Leopard C1 was the main battle tank in Canada from 1977 until it was replaced by the Leopard 2 during the Afghanistan War. The Leopard C1 replaced the aging Centurion fleet after much political back and forth. The tank served Canada during the end of the Cold War, allowing Canada to meet its NATO commitments. During the early 2000s the Canadian Department of National Defence(DND) started a program to refit the aging C1s with turrets from surplus Leopard 1A5 bought from Germany. In the fall of 2006 a small number of the 'new' Leopard C2s were sent to Afghanistan, where the C2s were not up to the task. The Canadian military borrowed a number of Leopard 2s from Germany, thus starting the end of the Leopard C1 in the Canadian Army.

It is a great book and very humbly I was very pleased as punch as an ex-Leopard C1 Crew Commander to help out Carl Schulze on the accuracy of the text.(thanks to Carl for acknowledging my assistance on the last page).

Just a few clarification points about the first paragraph of the review...

Quoted Text

---

Leopard C1 was the main battle tank in Canada from 1977 until it was replaced by the Leopard 2 during the Afghanistan War. The Leopard C1 replaced the aging Centurion fleet after much political back and forth. The tank served Canada during the end of the Cold War, allowing Canada to meet its NATO commitments. During the early 2000s the Canadian Department of National Defence(DND) started a program to refit the aging C1s with turrets from surplus Leopard 1A5 bought from Germany. In the fall of 2006 a small number of the 'new' Leopard C2s were sent to Afghanistan, where the C2s were not up to the task. The Canadian military borrowed a number of Leopard 2s from Germany, thus starting the end of the Leopard C1 in the Canadian Army.

---

The Leopard C1 was not replaced by the Leopard 2 in Afghanistan. The Leopard C1 was replaced by the Leopard C2 between 1999 and 2001.

An entire Squadron of Leopard C2s were sent to Afghanistan in 2006...they weren't new but they were uparmoured with MEXAS.

The Leopard C2 served in Afghanistan were it eventually served along side the Leopard 2A6M CAN and the Leopard 2A4M CAN. It will continue to serve in Canada until it is totally replaced by the Leopard 2 variants.

I wonder if the publisher will eventually produce a hard cover book on Leopard 1? Tankograd has two great hard cover volumes of the Leopard 2. Their softcover booklets on the Canadian Leopard 2s and Finnish Leopards are included in the hard cover book of the international versions of Leopard 2.