The adoption of the Challenger tank by the British Army did not remove from the agenda the issue of the main battle tank, which would replace all Chieftain tanks. The transfer of MBT to the "Challengers" was not intended, and after the arrival of this tank in the troops it became completely impossible. A wave of criticism fell on the tank, the military noted the unreliability of the tank, the inconvenience of the crew in the turret and the imperfect fire control system. The failure of the Challenger tanks, which took part in the 1987 Canadian Army Cup, added fuel to the fire.
Under these conditions, the British government decided to announce a tender for the replacement of Chieftain tanks in the British army. By this time, in England, the Vickers company had no competitors in tank building, so foreign companies were admitted to the competition. The Germans proposed the Leopard-2, the Americans - the Abrams M1A1, the Brazilians proposed the EE-T1 Ozorio tank, and the promising French Leclerc tank was also considered.
The choice of any non-English vehicle threatened the collapse of the entire British tank building, the financial collapse of the Vickers, as well as many of the company's subcontractors, since in 1988 the production of Challengers for the British army was coming to an end, and export orders for the tank were not foreseen. The adoption of a foreign tank by the army could have the most severe impact on all British tank building for the next 20-30 years. As a result, the British had a choice not only and not so much tactical and technical as political and economic. The result of this choice was clear to everyone in advance.
The favorite of the competition was the Challenger 2 tank produced by the Vickers company, while in 1987 this tank existed only on paper. The presentation of the project took place in 1987. The main emphasis was placed on the manufacture of a new turret, guns and fire control system (FCS). The project itself provided for the correction of everything that was "under-modernized" on the "Challenger" in comparison with the "Chieftain". At the beginning of 1988, the Vickers company, using its own funds, manufactured 8 experimental towers, the first of which was ready in the fall of 1988. And already in December, the British Ministry of Defense signed a contract for the production and demonstration tests of prototypes of the tank. A total of 9 prototype Challenger 2 tanks and 2 turrets were manufactured, which were shot during ballistic tests. The tests of the tank began in 1989. And the final choice of the winner of the "competition" in 1991 - the Challenger-2 tank - miraculously coincided with the end of its demonstration tests. The "highlight" of the project was its new tower design, during the design of which the specialists of the company "Vikkres" took into account the experience of developing the turret of the Vickers Mk.7 tank and the Brazilian EE-T1 tank, the turret for which was made by the British.
The tower turned out to be of a simpler shape in comparison with the turret of the Challenger tank, while it has less visibility in the radar range. With the advent of ground-based radar reconnaissance aircraft in the armies of the world, tank designers began to pay more attention to reducing their visibility. The turret is equipped with a new 120 mm L30 rifled gun with a barrel length of 55 calibers. In order to extend the service life of the gun, the bore is chrome-plated. The diameters of the pins and sockets for them were increased, which had a positive effect on the oscillations of the barrel in elevation and azimuth and led to an increase in the accuracy of fire. The gun's ammunition consists of 50 rounds of separate loading. Shells and charges are stored in separate ammo racks. In the process of designing the tower, it was planned to install an automatic loader in it, but for a number of reasons (design complexity, vulnerability in battle, reduced reliability), the idea of installing it was still abandoned.
The drives for aiming the gun and turning the turret are completely electric, the gun pointing angles in the vertical plane are from -10 to +20 degrees. The tank's gun is stabilized in two planes. To the left of the cannon, a 7, 62-mm machine gun paired with it is placed, another one of the same is mounted on the turret at the loader's hatch, the ammunition of the machine guns is 4000 rounds. In front of the tower, 5 smoke grenade launchers are installed. Inside the turret to the right of the gun is the gunner and commander (the tank commander's workplace is slightly raised above the gunner's seat), the loader is located to the left of the gun. The instrument and electronic equipment of the tower was completely replaced in comparison with the Challenger. For the first time, a British tank received the Mil Std 1553 data bus, a standard NATO interface used on combat helicopters. The military believes that the transition to a single interface standard and equipping various combat systems with it will significantly increase the speed of information exchange between all equipment participating in hostilities.
The combined stabilized in two planes gunner's sight was created by Barr & Strud in cooperation with the French SAGEM. The daytime optical channel of the sight has 2 approaches - 4 or 10 times, the night one has 4 or 11, 4 times. A laser rangefinder is integrated into the sight. The TOGS-2 thermal imager, created on the basis of the TOGS thermal imager of the Challenger tank, is used as a sensitive element for the night channel. The sensing element is mounted above the barrel of the gun and is covered with a special armored flap, which opens only when the night channel is activated. The telescopic sight NANOQUEST L30 is used as an auxiliary sight on the tank.
The tank commander has at his disposal a stabilized panoramic periscope sight SFIM, which is a simplified Leclerc sight (there is no night channel in the English version). The optical channel of the sight has 2 approximations - 3 or 8 times. In the field of view of this sight comes information about the course of the tank and its location. To carry out hostilities at night, there is a video monitoring device, which receives an image from the night channel of the tank gunner's sight. Also, 8 observation devices are installed along the entire perimeter of the commander's cupola, which provide a circular field of view. The tank's armament control system was created by the Canadian company CDC and is a modernized version of the computer of the American M1A1 Abrams tank.
Using the FCS, the tank commander can independently aim the gun and fire, mark the detected targets or completely transfer control of the gun to the gunner, while carrying out an independent search for new targets. A typical cycle from aiming to hitting a target takes only 8 seconds. For example, when testing prototypes, well-trained crews could hit 8 targets in 42 seconds. The hull of the Challenger 2 tank practically does not differ from its predecessor, but its filling has undergone modernization, although not as cardinal as the tank turret. The body of the combat vehicle, as well as its turret and screens, is made of improved "chobham" armor, which has increased projectile resistance compared to the "Challenger" armor. In the front part of the "Challenger-2" hull there are nodes that allow you to hang bulldozer equipment on it.
Initially, the designers wanted to equip the tank with a 1500-horsepower diesel engine, but the military found it possible to keep the previous 1200-horsepower engine. By the way, of all modern MBTs in Western countries, the English tank has the weakest engine, which accelerates a vehicle weighing 62.5 tons to a speed of 52 km / h on the highway. As the main engine, the British used a 12-cylinder V-shaped four-stroke diesel engine "Condor" by Perkins. This diesel is turbocharged. To the left of it is mounted an auxiliary diesel engine H30 from Coventry Claymex, which has a capacity of 37 liters. with. The auxiliary diesel engine is used to start the main diesel engine, drive an electric generator, warm up and recharge batteries. Both motors have a common liquid cooling system, which is able to provide them with reliable operation at an ambient temperature not exceeding + 52 ° C.
The TN-54 transmission, which the Challenger-2 received, has already been tested on the latest Challengers and ARVs. In total, 44 different changes were made to the design of the Challenger-2 engine-transmission unit. For example, new air filters were installed on the tank. The cooling system, the starter and the generator, the transmission lubrication system have been improved, the block bolts have been reinforced. The creators of Challenger 2 also made a nod to the Soviet tank-building school. For the first time, a western tank received 2 external disposable fuel tanks (each with a capacity of 204.5 liters), which were previously strongly criticized by various kinds of experts. In order to create a smoke screen around itself, the tank, in addition to traditional smoke grenades, can use a device for injecting diesel fuel into the exhaust system.
The first serial "Challenger-2" was manufactured in 1994, the British army planned to purchase 386 of these tanks in total. In December 1995, the first tanks began to enter service. The first to receive them was the Royal Scottish Dragoon Guards Regiment. The operation of the machines immediately revealed a whole "bunch" of shortcomings, which was mainly associated with the MSA and sights. Since the Ministry of Defense signed a fixed contract with Vickers, having discussed the wholesale price in advance, the firm took up the elimination of the shortcomings at its own expense. For a long time, these shortcomings were only "fixed", for example, by 1997, the army had only 36 of the same tanks of the dragoon regiment, which were used mainly for training tank crews, while another 114 vehicles were stored in the manufacturer's warehouses, pending modernization …
