannon. This cannon is capable of firing the same NATO standard 120 mm rounds as the German Leopard 2 and US M1 Abrams, but in practice only French-produced ammunition is issued. The gun is insulated with a thermal sleeve and has an automatic compressed-air fume extraction system instead of the usual bore evacuator. The Leclerc has a unique autoloading system which was specifically designed for it, and reduces the crew to three by eliminating the human loader. The turret of the Leclerc was designed around the auto-loading system in order to avoid the problems common to other tanks with an autoloader. The "Leclerc" autoloader allows a rate of fire of 12 shots per minute and holds 22 rounds of ready ammunition; it can accommodate up to six different types of ammunition at once, although like most autoloader systems it cannot change ammunition types once a round has been loaded. The most common types are the armour piercing fin-stabilised discarding sabot (APFSDS) with a tungsten core and the high explosive anti-tank (HEAT) round. There are 18 other rounds available for reload. A Leclerc tank can fire while traveling at a speed of 50 km/h on a target 4,000 metres away. The gun is 52 calibres long instead of the 44 calibres common on most tanks of the Leclerc's generation, giving the rounds a higher muzzle velocity.