Hybrids… Hybrids everywhere!

Alright guys, something more amusing for you. Picture courtesy of Ed Francis

T-72 Leopard 1 hybrd

Is this a fake? No sir, it’s a render of a project that actually really existed – a Leopard 1 hull with T-72 turret. Why? For the glory of Satan of course!

Okay, not really. Basically, what happened was that after the German re-unification in 1990, the former East-German Nationale Volksarmee (National People’s Army) was absorbed into Bundeswehr. One of the issues the Germans faced was a large number of incompatible Russian equipment (well, technically a lot of the East German stuff was made in Czechoslovakia and Poland but you get the drift). Some older vehicles were sold to third parties, some were scrapped. One idea, however, was to utilize old Leopard 1 hull along with T-72 turrets to produce such a hybrid for export. Needless to say, it’s an odd idea that never really happened – the hybrid was never built and all attempts to market it failed fairly quickly.

4 thoughts on “Hybrids… Hybrids everywhere!

  1. Who said the turret diameters are the same?? I don’t have any figures but I think the turret diameter of the T-72 is way larger than the leopard’s

    • You don’t need the same turret ring diameter – it’s not like the turrets share the turret ring types anyway. The hull would have to be overhauled – which is not technically a problem, this is not a field conversion.

    • Even the T-34s with 76mm guns didn’t share turret diameters with the -85s. Like SS said it’s not a problem (a big one atleast).

    • “it’s a render”, it is not even a technical drawing, it was probably used like how terraced houses are sold “we can make it look like this, do you want to buy it?”