Leopard 2A7

The Leopard 2 entered service in 1979; the 2A7 is the current standard from 2014. It was designed and fielded alongside the M1A2, uses the same 120 mm smoothbore (the M1A1's M256 is a licensed Rh-120), and converges closely on crew size, ammunition isolation, and armour philosophy.

The one fundamental difference is propulsion: the Leopard chose a 1,500 hp MTU diesel where the M1 chose a turbine of the same power. Thirty years on, the diesel's logistical advantage is decisive — greater range on the same fuel, idle consumption a fraction of a turbine's, and a maintenance chain shared with other military vehicles. The U.S. Army is still paying for the M1's fuel appetite.

It is also the most successfully exported Western tank, in service with more than eighteen countries. That is not purely a performance question: German export policy and industrial cooperation terms were for a long time more flexible than American ones, and for most buyers that mattered more than tens of millimetres of armour equivalence.

The L/55 barrel, introduced with the 2A6, is the signature change. At 1.3 m longer than the M1A2's L/44 it raises muzzle velocity and penetration — lengthening the barrel is the most direct way to improve armour penetration at a given calibre — at the cost of overhang, balance, and manoeuvring in built-up areas.

Ammunition follows the same logic as the M1: main stowage in a turret bustle behind an armoured bulkhead with blow-off panels. That is the common Western third-generation choice and the sharpest divergence from the T series.

The 2A7 adds an urban operations package: all-round passive armour, a remote weapon station, and an auxiliary power unit. Almost all of it targets asymmetric conflict rather than large-scale armoured warfare, reflecting the operational assumptions of the 2010s — which the war in Ukraine then forced back under review.