The all-cast turret is mounted in the centre of the hull with the commander and gunner seated on the right and the loader on the left. In front of the hatch are three periscopes, the centre one of which can be replaced by an image intensification periscope for night driving. The driver is seated at the front of the hull on the right and is provided with a single-piece hatch cover that opens to the left. The all-welded steel hull is divided into two compartments, the crew compartment at the front and engine compartment at the rear. Production of the Leopard 1 was completed by Krauss-Maffei in 1979 but resumed by both Krauss-Maffei and Krupp-MaK early in 1981 to meet the requirements of Greece and Turkey.īy early 1999 the Leopard 1 MBT was no longer in front line service with the German Army although it was still used by reserve units. The first production Leopard was handed over to the Federal German Army in September 1965. MaK also built a small number of Leopard 1 MBTs under subcontract to Krauss-Maffei. In July 1963, Krauss-Maffei (which in January 1999 became Krauss-Maffei Wegmann with facilities in Munich and Kassel) of Munich was nominated prime contractor for the Leopard 1 MBT and MaK of Kiel was selected as general contractor for production of the armoured recovery vehicle, armoured engineer vehicle and the armoured bridgelayer. Full details of the development history of the Leopard 1 MBT was given in Jane's Armour and Artillery 1997-98 page 35.

The Leopard 1 MBT was developed to meet the requirements of the Federal German Army and following trials with prototype vehicles was accepted for service in 1963.

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