page_title: AMX-30
section_title: Development history
hierarchical_section_title: AMX-30 / Development history
caption_attribution_description: English: French AMX-30 B2 Main Battle Tank at Bovington Tank Museum
context_page_description: The AMX-30 is a main battle tank designed by Ateliers de construction d'Issy-les-Moulineaux and first delivered to the French Army in August 1962. The first five tanks were issued to the 501st Régiment de Chars de Combat in August of that year. The production version of the AMX-30B weighed 36 metric tons, and sacrificed protection for increased mobility. The French believed that it would have required too much armour to protect against the latest anti-tank threats, thereby reducing the tank's maneuverability. Protection, instead, was provided by the speed and the compact dimensions of the vehicle, including a height of 2.28 metres. It had a 105 mm gun, firing a then advanced high explosive anti-tank warhead known as the Obus G. The Obus G used an outer shell, separated from the main charge by ball bearings, to allow the round to be spin stabilized by the gun without affecting the warhead inside. Mobility was provided by the 720 horsepower HS-110 diesel engine, although the troublesome transmission adversely affected the tank's performance.
context_section_description: De Gaulle decided that France, though formally remaining a member, would no longer participate in the NATO military organization. This caused a rift between France and West Germany, which then started to emphasize standardization with American equipment, especially in armament, and to follow the new NATO policy to use multifuel diesel engines. German defence minister Franz Josef Strauss began to oppose the common tank project. In July 1963, the defence committee of the German Bundesrat decided to procure a purely national tank. In response, the same month the French government decided likewise.
  Comparative trials were nevertheless held at Mailly-le-Camp, Meppen, Bourges and Satory between five French and five German prototypes between August and October 1963, under Italian, Dutch, Belgian and American supervision. The French type had received a separate national designation: AMX 30. The trials indicated that the German type, on 1 October also getting its own name Leopard, had a better mobility and acceleration. The French government decided that it could not procure a new tank until 1965, while the Germans refused to adopt the Franco-German 105-millimeter (4.1 in) tank gun, in lieu of the British Royal Ordnance L7, of which they had already ordered 1,500 in the autumn of 1962, their plan having failed for Rheinmetall to produce in Germany a common type of munition of sufficient quality. Suggestions to save the project by combining the French turret with the German chassis failed. As a result, the program was cancelled and the French and Germans definitely decided to adopt their two separate tanks.
  The prototypes of the AMX-30 weighed 32.5 metric tons (35.8 short tons), and were compact, with a width of 3.1 metres (10 ft), comparable only to the Swiss Panzer 61, and a height of 2.28 meters (7.5 ft), comparable only to the Soviet T-55. In contrast to the AMX 50, the AMX-30 was issued a conventional turret, because it was found that it was more difficult to seal oscillating turrets from radioactive dust and against water when the tank was submerged. Oscillating turrets also had a large ballistic weakness in the area of the skirt and turret ring. Originally, the first two prototypes were powered by a 720 horsepower (540 kW) spark ignition engine, named the SOFAM 12 GSds. Later, a multi-fuel diesel engine was adopted, developed by Hispano-Suiza. The seven 1963 prototypes of the AMX-30 were later rebuilt with the new diesel engine. Two further prototypes, meant to be direct preproduction vehicles, were delivered in November 1965. Besides the diesel engines, they had changed hull and turret casts and different gun mantlets; the latter would again be changed in the production vehicles.
  The first production versions of the AMX-30, named AMX 30B to distinguish them from the AMX 30A prototypes, were completed in June 1966, manufactured with a welded and cast hull and a fully cast turret. The production version of the tank had a combat weight of 36 metric tons (40 short tons). The AMX-30's survivability was based on its mobility; French engineers believed that the tank's mobility would have been compromised had they added enough steel plating to protect against modern anti-tank threats, including high explosive anti-tank warheads (HEAT). As a result, the type had the thinnest armour of any main battle tank produced at the time. The turret has a maximum armour thickness of 50 millimetres (2.0 in), the armour sloped at 70 degrees on the front plate and 23 degrees on the side, offering protection against 20-millimetre (0.79 in) armour piercing projectiles. The Line-of-Sight armour values are: 79-millimeter (3.1 in) for the front of the hull; 59-millimetre (2.3 in) for the forward sides of the hull; 30-millimetre (1.2 in) for the rear sides and rear of the hull; 15-millimetre (0.59 in) for the hull top and bottom; 80.8-millimeter (3.18 in) for the turret front; 41.5-millimeter (1.63 in) for the turret sides; 50-millimetre (2.0 in) for the turret rear and 20-millimetre (0.79 in) for the turret top. Further protection is offered by a nucl
caption: AMX-30B at the Bovington Tank Museum.
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