German Leopard 1 could receive Russian active protection "Arena"

The Russian-made Arena active protection complexes could be installed on German Leopard 1 main battle tanks. Judging by the materials that appeared on the Web, such plans were hatched in the mid-90s.

The characteristics of this KAZ were openly unveiled for the first time at the first exhibition - fair "Armament. Military equipment. Conversion" in early September 1993 in Nizhny Novgorod.

The presentation of a unique development at that time aroused great interest of military specialists, including foreign ones. Therefore, it is not surprising that the designers of Krauss-Maffei paid attention to it.

By this time, their first-generation Leopard, which was then one of the main tanks of the NATO bloc and had been in service for three decades, was outdated. This was especially true for protection - its frontal parts of the hull and turret were easily penetrated by the widespread at that time rocket-propelled grenade launchers, anti-tank guided missiles, cumulative shells of various types of guns.

To solve this problem turned out to be just within the power of the Russian "Arena", which easily shot down all the above-mentioned means of destruction. However, for unknown reasons, the case did not progress beyond preliminary studies.

Currently, Leopard 1 has been decommissioned in the German land forces, but continues to be used in the armies of countries such as Brazil, Greece, Turkey, Chile and others.

Currently, Israeli-made Trophy active protection systems are being installed on Leopard 2A7.

As for the Russian Arena, it has undergone a deep modernization, and last year its successful tests on the T-72B3M tank were demonstrated.

Alexey Moiseev