Leopard 2

Germany's Leopard 2 — the most widely fielded Western main battle tank, a 120 mm four-crew design exported to more than 20 armies and donated to Ukraine, where its 2A4 and 2A6 variants have fought since 2023.

Overview

The Leopard 2 is the standard main battle tank of Germany and, through four decades of export, the de facto common heavy tank of European NATO. Built by Krauss-Maffei Wegmann — now part of KNDS Deutschland — around a Rheinmetall 120 mm smoothbore gun and an MTU diesel, it is fielded by more than twenty armies in variants spanning the 1980s-vintage 2A4 to the current 2A7V and the newly delivered 2A8. Its blend of firepower, protection and mobility, plus a deep installed base and shared logistics, made it the natural backbone of the Western coalition's tank donations to Ukraine.

Development

KNDS predecessor Krauss-Maffei developed the Leopard 2 as the successor to the Leopard 1, and the type entered Bundeswehr service in 1979, per GlobalSecurity and the Leopard 2 reference record at Wikipedia. The 2A4 — produced in the largest numbers (over 1,800 between 1985 and 1992) and widely held or stored across Europe — became the export workhorse. Later standards added protection and a longer gun: the 2A6 introduced the L/55 barrel around 2001, and the current 2A7V entered Bundeswehr service in the early 2020s, with KMW delivering the final 2A7V to the German Army in 2023, according to Defence-Industry.eu and Below The Turret Ring. Deliveries of the further-improved 2A8 began in 2025–26.

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