New Big Cats at the Hungarian Defence Forces

Text: Eszter Bányász | Photo: László Kertész | 09:44 January 11, 2024

“The crown jewellery of the Hungarian armed forces development”, “the spine of deterrence” and “the king of the battlefield” – are examples of references to the state-of-the-art Leopard 2A7HU main battle tank, of which three more arrived at the HDF 1st Armoured Brigade in Tata on 10 January.

Therefore, the number of battle tanks developed according to Hungarian needs grew to eight at the brigade but the process has not come to an end yet, as by 2028, altogether 44 will have arrived in Hungary from this high-tech military equipment besides the five Wisent 2HU armoured engineer vehicle and the three Leguan 2HU bridge-layers. The set-up, operation and application of this 21st-century technology require an entirely new approach from soldiers, but the Leopard 2A4HU main battle tanks – arriving in Hungary in 2020 thanks to the National Defence and Armed Forces Development Program – made it possible to prepare for this.

The armoured body of the equipment is 7.7 metres long and with the gun facing forward the length of the battle tank is 10.97 metres. It is 3.76 metres wide without the add-on armour module and 3.03 metres high. Its firepower is provided by a L55A1, L55 calibre-length, 120mm Rheinmetall tank gun, which makes accurate shooting possible even from a 5000m distance. The battle tank also has a 7.62mm coaxial machine gun, a 12.7mm remote-controlled machine gun and two banks of eight 76mm smoke grenade dischargers, which are also suitable for firing HE grenades.