[pdoktar]

Well, the 50cal under main armor is better than one standing outside of it, isn´t it?

And SGTgunn had good remarks of US considering heavier coax weapons for them too, but due to room constraints or whatever, were cancelled. So the french may or may not have combat experience recently, but they probably have some other people than frenchies giving them a bit of experience in the coax matter, so you may be right that actually EXPERIENCE from these, not maybe french guys, helped their decision. And they crammed the 50cal inside the already small Leclerc.. So I´d say it´s a better system. Nothing more than that.