Canadian Leopard 1 tanks

The Canadian Armed Forces acquired a fleet of 127 German made Canadian Leopard 1 tanks, in the 1970s. They remained in the Armed Forces inventory until 2017. In 2021 the decision was made to disarm 45 of the remaining tanks, so they could serve as targets on the practice firing range at the Cold Lake Alberta Base. A contract was awarded to disarm the tanks in December, 2021. Other remaining were to sent to museums.

Design

At the time of the tank's design the Leopard 1, and the similar French AMX 30, were designed to protect their crew through their speed, and, by today's standards, they were lightly armoured. They were about 40 tons - similar to Soviet tanks of the period.

By the 1980s tank designers worked with advanced optics, that improved the range and accuracy of tank's cannons, and with advanced composite armour, that helped defeat anti-tank rounds, so Germany's followup tank, the Leopard 2, was fifty percent heavier than the Leopard 2.

Canada purchased the version known in Germany as the Leopard 1A3. By 2000 114 of these vehicles received upgraded turrets from the Leopard 1A5, then the most recent version. These turrets had both improved optics and improved armour.

Comparison between the Leopard 1 and Leopard 2

Leopard 1	Leopard 2	notes
first introduced	1965
first used by Canada	1979	2007	The Leopard 2 was in development in 1978, when Canada decided to replace its aging Centurion tanks, but there was a waiting list, and new Leopard 2 vehicles could not be delivered for close to a decade, whereas new Leopard 1 vehicles could be delivered the next year. The first Leopard 2 vehicles Canada operated were 20 vehicles leased from Germany, in the summer of 2007, while it waited to complete the purchase of used vehicles from the Netherlands.
main armament	British made 105 mm rifled cannon	German made 120 mm smoothbore cannon	The 105 mm cannon was used by all other Nato tanks, including the first model of the M1 Abrams. The British squash-head munition relied on rifling for accuracy. The 120 mm cannon is the current favoured cannon for Nato tanks. Accuracy of its projectiles relies on fins.
weight when introduced
power
ground pressure

In Canadian service

Critics of the Canadian Armed Forces joked it had more generals than it had tanks.

The tanks went through periodic updates and upgrades. A new turret provided 114 of the

Canada donated a pair of Leopard 1 tanks, in working order, to the Bobington Tank Museum, in the United Kingdom, in 2007.

A squadron of Leopard 1 tanks were sent to join the Canadian expeditionary force in Afghanistan in 2006. This was their first operational deployment after almost three decades in service.

By April 2007 Canada started working to acquire Leopard 2 tanks. Twenty leased German Leopard 2 tanks were delivered to Afghanistan in August 2007. Canada had purchased approximately 100 used vehicles from the Netherlands, but they had been in storage since shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and needed to be upgraded. One important improvement of Canada's new vehicles was going to be air-conditioning. The lack of air-conditioning in the Leopard 1 tanks posed a serious health risk to their crews during the hot Afghan summer.

Following February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, after Ukraine requested the gift of tanks from Nato nations, the suggestion was made that Ukraine might accept Leopard 1 tanks that were surplus to the donating nations' needs - including tanks from Canada.

A complicating factor is that nations that own military equipment acquired from Germany, like Leopard tanks, requires Germany's permission before they can be sold or given to a third country.

In January 2023 Germany gave its permission for other countries to provide Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. And, in February 2023, it announced it would be providing surplus Leopard 1 tanks to Ukraine, and that other nations could follow suit.

Rough work

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