It was the big bang at the Eurosatory arms fair in Paris: German tank manufacturer Rheinmetall presented a completely new main battle tank, the first in the West since the end of the Cold War. The name Panther may have caused some people to gasp (the name Panther was taken from the German Wehrmacht’s Panzer V), but the KF51 is actually the West’s first response to Russia’s T-14 Armata, which has yet to be introduced. The planned Franco-German Main Ground Combat System (MGCS) is therefore likely to be clearly counted out.
Tank warfare – repeatedly declared dead – has visibly been high on the armaments agenda again since February 24. Experts warn in interviews that it is far too early to “write off” the main battle tank. They point to the surprisingly bumbling and isolated deployment and the pitiful condition of the Russian tracked vehicles and argue that high-intensity land warfare still requires the best combination of protection, firepower and maneuverability. According to them, the KF51 is intended to serve all countries and armies that have the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the KF51 should serve as a modern alternative, as Rheinmetall argues. 
Completely new turret
The new Panther looks as if a new futuristic, flat and protruding turret has been placed on a modified Leopard 2 hull. Visually, it is based on the Lynx infantry fighting vehicle, like the Panther a purely industrial development without the involvement of the Bundeswehr bureaucracy. The Panther is naturally heavier, larger and more heavily armed than the Lynx – or the Japgdpanzer-120 derived from it. According to initial information from Paris, the new main battle tank weighs around 60 tons, which is around ten tons less than the Leopard 2A7V. With the same 1,475 hp diesel engine, the Panther should therefore have improved mobility in comparison. It is perhaps a little surprising that the designers did not opt for a more modern drive arrangement, such as a hybrid drive, but the chosen solution should be faster and easier to develop and produce. But most importantly, the vehicle is equipped with a massive 130-millimeter caliber Rh-130 L/51 smoothbore gun instead of the now common and popular 120-millimeter Rh-120 L/55. According to Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger, the 130-mm gun is more than 50 percent more effective than that of the “Leo-2” – also due to the significantly longer shell – and will offer a much greater range. It will be able to fire both sabot projectiles with kinetic energy and programmable explosive ammunition.
While the predecessor has a crew of four, this is reduced to three in the Panther (commander, gunner and driver). If required, an additional fourth crew member can be added, for example an additional specialist or platoon leader. Each crew member has access to data from all sensors, weapons, power packs and other subsystems and can take over tasks from others if required. Thanks to AI, there will be even fewer or even no crews on the horizon.
Rheinmetall is withholding further details on the development – as well as the price – for the time being. However, it is clear that the Panther is moving away from the outdated concepts of Cold War tanks and adopting innovations that are already common in lighter infantry fighting vehicles and are already being used by the Russian Armata. However, this does not include – at least for the time being – a fully autonomous turret without a crew; the Panther will only have an auto-loader due to the weight of the shells. In addition – unusually, but apparently to save 130 mm ammunition – a 12.7 mm coaxial ÜberSMG and the optional Natter remote-controlled weapon station with 7.62 mm MG are planned. Also optional in a fold-out launcher are four on-board Hero-120 loitering drones in a “hard-kill version” (40 kilometer range, 4.5 kilogram explosive charge, day vision and thermal imaging camera) from the Tel Aviv-based company UVision. Little is yet known about the protection of the crew – in other words, the armor – Rheinmetall has only assured that the crew will be better protected than in the Leopard 2 and will benefit from active, reactive and passive protection technologies. The company’s own StrikeShield active protection system will be used to defend against threats such as anti-tank weapons and suicide drones. 
Much faster than Europe
As already mentioned at the beginning, the Panther also has a downside – namely for the much-cited pan-European cooperation and the planned consolidation of continental armaments policy. As reported, Germany and France have been developing a European “super battle tank” since 2012 at a development cost of around 1.5 billion euros, which was also intended as a response to Russia’s T-14 Armata. Will it still be needed when the Panther is already rolling out to customers? And does it even need an answer to the Armata, which has not yet reached the troops and whose manufacturer Uralvagonzavod is currently at a standstill following the sanctions-related loss of Western electroniccomponents? Why did Rheinmetall take this step? Because the Main Ground Combat System (MGCS) and its European Main Battle Tank, like its airborne equivalent FACS, are suffering from delays – and from rivalries. Among other things, Rheinmetall seems to have felt that its partners in the joint venture from 2015 KNDS (KMW and Nexter) had booted it out of the MGCS project, and the Panther is also a – thoroughly undermining – response to this.
And a much quicker one at that. This is because the studies at MGCS are to be completed by 2023 in order to start work on a system demonstrator and ultimately deploy a system by 2035. Given the usual delays in such collaborations, 2040 is also realistic. This results in a long waiting period during which the companies involved in the MGCS cannot offer an adequate tank and various modernization packages – similar to the KNDS technology demonstrator Enhanced MBT from 2018. In view of the threat from Russia and China, customers waiting in line can only be put off with expensive upgrades of designs dating back to the Cold War, which is causing great dissatisfaction in some places. The Panther will fill this gap. It can be assumed that it will be delivered around 2025. Reports in the German media suggest that at least one country in Eastern Europe has already expressed interest in the new tank in Paris. As with the Lynx, production is not tied to existing Rheinmetall factories, but can – as in Hungary for the Lynx – be outsourced. as in Hungary for the Lynx – can be set up in the customer country for faster delivery. But of course Rheinmetall is also hoping is also hoping for the “reawakened” Bundeswehr as a customerperhaps in the hope that Berlin might ultimately be more receptive to a purely German tank in terms of location and employment policy. German analyst Christian Mölling, Research Director of the German Council on Foreign Relations, is quoted as saying: “The MGCS has lost traction. And Olaf Scholz has a different perspective on the arms industry – Angela Merkel has never been interested in it. He understands the economy and there are long-standing links between his SPD and the industry.”
It can also be assumed that the KF-51 will not remain a main battle tank, but that further models will be presented on the same platform. According to Rheinmetall, it always strives for best-practice solutions for its export models. This means that it tries to achieve maximum performance with reasonable effort. This should make the Panther easier to build and maintain than models developed under the aegis of (trans)national armaments bureaucracies. This should also make it significantly cheaper. In any case, it complicates the situation for the KNDS project MGCS enormously. It is unlikely that countries that order the Panther in the next few years will switch systems again shortly afterwards. This means that the Panther is taking potential customers away from MGCS and the consortium must now deliver a better tank in order to be able to compete with the Panther. Digression on the “traditional name”
In choosing the name, Rheinmetall is continuing a tradition that has already been given negative connotations by various commentators in today’s Germany (for example in the Bild newspaper): Since the Second World War, German main battle tanks have been named after cats of prey – and this line remained true afterwards with Leopard, Marder and Puma (in the Second World War, the eight-wheeled scout vehicle Sd.Kfz.234). On the other hand, the project for a self-propelled howitzer shied away from “non-cat names” from the Nazi era – such as Hummel or Nashorn – which resulted in the embarrassing name Panzerhaubitze 2000. In any case, Panther has a certain “sound”, as does Lightning (P-38, F-35) for fighter aircraft, for example.
With the Sd.Kfz.171 or Panzer-V, the German industry reacted German industry responded to the unpleasant surprise of the Soviet T-34 of 1941 and its beveled contours. However, the first deployment in the Kursk front line in the summer of 1943 was premature; the crews had more technical problems to contend with than the Soviets. Once various teething troubles had been resolved, it became clear that the Panther was superior to the T-34 in terms of performance, apart from the gasoline engine and transmission. The Maybach engine had an average realistic service life of only 1,000 to 1,500 kilometers and the transmission, which was too weak overall, sometimes suffered serious defects after just a few hundred kilometers. On the other hand, the vehicle was superbly armed with a long 7.5 centimeter cannon, had excellent off-road capabilities and was popular with its crews.
But there was one thing the German designers could not make up for: The T-34 was designed for simple production and could also be manufactured in large numbers by only semi-skilled workers. But until 1944, the German Army Ordnance Office, as the central coordinating body of German armaments, was still guided by the vision of technical excellence and the Panther was also a “delicate” masterpiece of mechanical craftsmanship in operation – in this case from MAN-Nuremberg. At 6,000 units, it was never able to achieve the production figures of the Russian T-34 or the US Sherman (50,000), which were ultimately decisive in the war. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsodIneQGzI
Here for further reports on Rheinmetall Defence (international).
