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Sunday, July 25, 2010

Leopard 2





Here are some images of Tamiya's 1/35 scale Leopard 2 A6. From Wikipedia "

The Leopard 2 is a German main battle tank (Kampfpanzer) developed by Krauss-Maffei in the early 1970s and first entering service in 1979. The Leopard 2 replaced the earlier Leopard 1 as the main battle tank of the German Army. Various versions have served in the armed forces of Germany and twelve other European countries, as well as several non-European nations. More than 3,480 Leopard 2s have been manufactured. The Leopard 2 first saw combat in Kosovo with the German Army and has also seen action in Afghanistan with the Danish and Canadian ISAF forces.

There are two main development batches of the tank, the original models up to Leopard 2A4 which have vertically-faced turret armour, and the "improved" batch, namely the Leopard 2A5 and newer versions, which have angled arrow-shaped turret appliqué armour together with a number of other improvements. All models feature digital fire control systems with laser rangefinders, a fully stabilized main gun and coaxial machine gun, and advanced night vision and sighting equipment (first vehicles used a low-light level TV system or LLLTV; thermal imaging was introduced later on). The tank has the ability to engage moving targets while moving over rough terrain.

Includes the addition of the Rheinmetall 120 mm L55 smoothbore gun and a number of other changes. All German tank battalions of the "crisis intervention forces" are equipped with the A6, as are all Dutch operational units. Canada has also purchased 40 Leopard 2A6s from the Netherlands. These were delivered in 2007.

The Leopard 2A6M is a version of the 2A6 with enhanced mine protection under the chassis, and a number of internal enhancements to improve crew survivability. Canada has borrowed 20 A6Ms from Germany for deployment to Afghanistan in late summer 2007. The new tanks all have turret electric drive.

2 comments:

Pat Tillett said...

long, low, and mean looking...

-Warren Zoell said...

I love the huge turret on the Leopard 2.