three versions of Leopard 2 were delivered to Ukraine and a modification of leopard 2A4 was created as well.
In this simple thread I will show you some features that help to differentiate and identify these vehicles.
the Leopard 2A4 is the most numerous vehicle of the leopard 2 Series present in Ukraine and also the easiest to identify, since it has unique characteristics.
talking about the turret, the vehicle does not have additional armor like the leopard 2A6, so its turret is Square and easy to be identified from any angle, unlike the Leopard 2A6 it distributes equally 4 smoke grenade launchers on the side of the turret, both above and below.
the vehicle does not have a CITV, instead the commander has access to a panoramic vision system which is located in front of the hatch, it is a much smaller system than the CITV present in the Leopard 2A6 and STRV 122 which is located behind the commander's Hatch.
the gunner's sight system is the same as the leopard 2A6, the difference being that the system sits in a "hole" in the front of the turret that makes identification easier.
there is a variant of the leopard 2A4 that I affectionately call "leopard 2A4BV" that basically adds Kontakt-1 armor and spaced armor on the vehicle, it is also easy to identify, check out the images.
a good way to identify a leopard 2A6 is by looking at its cannon, it is the MBT with the largest cannon in service in the Ukrainian army and it is easy to see that its size is larger than the others.
the easiest way to identify a leopard 2A6 is by looking at the additional turret armor, in front of the turret it is triangle-shaped and extends to the sides of the turret.
as I already said before, this vehicle has a CITV that is behind the commander's Hatch and is relatively large, you can use the CITV to identify a leopard 2A6 since the CITV of the STRV 122 has additional armor.
unlike the leopard 2A4, the gunner's sight is on the top of the turret and not in a "hole" but this is present in the STRV 122 as well.
if possible always pay attention to the smoke launchers on the side of the tower, this is the only vehicle with 6 launchers on top and 2 on the bottom.
The STRV 122 has a considerably larger armor in front of the tower and has 1 armor kit that extends from the upper plate of the hull to the beginning of the Lower Plate, at the top of the tower it has another composite armor kit also very flashy.
the CITV of the vehicle is the same as that of the Leopard 2A6 but with the difference that it has 4 extra armor plates, one in the back, one in the right, one on the left and another that is on top of the CITV that is placed in front of the system for protection.
another unique feature of the STRV 122 it is the "GALIX" smoke launcher that has 4 launchers and is very easy to identify, since it is the only vehicle with such a system worth paying attention to this characteristic.
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Sources: me
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The United States supplied 186 M2A2 ODS-SA to Ukraine, 26 of these vehicles were destroyed so far, which would be 13% of the fleet.
today I'm going to show you these vehicles.
1/26: the first M2A2 was destroyed by enemy fire on 6 or 8 June in an attempt to breach the Russian defences south of the city of Mala Tokmachka, the damaged vehicles that were with bradley were later recovered.
2/26: Destroyed by artillery on the same occasion.
List of destroyed leopard 2s of the AFU from the beginning of the offensive to now.
the first Leopard 2 destroyed was a leopard 2A4 that was hit by artillery at the beginning of the offensive in a raid near Novopokrovka, subsequently it was seen that the crew (or a part of it) managed to get out of the vehicle alive.
the second leopard 2A4 with documented loss was destroyed by a Lancet in the South of Mala Tokmachka, it seems that the drone hit the ammunition of the hull, which resulted in the turret being thrown away, fortunately the vehicle seemed to be abandoned.
in Afghanistan, the USA realized that Humvees, even with structural reinforcements and additional armor, did not provide sufficient protection against IEDs. to solve this problem, the Americans began to use new MRAP-type vehicles+
vehicles such as the maxxpro were adopted but they were very large vehicles and despite having excellent protection they were heavy and not very mobile, this led to low mobility in the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan, so in 2008 The Americans began to study another type of+
Today we are going to see some cool stuff about the PT-91, the best version of the T-72 in Ukraine.
the vehicle is one of the only ones in service in Ukraine that has laser warning systems, the system is the SSC-1 "OBRA" the only MBTs in the Ukrainian army that use laser warning systems are the T-84 oplot, oplot-M and PT-91, no Western MBT donated to Ukraine has similar systems
this system when detects a laser (Laser telemeter, laser missile Guider and similar systems) alerts the crew with images and sounds, showing the direction from which the laser is being emitted, it also automatically releases smoke grenades to mask the tank signature.
the CV9040C is a version of the CV9040 made for peacekeeping missions outside Sweden that prioritized crew protection and comfort.
let's see some details of this vehicle that was ceded to Ukraine along with the STRV 122.
the vehicle comes equipped with an internal coating called an "anti-spall liner" that basically stops or decreases the level of fragments thrown into vehicles, which can be from artillery or another vehicle. (Second image is illustrative)
the vehicle received many extra armor kits, primarily to deal with IEDs and mines. the hull's base armor also received an increase to cope against light weapons and grenades. it is said in some sources that the level of ballistic protection can be a STANAG 4569 Level 5.