AMX-30E
The AMX-30E is a Spanish main battle tank based on France’s AMx-30. First acquired in 1970, the tank was to supplement Spain’s fleet of M47 and M48 Patton United States tanks. 280 units were manufactured by Santa Bárbara Sistemas for the Spanish Army between 1974 and 1983.
About AMX-30E in brief
The AMX-30E is a Spanish main battle tank based on France’s AMx-30. First acquired in 1970, the tank was to supplement Spain’s fleet of M47 and M48 Patton United States tanks. 280 units were manufactured by Santa Bárbara Sistemas for the Spanish Army, between 1974 and 1983. It was Spain’s first mass-produced tank and developed the country’s industry to the point where the government felt it could produce a tank on its own. The tank was replaced in the late 1990s by the German Leopard 2A4, and the AM X-30EM2s were replaced by Centauro wheeled anti-tank vehicles in the early 21st century. In 1985 Indonesia expressed interest in the tank, while in 2004 the Spanish and Colombian governments discussed the possible sale of around 40 AMX -30EM1s. Both trade deals fell through. It never saw combat and was replaced by the Leopard 2E in the mid-2000s. It is the only tank to have been used in a combat operation in the Spanish Sahara, where it was used to train troops in the Ifni War in the 1950s and 1960s. The first 19 of the tanks were acquired from France in 1970 and another 280 were assembled in Spain. In the early 1960s, Spain looked towards its European neighbors for a new tank.
The Spanish government first approached Krauss-Maffei, the German manufacturer of the Leopard 1, and applied for an export license from the German Economics Ministry. The deal was stalled by pressure from the UK’s Labour Party on the basis that the Leopard’s 105-millimeter L7 tank gun was British technology. Meanwhile, Spain tested the French AM X30 between 2 and 10 June 1964. The Leopard 1 and theAMX- 30 originated from a joint tank development program known as the Europanzer. The Obus Gus G-3 was designed to penetrate up to 400 millimeters of steel armor. On the other hand, the Leopard was armed with the L7 L3 gun, capable of penetrating frontal armor of the most contemporary tanks. Although the Obus was mounted on ball bearings within an outer casing, allowing the round to be stabilized through the spin rifling without affecting the warhead inside the casing. The height of the tank is 2. 28 meters, compared to the 2. 6 meters of Leopard’s high-explosive G-6 round, which was one of most advanced projectiles at the time. It also had a low silhouette; the height of its tank was 2.28 metres, compared to Leopard’s 2.6meters. It has a high rate of fire of fire.
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This page is based on the article AMX-30E published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 31, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
