Comments by "" (@tomk3732) on "T-72 vs Leopard 1A5: Trash vs Quality?" video.

Well, Iraqi tank crews were so poorly trained they could not hit huge Abrams tank from point blank range. Their infantry could not hit barn door from 100m with their AK47s. Realistically T-72A has no issues hitting stationary tank target from 2000m with about 80%+ probability on first shot. At least Polish T-72M1 (similar to A). Iraqis had a very hard time penetrating their own tanks with ammo they got - which was from 1960s. Essentially Iraqi T-72 could not penetrate cheeks of other T-72 from above 1500m. And we are talking here original T-72s.
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Leo 1 main weakness is luck of any armor making it unsuitable for any modern war. Up armored with say K-5 Panther would be significantly better tank vs. Leopard 1 today. This assumes same avionics. Later version of Leo 1 tried to at least partially fix armor issue by adding more of it, but it was still not a lot and slowed the tank down. Leo 1 is a total glass canon.
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Well, one has to point out that NATO equipment would not have survived local treatment. I.e. its common in Africa to use a rifle as walking stick, sitting stick ,portable hammer etc. (all seen by me) I assume tanks and other equipment gets similar treatment - seen trucks that cannot go up hill as their engines are so worn they do not produce even fraction of HP of new.
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One has to remember that Leo 1 was removed from service due to existence of T-72. So yes, as tanks go Leo 1 is trash.
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@rogerpennel1798 There was zero need. They used MiG-29s as aggressor testers for a bit and then they given them away to Poland. So more or less they scrapped them as well. None of these T-72s were latest model or anything. They were cheap export models, M and M1. At the end of the cold war Germany had LOTS of their own tanks and no need for more tanks. It is hard to imagine that just before the end of cold war Germany (west) had over 500k troops (!!!) This was supported by over 7000 armored vehicles and well over 1000 combat aircraft. Given drop by almost a factor of 3 in size ... do you think anyone sane would keep even semi decent for the time T-72 M1 ??? LOL, no!
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@rogerpennel1798 Yep, as soon as they figured out during early 90s that it is trash vs. tests vs. East German T-72s it was removed form front line service.
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@rogerpennel1798 Of course they would not have kept T-72s even if they were very best - they had 1000s of tanks, tanks that had little use they needed to recycle. Germany army shrink by about 3x. So 1000s of west Germany made, perfectly fine tanks and IFVs were sold off. There was nothing wrong with T-72s - there were simply surplus like 1000s of west German tanks and IFVs that also were perfectly fine vehicles.
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@greg.kasarik You forgot to include luck of any armor on Leo 1 ;) Panther believe it or not also had night vision! It was called Vampire system. Panther would not be that hard to upgrade to be a better tank for modern times as Leo 1 was a very specific tank. To upgrade a panther all you would need is to install L7 main gun which for the time was not big BTW, add modern ballistic computer all other trimmings (not hard) and say add K-5 reactive armor - now your upgraded tank, if we shall say that the armor is not some 1945 crumbly stuff, and power pack is not of similar 1945 quality is much better then Leo 1. Leo 1 was build when AT weapons ruled. A BMP-1 with its low velocity gun was able to take out any tank. Infantry had tons of weapons to deal with tank. In this scenario few "glass cannon" tanks were created. These tanks had armor package of IFV. Their main defense was speed. This was so bad they had to be up armored as even distant shots from 20mm auto cannons were a threat (!). This tank thus is more like an IFV without infantry today - it has fire power but none of the defenses of a modern tank. Now upgraded as above panther, is now similar to T-62M. It may not be fast tank but it has plenty of armor compared to IFV. One has to point out that if IFV were sufficient more of these would be sent not T-62M. So IFVs were insufficient and tanks were sent. This points out why upgraded panther has roles on modern battlefield that Leo 1 simply cannot fill in.
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@victorzvyagintsev1325 Leo 1 in modern conflict has no crew survivability ;) Anything will penetrate it, even auto cannon fire from 30mm (some armor was upgraded but I doubt enough to stop 30mm, 20mm and 25mm maybe but not modern 30mm).
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