Leopard 2: MBT-70 Leftovers, a Disputed Abrams Shootout and Ukraine

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

The Leopard 2 rose from the collapse of the MBT-70, a joint US and West German tank that died by 1969 over costs, imperial versus metric measurements and design disputes such as seating the driver in the rotating turret. West Germany salvaged its technology for new prototypes named Keiler and Eber, and project officer Paul-Werner Krapke oversaw testing of 17 turrets: ten with 105mm guns and seven with a new Rheinmetall 120mm smoothbore firing fin-stabilized penetrators. After the 1973 Yom Kippur War showed the power of portable anti-tank missiles, the pointed Spitzmaus turret gave way to a blockier design with spaced multi-layer composite armor, and the weight limit rose from about 47 to 55 tons.

Under a mid-1970s memorandum with the United States, the stripped Leopard 2AV was tested against the American prototypes that became the M1 Abrams. It matched or beat them on mobility, and the US turbine burned about 50 percent more fuel than the German diesel, yet the US chose its own tank, citing armor coverage. Each side disputed the trials, but the Abrams later adopted the German 120mm gun. In service, Canadian and Danish Leopards survived large IEDs in Afghanistan, Turkish 2A4s were destroyed in Syria in 2016 during Operation Euphrates Shield, and a European coalition sent Leopards to Ukraine, where they have scored successes and suffered confirmed losses. Germany has since ordered the 2A8 with the Trophy active protection system.

• Ukrainian reports say Russian troops hear older tanks two to three kilometers away but often miss the Leopard 2 until about 200 meters.
• German conscripts drove the Leopard in the US trials while professional crews manned the American prototype, and gun stabilization was tested on flat tracks.
• A 1,500-horsepower MTU V12 twin-turbo diesel drives the tank, and a snorkel lets it cross rivers four meters deep.
• From the 2A5 onward, wedge-shaped add-on modules on the turret defeat tandem shaped charges without creating a shot trap.
• Ammunition sits behind bulkheads under blow-off roof panels, and a Dräger overpressure system keeps contaminated air out.