Jägerlein

Turkish Leos standing around on hills...where have I seen that before

And what kind of tank philosophy you are following out of which reasons. Reducing the profile of a tank is for shure a desireable feature, but at what costs? And having a T-series like gun depression might be no problem in wide, open and especially flat areas but if you are a country in central europe, then you really want that -9 or -10° depression. A "large" turret with enough gundepression is still smaller than the tank which must show it`s hull to get it`s tube on the target. And untill a clever solution is found, a tank design must make compromises in these points...unless HK would build Tanks - because no compromise! If such a buldge like on the french turret is a good solution might be another topic, but simply calculating the reduction of the surfaces without counting the drawbacks is a little bit iffy in my eyes.

Leo 2 in 2060 is rather optimistic. Optimistic like trusting official readyness reports for the german parliament ^^

The first post in this threat which cought the right idea. Actually I wrote my final Thesis about the German "Rüstungswunder" that never was. And the really impressing points weren`t the mythological wonderweapons or what ever you would consider a wheraboos wet dreams. What was impressing for me where the maybe not so perfect things wihch were accomplished despite the complete fuck up of an Economy dominated by cartel`s and oligopols and a severe lack of ressources which were especially important in the metallurgy. Finding flaws in German wartime designs and especially the produced vehicles apart from their paper design ( well there is a difference between what can be invented and drawn and what can be produced under these circumstances) is like hitting a barn door with birdshot from 10 feet (damn you Imperiealmeasuremnts). The interesting story isn`t about how superior german equipment was, because it wasn`t, the interesting story is what was accomplished despite the situation. Take the already mentioned Jumo 04 as an example. That thing was faaaaar from perfect but still better or comparable to other Turbojet Engines of it`s time (talking of `40-`43 ). And even past 1943 the german jet engine development didn`t fall behind but they failed in realizing these projects because of the slightly different conditions in germany compared to the US or UK. And even if they could have been build the could not have been powered by good wishes an nazi faith. Personally I started to distinguish between judging the fielded material and the design itself a long time ago and besides that, comparissions between late war equipment from germany and equipment especially from the US is...a case for captain obvious !?! well, now I`m curious if i get called out a wheraboo because not blowing the horn in the contrary way...

Hello everyone, There`s a more reliable source for the readystate of the Leopards: Augengeradeaus.de That`s a german defence blog by the probably most notable german journalist for military and defence topics. Summed up for the not german speaking crowd: 244 Leos are currently in service (the +100 which were bought back from the industry are still paper tanks). The actual number intended for active units is 184. 95 of 244 Leos are in " green state" 89 are in maintenance caused by usage-depending wear 53 are right now at KMW getting upgraded or maintenanced 7 are given to several companies or WTDs ( Wehrtechnische Dienststelle) as reference models. This results in 38% ready in total and 51,6% ready if only the active-duty number is considered. Contrary to what has been stated before the upgrade programme is included in the numbers. And since these numbers are the numbers which were given to the federal parliament by the MoD, they are probably a bit sugarcoated but all in all reliable. Some of the comments below the article are worth to be mentioned, too: Not really suprisingly this readyness for MBTs in Germany is nothing new and actually better then in the mid 90`s. The drastic reduction in fundings was harshest for systems which were belived to be obsolet after the Cold War - like MBTs. Some former servicemen are speaking of only 10 out of more the 100 tanks in their unit were in a working condition around 1997. Well these things happen if you start to belive that the russian bear has become a teddy bear and universal peace is near...