Leopard 1 : success or not

How would you rate the Leopard 1 tank compared to its contemporaries :
AMX30 - Chieftain, M-60, T-55, T-62 ?

I think the Leopard was one of the most effecient tanks ,way ahead of T-55 and AMX-30, but it it certainly was lacking in passive protection compared to Cheiftain,T-62 and M-60.

Also I wonder how its combat record compares to Chieftain (Iran/IraQ conflict), Amx-30 , M-60 and T-62.

I do know that the Danish army was very satisfied by the performance of the Leopard 1 in Bosnia.
But then again, they were not involved in any serious tank versus tank combat, just some harrasment fire and ineffectual anti tank missile attacks.

 

I think both the M60 and Chieftain are much more heavy tanks than the Leopard.It's difficult really comparing them.
But I think that indeed the Leopard was generally bether than the AMX 30, or it's soviet counterparts.

I would definately call it a sucess.

 

From what I've read, the Leopard 1 had good all round gun, armour, perfromance.

The Chieften had a good gun and armour but not so good mobility compared to its equivalents in other countries.

The M60....adequate gun...

AMX30, adeqauate gun and armour, good perfromance.

 

I also heard soemthing about that 70mm frontal armor, but it didn't have to be very thick as it is angled, so it offers more protection than that 70mm

 

According to this it's only for the versions 1, 1a1, 1a2, 1a3 others had gotten spaced armor!

All others had more (how much?) and the turret had max 90mm for the 1 and 1a1 versions...others had more and eventually spaced armor!

http://www.geocities.com/pzkfw5/Leopard1-Data.htm
http://www.kmweg.de/

 

http://psychcentral.com/psypsych/Leopard_tank

according to this its 'glacis plate is 140mm (same as Leopard II)?

http://members.tripod.com/collinsj/protect.htm

Didn't realise i did know so little about "modern" tanks!

 

For PMN1

The M68 105 mm gun on the M60 was a British gun, and, given the time at which the M60 served, it was most certainly an "adequate" gun. I'm not sure about the quality of the sights on British tanks, but on US tanks, the optics were quite good. We used to shoot at 4' x 6' panels during the zeroing part of gunnery. After the panels were shot away, which happened rather quickly, we then used to shoot at and hit at 1200 m the 2" x 4" posts that held the target panels up. That shooting was with the HEAT-TPT (Target Practice Tracer). I never had any doubts about my crew's ability to hit and kill a T-55 or T-62 at two or three thousand meters.