Introduction

At the end of the 1950s, the German Bundeswehr decided to replace its M 47 / M 48 tanks of American origin as soon as possible with a new main battle tank built in West Germany. In many respects, the American designs did no longer correspond with German tactical ideas and operational requirements for the Central European theatre of operations. Thus, starting from scratch again, West Germany began new tank construction. As early as November 1956, the army's joint staff had already formulated its requirements for the first German tank design, "Kampfpanzer Standard" or standardised concept tank, since World War Two. Finally, on 09 September 1965, the first German post-war tank design, the series-produced and aptly named Leopard main battle tank was handed over to the Panzertruppe.

This publication shows, with impressive action photos, the Leopard 1s of the Bundeswehr in NATO exercises during the Cold War, among them for example Schneller Wechsel 74, Nassauer Löwe 76, Standhafte Chatten 77, Wehrhafte Löwen 83, Sichere Festung 84, Schwerer Dampfhammer 86 plus REFORGER exercises and more.

Review

This offering from Tankograd covering the Leopard 1 is authored by Walter Bohm. This is a soft backed book, with a glossy card cover protecting 64 A4 pages of glossy paper. This offering is one of Tankograd’s duel language offering with German text on the left and English text on the right of each page. The text in the title uses a good font, but due to getting older I did struggle with the font size. What I class as the dedicated text covers the initial distribution of the Leopard to German tank units and their use in Cold War exercises. You also get a short breakdown of each of the exercises covered at the start of the photographic section, and as a modeller I feel this is sufficient text in providing the information I need as regards time and placement. 

The photographs in the title offers a good mix of colour and black and white images, all of which are captioned in both German and English and this has resulted in a good selection showing the Leopard 1 in the field doing what it is supposed to do and how dirt and grime naturally collects on the vehicle. The other aspects that I gleamed from this title are the environment in which the tank operates and how that affects the finishes applied by the crews. One of my concerns with reference to the colour photographs is that those from the 1960s and 70s often have a fuzzy look to them and I am pleased to see that Tankograd has avoided that issue in this title.

Conclusion

Tankograd titles covering exercises of military forces have always proven to by very popular with modellers. This offering provides the modeller with a look at the Leopard 1 in a number of variants during various exercises and so represents good value for money for the fans of NATO exercises. For me, the biggest value of these titles, as a modeller is seeing tanks in the field performing their task and how they naturally look and accumulate dirt.