How Powerful is Leopard 1A5 Main Battle Tank

[@herosstratos]

One very important feature of the Leopard one was not mentioned: its reliability.

[@janwitts2688]

No it didn't prioritise speed over anything else.. its gun was also cutting edge for the time so it only sacrificed armour

[@ropeburn6684]

Not to mention reliability and serviceability. The engine and transmission being one big "powerpack" that's interchangeable within less than an hour was also a new concept at the time, and became very popular after.

[@robandcheryls]

My favorite tank was the Canadian Leaopard C1A5 is my favorite “style” tank. Canadian Army Vet

[@herosstratos]

The A5 had a better firecontrol system than the early Leo2s :-)

[@herosstratos]

Errata 2: the MB 838 isn't turbocharged, it is supercharged (mechanical driven charger), therefore the very high torque even at low revolutions. The MB 873 of the Leopard 2 is turbocharged.

[@herosstratos]

HEAT ammo could defeat any armour until the mid 70s. Therefore thick armour was of no use, until the invention of Chopham-type armour.

[@zhufortheimpaler4041]

yes and no. you could protect yourself against the more commonly used HEAT warheads, but that would result in a Tank with 70+tons of weight and most of that in 50+cm thick steel armor. The reason why Leopard 1 and AMX-30 chose mobility over armor was, that on estimated engagement ranges of 1000+ meters the rangefinding of T-55´s and T-62´s was atrocious and due to the underdeveloped and cumbersome mechanical fire control computers of the day in combination with the slow speed and arched trajectory of HEAT rounds, hitting a moving target of 1000m was extremely difficult. Due to that, it was deemed to be the better option. Rather stay mobile and engage the enemy in in maneuver warfare while not getting hit, than sitting in a mobile pillbox and getting hammered with HEAT warheads and overrun/outrun by the enemy. (that was chieftain)

[@brealistic3542]

Exactly. Still a very useful sniper tank but it was never a close in brawler. Never designed to be.

[@brealistic3542]

The Leopard performs the same way as the American Hellcat in ww2. Shoot and scoot.

[@herosstratos]

Errata: all Leo1s use the same engine/transmission. But there are two different switchboxes for gear shifting: preselect shifting (old) or automatic shifting (new). These are interchangeable.

[@irrelevant9023]

How powerful was*