Overview

The concept of a tank usually involves the notion of thick frontal armor rated to stop attacks from the enemy’s most common anti-armor weaponry. But with the superheavy tank suddenly made extinct overnight by the proliferation of steel-devouring HEAT warheads in the 1950s, early Cold War era armor design was advancing into unknown territory. With this upheaval as the backdrop, West German planners sought a replacement for their aging American-made tanks: something highly mobile with plenty of firepower, not limited by any attempt to cling to potentially unattainable levels of armor protection as a requirement. The result of this shift in priorities was the Leopard.

By 1985, the year of GHPC's alt history Cold-War-gone-hot setting, the original Leopard was in the process of being upstaged by the far more advanced Leopard 2, but a significant fleet of the older tanks remained in service. Upgrade packages kept them relevant through the 1980s, including the "A1" family of variants featured in the game.

Due to its unusual combination of design traits, the Leopard needs to be played with a deft combination of aggression and caution. It’s a true glass cannon, best used in situations where it can shoot first and then get away before return fire arrives. With a familiar L7-derived 105mm main gun outfitted with a variety of ammunition types, destroying any target on the battlefield should be possible – though using the DM13 APDS round against the more modern Pact armor from the frontal aspect may be challenging.

Given how important connecting every shot is for this tank in particular, it’s important to cover all the details of the optics and fire control system.

Note: in real life, the Leopard was only referred to as the "Leopard 1" after the Leopard 2 was created. The addition of the extra “1” also applied to variant designations, such as 1A1A1. For brevity, the game's UI labeling omits the leading digit and uses the original names of the Leopard A1 variants.

Variants

Before we get too far into the details of using the Leopard 1A1 series, it's worth covering the differences between the versions featured in GHPC:

NOTE: An asterisk (*) in this chart indicates that the item is not strictly attached to the variant in real life but was chosen to reflect contemporary changes to the West German Leopard fleet at roughly the same time.

Primary sight

The main gunsight of the Leopard A1 series uses a clean sight picture with a familiar NATO-style reticle, which remains centered in the sight while the fire control system (FCS) handles gun superelevation separately. To aim, first perform rangefinding on the target as needed, then dial in the correct range number, and finally place the center of the cross on the center of the target before firing.

Since the gun is superelevated separately and the sight is not synced to the gun barrel direction, the gunsight view has no explicitly labeled ballistic drop markings. Instead, it displays the current FCS distance setting via a sliding range scale directly in the optic, to the right of the aiming reticle. The numeric labels are truncated by one digit: the “50” actually means 500 meters, the “100” means 1000, and so on.

Unlike the etched gunsight reticles of many older optics, which appear black when not specifically illuminated, this reticle is projected and always glows in a yellow-orange color.

Stereoscopic rangefinder overview

The Leopard 1 features a unique form of optical rangefinder using the "stereoscopic" method. At first glance, this sounds similar to an optical coincidence rangefinder: the user's viewfinder is fed by two sight apertures on the sides of the turret, which they focus on the target in order to judge the range. But the operating principle is very different.

A coincidence rangefinder requires the user to overlap (coincide) two images to set the correct range. This is seen in GHPC's M60A1 (where the images are transparent and overlapping) as well as the Soviet TPD-2-49 sights (where the images are displayed as two half circles that must be aligned). By contrast, a stereoscopic rangefinder relies on the user's 3D depth perception. The reticle of the stereoscopic rangefinder is rendered separately in each eyepiece in a way that makes it appear to "hover" in space, far in front of the optic. Adjusting the range setting of the optic will send the image of the reticle "toward" or "away from" the user. When the reticle appears to be at the same distance as the target, "touching" it in space, the range is correct.

Unfortunately, we cannot show a floating reticle in 3D space on a flat monitor, so we've taken some artistic liberty with the Leopard 1 rangefinder. Our depiction of the rangefinder's distance setting relies on two visual cues:

3D reticle with camera sway: The reticle is indeed projected into space, but rather than using your brain's binocular vision skills to convey the depth, we induce some camera sway or "head bob" while the sight is in rangefinder mode. The subtle perspective shifts of various objects in view help reveal what distance they're at. When the range is correct, the reticle will appear to move with the target as one, rather than shifting around over it.

Forced depth of field effect: Since we can't create a natural perception of 3D depth on a flat screen, we've added exaggerated focus blur on objects that are not at the current distance setting of the rangefinder. If the target comes into sharp focus, that's a good sign that the distance setting is roughly correct.

The combination of these two visual cues should allow the stereoscopic rangefinder to be useful, while being visually distinct from the coincidence rangefinders on other tanks.

Stereoscopic rangefinder with incorrect range setting, showing high blur and out-of-sync motion between reticle and target:

Stereoscopic rangefinder with correct range setting, showing more sharpness on the target and synced motion between reticle and target:

Using the rangefinder

The procedure for ranging and engaging a target with the Leopard A1 is similar to the one for the existing coincidence rangefinders in GHPC, but with the added twist that the rangefinder mode must be toggled off before the final aiming adjustment since it hides the primary aiming reticle.

1. Direct the main optic toward the target and toggle rangefinder mode on (default: E)
2. While watching the target, adjust the FCS range setting up or down (default: left Ctrl and mousewheel, or PgUp and PgDown) until the focus is sharp and the sway of the ranging reticle and target are matched
3. Toggle rangefinder mode back off and point the center of the main reticle at the center of the target
4. Fire

Note that the ranging mark visible during rangefinding is not in the center of the optic and therefore is not suitable as an aiming mark. Using it to engage the target while in rangefinder mode will result in landing the projectile short of the target.

Night fighting

The Leopard A1 series uses two different primary night sights, depending on the specific variant. The A1A1 and A1A3 use an active infrared system with a night vision periscope sight only installed for night operations, while the A1A2 and A1A4 have a dedicated add-on night sight on the gun mantlet.

Early night sight

The early generation Leopard A1 night sight has a fairly limited set of capabilities. It relies on active infrared illumination from the searchlight on the gun mantlet, and though it has the ability to zero at different ranges, there are only three to choose from: 800 meters, 1000 meters, and 1200 meters.

Due to the limitations in the night sight’s range settings and the fact that GHPC only offers one range setting in general for the vehicle, entering the optic view for this night sight (default: T) will clamp the tank’s current range setting to the nearest valid one out of those three ranges.

Since the sight is installed in the turret roof during night operations and replaced with a different periscope sight during the daytime, the night sight view is fully unavailable in the daytime for the Leopard A1A1 and A1A3. Pressing the night sight key will do nothing in this scenario.

PZB-200 night sight

Leopard A1A2 and A1A4 models use a more effective night sight, the PZB-200 unit, which is mounted on the right side of the gun mantlet in a prominent cage-like frame. This sight is not only capable of decent passive performance but also adjusts the reticle position based on the ammunition and range settings with no significant limitations. In GHPC, the border of the optic view for the PZB-200 is a television screen, representing the analog display unit that would be found in the real tank.

TZF 1A telescope sight

For situations where the main sight is unusable or a different perspective closer to the bore axis is useful, the auxiliary sight can be used by switching views (default: C) while using the main sight. This sight features multiple sliding range scales with a sliding reticle and indicator set, similar to the gunner’s sight of the BMP-2.

A notable quirk of the Leopard’s auxiliary sight is the fact that the neutral or zero position of the reticle is quite high, well above the center of the optic view. This is necessary due to the extreme ballistic drop of the HESH round. In order for the reticle to remain in view when the sight is adjusted for high range settings for this ammunition, there must be plenty of space for the reticle to travel vertically.

As with most etched optics in GHPC, the reticle of this sight can be illuminated in a solid color (default: i) for low light conditions or to make it more visible against dark backdrops.

Armor protection

The speed of the Leopard A1 comes at a price: a pronounced lack of thick armor. The frontal aspect is largely protected against heavy machine guns and most autocannons, but a full-size anti-tank round is a serious threat, regardless of caliber, type, or generation. This applies for everything from kinetic penetrators to the various types of HEAT rounds fired by infantry and vehicles. When using the Leopard, it’s vitally important to shoot first and use movement and hard cover to avoid getting shot in return.

A notable feature of the Leopard A1A1 through A1A4 is the add-on turret armor. This steel-rubber composite serves to provide extra protection against specific threats, such as full-caliber APHE rounds, and this effect is recreated in GHPC. However, the armor panels’ low overall thickness and the nature of their operating mechanism render them ineffective against more modern anti-tank threats.

Ammunition

The standard Leopard 1 loadout for the early Cold War numbered 60 rounds total, consisting of APDS, HEAT-FS, and HESH. However, during the second half of the 1980s, the Bundeswehr switched over to a 55-round APFSDS and HEAT-FS loadout, much like what the US Army was using at the time. Due to this change, there is some variation in official standard Leopard A1 loadouts from the Cold War.

We have chosen to depict this shift by giving the Leopard A1A4 the updated ammo loadout by default, featuring DM23 APFSDS as its standard dart. The three other variants receive the earlier loadout with DM13 APDS. Doctrinally, these two rounds are identical – suited primarily for the anti-tank role – but it is worth noting that the DM23 is a fairly strong round while the DM13 is emphatically not. The newer Soviet-designed tanks (T-64, T-72, and T-80) may be too well armored for the APDS round to penetrate frontally outside of specific weak spots, and it’s recommended to use flanking tactics to make up for this limitation.

A notable departure from the familiar 105mm ammo load of the American tanks is the addition of High Explosive Squash Head (HESH) ammunition for the Leopard. In addition to standard HE blast damage, this round has a rather unique way of damaging armored targets. The head of the round is made of plastic explosive compound, and upon impact with a flat surface, it quickly deforms into a broad pancake before detonating. For homogenous plates of the correct thickness, the shock of the detonation on the outside surface blows off a chunk of armor on the inside, sometimes called a "scab". The armor scab then rips into the interior of the target, damaging it the same way penetration spall would.

Much like real-life HESH rounds, the 105mm HESH featured in the Leopard A1 loadout is most effective against lightly armored targets and when impacting a perpendicular or mildly angled surface. Some amount of angle will make the round more effective, but too much angle will cause it to rapidly become useless, possibly failing to detonate at all. In addition, the armor scab tends to blast off in the normal direction (directly away from the plane of the armor face), so the target's shape will have a large influence on whether you damage anything important inside of it.

With the HESH ammo having fairly niche use cases and the sabot ammo being specialized for heavily armored targets, the most flexible ammo for the Leopard is its HEAT round. DM12 is a copy of the American M456 HEAT round and is just as effective against lightly armored targets, up to and including older tanks with homogenous steel armor. Provided you can land a hit with it, this round should be devastating to any target in GHPC short of a composite armored tank. Fittingly, the largest portion of the ammo loadout is reserved for this ammo type.

Conclusion

A daring departure from contemporary tank design, the Leopard 1 managed to stay relevant into the late Cold War by being a quick mover and an effective shooter. Using these strengths in GHPC will reward the player who rises to the challenge of learning proper gunnery and tactics.