Tactics
 

Yes the Leopard 2 has the Rheinmetall 120 mm( both L44 and L55 variants) as incidentally have the Abrams( same gun made under licence in the US), the Merkava IV, the Challenger II,The Korean Black Panther and the Japanese Type 90 tank.The best tank gun in the West no question about it.Now they are talking about replacing it with a 140 mm also made by Rheinmetall.There's an experimental Leopard (III ?)being displayed with it.

OFFTOPIC: I 've always wondered about the A designation in the Leopard I and II series.Does it stand for Ausfuehrung( series/version)?Skybird do you know?

RE the topic I agree with TLAM strike; airpower as demonstrated during WWII has changed nature of the technological versus numerical advantage issue.If your opponent can deny you mastery of the air then no matter how sophisticated your armoured or ground forces are numerical avantage will prevail as long as the technological gap is not insurmountable.We saw a examples both during the Normandy campaign in June-August 1944 and again in December 1944 during the Ardennes(Bulge) offensive when the moment the Allies were able to use their air supremacy to full effect the stronger and more sophisticated German heavy armour was unable to defeat Anglo-American armoured forces.On the East front on the other hand where the Soviets did not have air supremacy until the last few months of the war, the Tigers I and II and the Panther s were able to take a heavy toll on enemy armour.The Gulf Wars also showed how effective air power can be against armour but while airpower can help you win a war ground and armoured forces are still the basic tool to make your victory concrete on the ground.

In a hypothetical WWIII, airpower and the ability of NATO grounds forces to put to effective use their ATMs and TOWS would have mattered more than the 3 to 1 numerical superiority of the masses of Warsaw pact tanks and armour facing them.Not to mention the morale factor; i.e how effective and motivated would the WP " allies" of the SU have been in a surprise attack on West Germany?

Anyway interesting debate Sledge!:up:

I was speaking of the Leo-1, which never had the 120.

The Leo2-A6 has the L55, which is the new and longer version of the 120mm Rheinmetall. The older one was the L44.

The shot trap may be an issue with stones and balls, but not with Sabot projectiles - these will penetrate into the armour where they hit it, they will not bounce off. There are pictures were gun tubes had been split from the tip with the opening and then along the wall of the tube, as if it had been cut by a huge knife.

Those "angular additions" may look irritating, but I am sure the designers have not overseen something like a "shot trap". For some reason the Leo-2A5/6 is considered to be one of the best protected tanks in the world, so... ;) The thing is called MEXAS, Modular Expandable Armor System, the wedge is hollow and should ignite HE warheads before they reach the solid turret armor, and to break up Sabot. The siurface consists of layers of ceramics and Keflar and should have a more than doubled resistence than steel plates of same weight. The hollow inside of the plates at the turret's sides sometimes even get used as storages. The Mexas is a German invention and got attached to several other German vehicles as well, for example the Fennek, the Panzerhaubitze 2000 (what a beast, the best of its kind in the world!), and several smaller vehicle types in Afghanistan. The Canadian Leopard-1s also got equipped with it.

An advanced new version of Mexas gets used for the latest German vehicle designs like Puma and Boxer.

AV = austere version
A0-A6 = could be a simple letter-number counting, or indeed "Ausführung" X. I really don't know.

Panzerhaubitze
 

The Leo I only had the British-designed 105 mm gun.I think they thought at one point about upgunning it to 120 mm but then the Leopard II came along.

Speaking of the Panzerhaubitze 2000 there are several videos available on YouTube of firing tests made by the Bundeswehr which show the firepower of that awesome SPG.It would make Anzio Annie proud!!!!