The Merkava 4 MBT

[PlasmaKrab]

The point of having the motor in the front part of the hull is that a tank motor is a thick chunk of steel, and has to be penetrated too for the round to reach both crew and ammo.
In a pure survivablity point of view (that of Eng. Israel Tal, designer of the Merkava), when your tank is hit, no matter what happens to the tank as long as the crew gets out alice. Historically Israel has had enough tanks soon enough, but never enough experienced crewmen to waste them. On the other hand, no one has.

Front engine has been considered by just about everyone, France not the last, but was generally forgotten for various reasons, lately because of interferences between motor heat and the thermal imager. It IS a "normal war", i.e. Cold War concept, since it puts all the metal mass on the frontal sector. You have to understand that what is utmost important in a tank is its crew. A motor and a whole tank can be rebuilt. Crews can't.

As for FC systems, you will notice that the Leclerc has as much advanced FC rating as other tanks (50), but a higher RFO, which can be considered to account for both the advanced targetting system (which by now also Merkavas, Abrams and Japanese Type-90 have IIRC) and the autoloader.