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Dumbing the post down a bit here. I noticed on a Leopard 1A5 kit I am building it has a skate mounting allowing the crew to put the MG3 in either the TC or loaders position. My question is in the German Army did the TC ever mount this at his location and was it typical on this version? I have tried Googling images of West German ones in use but the ones I have seen depict the MG3 not mounted in either position.

 

Few months ago I seen a photo of Turkish Leopard 2A4 with MG3's mounted for both loader and TC hatches.

Edited by Damian
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Posted (edited)

Leopard 2 featured originally similar hatch protective rings for commander and loader allowing AA-MG mount to be installed to either one or both hatches. There are a few photos of Leopard 2A0's with two mounts. The TC hatch protective ring was changed to asymmetrical that didn't allow AA-MG mount during Leopard 2A1 production. The Leopard 2A0's that were later modernized with WBG TI to A1 standard (those were called A2's) did retain the old TC hatch protection ring with ability to mount AA-MG. Most of the A2's did get modernized to A3 and again to A4 standard and as they did retain the old ring it is seems that the Turkish Leopard 2A4 in photo above is in fact one of the original A0's! As the 6th/7th/8th production batches feature the improved armour package, are smallest of all production batches and are the latest less driven ones Germany did turn those to A5's and A6's. Most of the A4's sold to abroad are those from batches 1 to 4 that have started their lives as A0's/A1's/A3's, also few 5th batch vehicles have been sold, but most of the A4's that didn't get modernized but was kept by Bundeswehr were "original A4's" from Batch 5 and younger.

 

Frank Lobitz: Kampfpanzer Leopard 2 - Entwicklung und Einsatz in der Bundeswehr

 

Edit: Other original A0 visual recognition features retained to A4's are place for wind sensor mast and remains of shut welded ammo door in right turret side (the patched ammo door is in all models from A0 to late batch 5 A4's, A4's from Late Batch 5 and all tanks batch 6 forward did not have ammo door originally )

Edited by CV9030FIN
Posted

Edit: Other original A0 visual recognition features retained to A4's are place for wind sensor mast and remains of shut welded ammo door in right turret side (the patched ammo door is in all models from A0 to late batch 5 A4's, A4's from Late Batch 5 and all tanks batch 6 forward did not have ammo door originally )

 

I have to correct my self. I was a bit careless to doom all Leo 2A4's with windsensor masts to be original A0 from batch 1, as also the first A1's from batch 2. had wind sensors. A1's from From batch 3 froward didn't have the windsensor mast. AFAIK I don't know any possible way to separate original A0's (=1st production batch) and A1's from 2nd Production batch. There lack of is field telephone connections in turret side in A0's, but I believe that all A0's got those during the modernization. Only difference between early A0 from late A0/A1 is that first 29 vehicles have different kind of exhaust grille...

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