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Book Review
Leopard MBT in German Army Service - Late Years

by: Ethelian Middleton [ HAWKEYE ]

introduction
As the title suggests this book covers the service history, and development, of the Leopard 1 in the German Army. This is mainly achieved through the use of photographs, but there is a brief written history and a section on the modifications that the Leopard underwent during its career. At the back of the publication there are also several 1/35th scale drawings of the various versions of the Leopard. There are five side views, all of the left hand side, four overhead views and four views of the front and rear.


contents
The book is split into sections, each one dealing with a particular upgrade of the Leopard. We start off with the first upgrade to the Leopard program, the A1A1. This was the only upgrade in the mid to late 70’s it was not until the 80’s that the leopard started to be upgraded on a frequent basis. The second section covers the upgrades carried out throughout the 80’s. These included the addition of various night sites, including the PZB were fitted as well as newer and more powerful radios. Smaller modifications are also discussed and explanations given as to why they were introduced and when they were introduced.

There is some discussion as to the actual camouflage colours used, or more correctly when they were introduced. Early Leopards were only painted in NATO Green, but there is photographic evidence that this was not always the case, and the two tone, and three tone camouflage schemes were introduced earlier than thought, if only in an unofficial way. This section also discusses the markings for various Units and goes into some depth to explain the numbering system, which did not always follow the normal Company/Platoon/Tank system.

The biggest upgrade to the Leopard came with the realization that the Leopard 1 would be in service for longer than originally thought. The fire control system, the laser range finder, new thermal sights, and a new 120mm gun are just some of the conversions that are discussed in this section. It is also at this point that the Bundeswehr officially adopts the standard NATO scheme.

The sections following the discussion of the 1A5 deal with the export versions of the Leopard, but do not list the modifications made by each country when they received their Leopard’s. This is followed up by a brief discussion of the phase out of the Leopard and about the use of the Leopard as a test bed and some unique vehicles. This leads into a section on the Leopard 1A6. This is a short section as only two of these vehicles were built and the main differences could be found in the up armouring program and the fire control systems.

Towards the end of this section there are several smaller paragraphs that deal with specialized vehicles such as the Leopard 1A2 with a dozer blade, a Leopard 1A5 turret on a T-72 chassis and an Artillery Observation vehicle.

The photograph section is divided into the same order as the text at the front of the book and you get several pages of photographs on each variant, including the experimental variants. The photographs in these sections range from distance shoots, to close up detail shoots and should be a help to anyone needing confirmation of the location of a part, the colour of some small detail that is not included in the kit. Of particular note here I would mention the photographs of the add on armour plate mountings on the turrets. This provides the sort of hidden detail that is often hard for a modeller to find good photographs of.

In other photographs you can even see the texture of the steel used for the turrets. This would be most useful when texturing kit parts and is reminiscent of World War 2 photographs of German amour plate.

After the completion of the photographic section there is a brief two pages on the technical aspects of the Leopard 1. After this section is a section on “Unique Conversions”. Some of these conversions finally found their way onto the Leopard 2, while others did not get past the testing stage. The photographs do show some unique AFV’s that could be the basis for a model conversion. The section containing the 1/35th scale plans completes the book.


conclusion
.After reading this book several times, I was left with the impression that this is an essential book for anyone wanting to model any of the earlier variants of the Leopard 1. Not only are the photographs well taken, but also the many detail shots, I think, will provide an indispensable aid to the modeller. Of note is the inclusion of an “exploded” view of the various components for the Leopard 1A5. This is reminiscent of a stage from an instruction sheet and should benefit anyone, immensely, who wants to build a 1A5 variant.

The book does not cover all the variants of the Leopard 1, only the 1A1 to 1A5. A second book is promised that will cover the later variants of the Leopard 1 including the up-armoured versions. The photographs are very varied in their locations. Leopards in the field, on the practice ranges, factory fresh, and many detail shots, including the engine removed from the Leopard. The text is brief but informative, and lists the full modifications made to the Leopard. The captions are well written but there are a few typos in the translation from German to English, but nothing too drastic.

If you have an interest in Leopard 1’s, or even if it is modern tanks of any nation, I doubt you would be disappointed if you bought this book. Although it only covers German Leopard’s, many of the detail photograph’s are applicable to other nation’s Leopard’s. For your money you will find many interesting and detailed photographs, that will provoke the imagination and inspire you to build that Leopard 1, that was certainly my first thought after I had initially read it, and I had not had any plans to even think about building one, truly excellent reference work.


format
Soft cover
A4 size
64 pages
88 Colour photographs
German & English text
SUMMARY
An essential read for anybody modelling the Leopard MBT in later years.
  PHOTOGRAPHS:95%
  READABILITY:85%
  SCALE DRAWINGS:95%
Percentage Rating
90%
  Scale: Other
  Mfg. ID: 5014
  Suggested Retail: 14.95 Euros
  PUBLISHED: Aug 20, 2006
  NATIONALITY: Germany
NETWORK-WIDE AVERAGE RATINGS
  THIS REVIEWER: 89.00%
  MAKER/PUBLISHER: 90.19%

Our Thanks to Tankograd Publishing!
This item was provided by them for the purpose of having it reviewed on this KitMaker Network site. If you would like your kit, book, or product reviewed, please contact us.

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About Ethelian Middleton (Hawkeye)
FROM: WALES, UNITED KINGDOM

Copyright ©2021 text by Ethelian Middleton [ HAWKEYE ]. All rights reserved.



Comments

I don't quite understand one thing. Hawkeye wrote Well, first of all the reviewed book is a second book. First was about early years of Leo 1 in Bundeswehr service and this new book is about later variant. And judging from scanned pages from the reviewed book it seems to cover up-armored versions. Does it mean that third book is planned? What versions would be covered in it that were not covered in the first two? Pawel
AUG 20, 2006 - 03:21 PM
Pawel Ask Tankograd. Stop being supercilious. Vinnie
AUG 20, 2006 - 03:26 PM
Vinnie, the quoted text was written by Hawkeye, not Tankograd. He reviewed the book, so knows what variants are covered and if he wrote that some are not covered, then I would like to know which one. He mentions that variants 1A1 to 1A5 are covered, but A1 - A4 were already covered in the first book and I see on scans that at least a couple other versions are shown in the new book (e.g. 1A1A2, 1A1A4). These are not questions to Tankograd, but to the reviewer. I just want to know if variants I'm interested in are covered in this book. Pawel
AUG 20, 2006 - 03:31 PM
Agree with previous comments. Plus it would be helpful to put the full title on the review header : "Leopard MBT In German Army Service - Late years" and not only "Leopard MBT In German Army Service" because of possible confusion with the earlier volume "Leopard MBT In German Army Service - Early years" which I think should have been mentioned in the review to put things in context. Cheers, Christophe
AUG 25, 2006 - 07:54 AM
Pawel,Christophe, the mistake was mine and no one else's. I had submitted the review and did not realise i had missed out "late" in the title and got this paragraph the wrong way round. My only excuse is that i wanted to get the review to Vinnie before i went on vacation, sorry. Regards from the Swamp Eth
AUG 26, 2006 - 11:08 PM
   
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