Manticore Marksman

A Marksman anti-air system fitted to a Leopard 2A8 chassis. The system itself is unchanged from its 1990 iteration, consisting of two 35mm autocannons mounted on either side of a large turret guided by a radar system. The Marksman represented an amalgamation of European technologies; Swiss guns guided by a British radar system mounted to a Polish tank for Finland's aerial defense.
The gun system carries 460 anti-aircraft fragmentation rounds and 40 armor piercing rounds, to a total of 500 rounds. Its I/J band radar has a range of 12km in search mode and a 10km tracking range; the laser rangefinder has a range of 8km, while the guns themselves have an effective firing range of 4km. With a 550rpm rate of fire (approximately 9 rounds per second per gun, doubled to 18 rounds per second for twinned guns), both guns will completely deplete their ammunition stores with less than 30 seconds of sustained fire. However, a typical engagement only requires 20 to 40 rounds be fired at a single target.
The original Marksman was considered highly accurate with a documented hit rate over 50%, but was not especially successful, with only seven systems being procured by Finland to be fitted to Polish T55-AM tanks as the ItPsv 90 Marksman, which were eventually retired to war-time storage in 2010. The turret was designed to be compatible with a variety of chassis, with plans presented for conversions of T-54/55, Type 59, Centurion, M48 Patton, Vickers, Chieftain, Challenger 1 and Leopard 1 tanks. However, no purchases were ever made and the Finnish remained the sole operators of the system. 
Preceding the Marksman system by a few decades was the Flakpanzer Gepard, to which the Marksman would prove to be very similar to;  a radar-guided dual 35mm autocannon system mounted to a Leopard 1 chassis. The Flakpanzer was developed through 1965 to 1973 and entered service with the German military in 1976 (as well as with Belgium and the Netherlands), serving until it's retirement in 2010 thanks to incremental upgrades over the decades. Over 300 of these vehicles were produced, but by the time of their retirement only 94 were retained in storage in Germany and 95 stored by the Netherlands, and due to budget constraints these were not kept in serviceable condition enough for quick mobilization during the war. Whether or not these 190 Flakpanzers were ever restored and deployed is unknown, but the Flakpanzer is not part of the EuF's officially published standardized armoury index.
Although they had been generally assumed to have fallen into obsolescence in the West with the rise of the guided missile, the recent revival of the SPAAG concept is actually creditable to the surprising performance of the Polish ZSU-23-4 Szyłka and ZSU-23-4MP Biała systems during the Human-Vannai War, which proved highly useful against the numerous, often low-flying armored aerial drones employed by the aliens. After the war, an unknown number of ItPsv 90 Marksman tanks had their Marksmen systems uninstalled and given over to Lyons Heavy Engineering for reproduction. The recreated turret system was mated to a Leopard 2A8 chassis, resulting in the "Manticore Marksman". However, with the threat of the Vannai long since eliminated by the time of their production and Europe unchallenged by any military threat, the Manticore Marksman suffers from an acute lack of necessity.
Although initially developed to be adapted to aging tank chassis with cost-cutting in mind, the European Federation has spared no expense in adapting the turrets to their latest Leopard 2A8 "Manticore" tanks. It benefits from the Manticore's extraordinarily powerful diesel engine, heavy armor and Active Protection System. While this produces a very robust SPAAG, this also makes them very expensive. The performance of the gun itself is unchanged, also eschewing positive cost-effectiveness that would come from using an older chassis while depriving the EuF of a fully-fledged Manticore tank.
Category:PACYOA: TE
Category:European Federation