Germany unveils new powerful tank

 Popular Mechanics:

Germany has unveiled a new main battle tank—its first in more than 40 years.

The KF51, also known as the “Panther,” is bristling with new technology, including a larger main gun, a digital computer backbone, and a full suite of defensive features. The Panther even has the ability to counter so-called “top-attack” munitions, like the American-made Javelin missile, that are decimating Putin’s army in Ukraine.
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If the name Panther is familiar, that’s because it is. The Panzerkampfwagen V, also known as the “Panther,” was designed in 1942 to counter Russian tanks, including the T-34 medium tank. The Panther was one of the best tanks of the war, but was severely hobbled by mechanical and reliability issues. The Panther made its debut in the Battle of Kursk in 1943, and served on both the Eastern and Western fronts, including D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge.

The KF51 is the successor to the Leopard 2, a contemporary of the American M1 Abrams tank. The Leopard 2 debuted in the early 1980s and is still in service today with over a dozen armies worldwide. The Leopard II has been steadily upgraded for decades, with the latest version being the German Army’s Leopard 2A7. Unfortunately, like many upgraded systems, eventually there comes a point when it becomes impractical to keep adding new stuff to the old system. The only way to move forward is to design something completely new.
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The Panther’s turret is bigger with sharper angles and a much larger overhang over the engine compartment, the latter to both store larger, heavier main gun ammunition and to act as a counterweight to the new 130-millimeter main gun. The KF51 is the first production tank equipped with a 130-millimeter main gun, a break from the current 120-millimeter standard. Although the NATO countries—particularly the United States, Germany, and France—experimented with the larger 130-millimeter caliber in the 1990s, the end of the Cold War and relatively good relations with Russia made that unnecessary.

The new gun, named Future Gun System (FGS), is largely in response to the new Russian T-14 Armata tank, which was first unveiled in 2015. Rheinmetall claims FGS has a “50 percent longer kill range” than the older 120-millimeter guns. According to Europäische Sicherheit & Technik, the new gun is a 130-millimeter/L52 gun, meaning the barrel length is 52 times the diameter of the barrel. That comes out to 6,760 millimeters, or 22.1 feet long. The barrel is also fitted with a futuristic-looking shroud, but it’s not clear how it contributes to the efficiency or effectiveness of the tank.
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The Russian tanks appear to be no match for the NATO countries like Germany.  This tank appears to be very competitive. 

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