With the engine in front, this layout gives additional protection against a frontal attack, especially for the personnel in the main hull, like the driver. Following the model of contemporary self-propelled howitzers, the turret assembly is located nearer the rear than in most main battle tanks.
It is designed for rapid repair of battle damage, survivability, cost-effectiveness and off-road performance. The tank has the ability to engage moving targets while moving over rough terrain. All models feature digital fire control systems with laser range finders, a fully stabilized main gun and coaxial machine gun, and advanced night vision and sighting equipment (first vehicles used a low-light level TV system or LLLTV thermal imaging was introduced later on). There are two main development batches of the tank, the original models up to Leopard 2A4 which have vertically-faced turret armour, and the "improved" batch, namely the Leopard 2A5 and newer versions, which have angled arrow-shaped turret appliqué armour together with a number of other improvements. The Leopard 2 first saw combat in Kosovo with the German Army and has also seen action in Afghanistan with the Danish and Canadian contributions to the International Security Assistance Force. More than 3,480 Leopard 2s have been manufactured. Various versions have served in the armed forces of Germany and twelve other European countries, as well as several non-European nations. The tank first entered service in 1979 and succeeded the earlier Leopard 1 as the main battle tank of the German Army. The Leopard 2A7 is a main battle tank developed by Krauss-Maffei in the early 1970s for the West German Army.
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