France Is Replacing The AMX-10RC 'Light Tank' Ukraine Made Famous: Meet The Jaguar
BritishWarArmory
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France is replacing the AMX-10RC, the 'light tank' it sent to Ukraine in 2023, with the EBRC Jaguar R3. The DGA says 21 were delivered by 4 September 2026.
The AMX-10RC was never built for a war like this one. Designed from 1970 for French rapid intervention in Africa, it carried a 105mm gun on a welded aluminium hull, rode on six wheels instead of tracks, steered by braking one side like a bulldozer, and in its original form could swim. 457 were built. France took 337, Morocco 108, Qatar 12. The first vehicle went to the 2e Regiment de Hussards at Sourdun on 20 December 1979.
It fought the wars it was designed for and won them. 96 crossed into Iraq with the French division on 24 February 1991, up-armoured at King Khalid Military City and driving on the airbase at As Salman. In Mali in 2013, 25 of them ran a raid of over 500 kilometres from Gao to Tessalit and fought through the Tigharghar massif and the Ametettai valley. Corporal Alexandre Van Dooren was killed on 16 March 2013 when his vehicle struck a buried charge in the Ifoghas.
Then came Ukraine. Emmanuel Macron announced the transfer on 4 January 2023, the first Western-designed tank pledge of the war, and it unlocked the Challenger 2 and Leopard 2 decisions that followed. 38 had been delivered by May 2024. Ukrainian marines of the 37th Marine Brigade and the 505th Marine Battalion took them into the counteroffensive south of Velyka Novosilka and found out what the French label did not tell them. Crews with the callsigns Kasper, Spartanets, Filin and Rapier described thin armour, gearboxes failing in mud, and road wheels shredded by artillery fragments. They also described a gun that was accurate once zeroed. So they stopped using it as a tank and started using it as artillery, firing across the Dnipro and later near Pokrovsk. Oryx has visually confirmed seven lost: four destroyed, two abandoned, one captured. The captured vehicle was repainted and displayed in Moscow from 1 May 2024.
The EBRC Jaguar replaces three vehicles at once: the AMX-10RC, the ERC-90 Sagaie, and the VAB carrying HOT missiles. The R3 standard was qualified on 8 April 2026 and authorised for use on 20 July 2026. Every earlier Jaguar is to be retrofitted by the end of 2027, with all 300 vehicles planned by 2035. Its 40mm CTA cased telescoped cannon is the same weapon carried by the British Ajax, built by the BAE Systems and KNDS joint venture CTA International. It fires up to 200 rounds a minute with 64 ready in the turret, including an airburst round built for drones. The Akeron MP missile reaches out to four kilometres.
Whether that answers the lesson Ukraine taught is the open question. The Jaguar carries no hard-kill active protection system. In April 2025 General Pierre Schill told the French armoured cavalry it had to reinvent itself, warning that within 20 to 30 kilometres of the contact line any armoured grouping is struck by fires, down to cheap drones. America took the opposite road with the M10 Booker and cancelled it on 11 June 2025.
Sources include the Direction generale de l'armement, KNDS France, Janes, Army Recognition, Opex360, Forbes, Defense Express, Militarnyi, Kyiv Post, France 24 and the Oryx equipment loss database.
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#AMX10RC #JaguarEBRC #FrenchArmy
10 Comments
ERBC Jaguar shared the same gun as Ajax, but Jaguar doesn't make its crew vomit and dizzy with vibration.
ERBC Jaguar is a bet on speed, changes in war tactics will tell if it's a good bet ; what is clear in Ukraine war is that no protection based on large plate of metal is enough against drones.
Think about that.
France Is Replacing The AMX-10RC 'Light Tank' Ukraine Made Famous: Meet The Jaguar
BritishWarArmory
15,149 views
France is replacing the AMX-10RC, the 'light tank' it sent to Ukraine in 2023, with the EBRC Jaguar R3. The DGA says 21 were delivered by 4 September 2026.
The AMX-10RC was never built for a war like this one. Designed from 1970 for French rapid intervention in Africa, it carried a 105mm gun on a welded aluminium hull, rode on six wheels instead of tracks, steered by braking one side like a bulldozer, and in its original form could swim. 457 were built. France took 337, Morocco 108, Qatar 12. The first vehicle went to the 2e Regiment de Hussards at Sourdun on 20 December 1979.
It fought the wars it was designed for and won them. 96 crossed into Iraq with the French division on 24 February 1991, up-armoured at King Khalid Military City and driving on the airbase at As Salman. In Mali in 2013, 25 of them ran a raid of over 500 kilometres from Gao to Tessalit and fought through the Tigharghar massif and the Ametettai valley. Corporal Alexandre Van Dooren was killed on 16 March 2013 when his vehicle struck a buried charge in the Ifoghas.
Then came Ukraine. Emmanuel Macron announced the transfer on 4 January 2023, the first Western-designed tank pledge of the war, and it unlocked the Challenger 2 and Leopard 2 decisions that followed. 38 had been delivered by May 2024. Ukrainian marines of the 37th Marine Brigade and the 505th Marine Battalion took them into the counteroffensive south of Velyka Novosilka and found out what the French label did not tell them. Crews with the callsigns Kasper, Spartanets, Filin and Rapier described thin armour, gearboxes failing in mud, and road wheels shredded by artillery fragments. They also described a gun that was accurate once zeroed. So they stopped using it as a tank and started using it as artillery, firing across the Dnipro and later near Pokrovsk. Oryx has visually confirmed seven lost: four destroyed, two abandoned, one captured. The captured vehicle was repainted and displayed in Moscow from 1 May 2024.
The EBRC Jaguar replaces three vehicles at once: the AMX-10RC, the ERC-90 Sagaie, and the VAB carrying HOT missiles. The R3 standard was qualified on 8 April 2026 and authorised for use on 20 July 2026. Every earlier Jaguar is to be retrofitted by the end of 2027, with all 300 vehicles planned by 2035. Its 40mm CTA cased telescoped cannon is the same weapon carried by the British Ajax, built by the BAE Systems and KNDS joint venture CTA International. It fires up to 200 rounds a minute with 64 ready in the turret, including an airburst round built for drones. The Akeron MP missile reaches out to four kilometres.
Whether that answers the lesson Ukraine taught is the open question. The Jaguar carries no hard-kill active protection system. In April 2025 General Pierre Schill told the French armoured cavalry it had to reinvent itself, warning that within 20 to 30 kilometres of the contact line any armoured grouping is struck by fires, down to cheap drones. America took the opposite road with the M10 Booker and cancelled it on 11 June 2025.
Sources include the Direction generale de l'armement, KNDS France, Janes, Army Recognition, Opex360, Forbes, Defense Express, Militarnyi, Kyiv Post, France 24 and the Oryx equipment loss database.
Subscribe for more deep dives into the armoured vehicles that shaped modern war.
#AMX10RC #JaguarEBRC #FrenchArmy
This a total BS.
AMX 10RC (AMX Ten RC, not one zero) was designed as armed recon vehicle. It would keep the flank of the AMX-30 which would be the the French MBT of the time.
It could smoke a T-55, and it still can put out of combat a T-72 (not one hit one kill, but enough damage to put it out of action).
With infantry, you don’t send it if front, you keep it at the back for fire support with the main gain if anything put his head out.
AMX-10RC could even float across rivers (later upgraded armors made it too heavy for that).
It was absolutely made to rush to the East. But it made it good enough for Africa and it was easier to deploy than AMX-30.