I ran across a reference to a tank that apparently never got built, but was proposed in the 1990s. The recently reunified Germany had a lot of incompatible tanks, and when Malaysia was looking for something better than what they had, Germany proposed taking the hull of a Leopard 1 and putting the turret from a T-72 on it. While the hull would be rather underarmored, it wasn't much worse than a T-72 and was considered mechanically better (particularly for cross-country mobility), while the 125mm gun provided a firepower upgrade over the 105mm mounted in the Leopard's turret. Most Twilight timelines would never see this exist, but in Merc it might end up being produced for export - with over 2,000 Leopard 1 hulls available and 549 T-72 turrets, a decent number could be manufactured even if they didn't acquire more turrets.
__________________
The poster formerly known as The Dark
The Vespers War - Ninety years before the Twilight War, there was the Vespers War.
|