Leopard 1

Leopard 1 is one of the German top tier mediums. It features a very high level of mobility, with very weak armour; however has one of the best guns of any medium tank in the game, featuring almost 4k DPM, high penetration, amazing accuracy, & amazing gun handling.

Click the table of contents below to access the section you want:

1. Armour
2. Gun
3. Mobility
4. Equipment, provisions, & consumables
5. Gameplay advice
6. Tank gameplay:
7. Overall
8. Is it worth getting?
9. Camo cost:
10. Tech tree overview

Armour

(The Leopard 1 in the images is using Improved Assembly)

Drag slider right -> to view 250mm AP
Drag slider <- left to view 300mm HEAT

Armour on flat ground when not angled:
Upper plate 115mm
Lower plate 70mm

Turret cheeks 95mm
Gun mantlet 80-130mm

Side armour:
The hull sides are 35mm thick above the tracks, and 30mm thick behind the tracks.

Every tank you face will be able to penetrate HE on the side armour.

Armour vs all tier 9-10 tanks:
The Leopard 1 has very weak armour against any tank it faces. 

All tanks can easily penetrate it with standard ammo on any area, and all can penetrate it with HE on the hull sides and rear.

Some tanks with high penetration on HE shells can even penetrate the lower plate with HE from the front.

Gun

Leopard 1 mounts a 105mm gun.

-Alpha damage is 360 on AP, 300 on HEAT, and 400 on HEP.
-The reload time is 5.6s, giving the tank 3863 DPM.
-Penetration is 255mm on AP, 300mm on HEAT, and 53mm on HEP.
–Estimated aim time is 2.8/3.0s
–Base aim time is 2s, but it can get down to 1.71s.
-Dispersion is 0.272/0.231
–Gun handling is 0.1/0.1/0.05, or 0.09/0.09/0.4 with Vertical Stabilizer.
-Gun depression is -8 degrees.

Overall this is an incredible gun, one of the best on any tier 10 medium tank. It has the best accuracy in the game, along with amazing gun handling, fast reload, good penetration, & good alpha damage. Aim time isn’t impressive but its definitely not bad. Overall its a very accurate gun and very effective for damage dealing.

Mobility

-Top speed is 65km/h, reverse is -23km/h.
-Traverse speed is 72.8 deg/s on hard terrain, and 62.3 deg/s on medium terrain.
-In game acceleration rate is shown as 23.7 hp/t, it has a strong 946 horsepower engine for its 40 ton weight.
-Actual acceleration rate is 39.8 hp/t on hard terrain, and 34.1 hp/t on medium terrain.
–Ground resistances are 0.6/0.7/1

This is a very good mobility profile for a medium tank, with top speeds of a light tank and very good acceleration to be able to reach those speeds. Traverse speed and terrain resistances are also both great.

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

Leopard 1 has access to reticle calibration & improved gunpowder.

-Improved gunpowder is fully optional, as the Leopard 1 already has amazing shell velocities on all of its shells (1478m/s on AP and 1173m/s on HEAT & HE).
Using this provision would allow you to snap shots and hit long range shots on even small weakpoints due to having an extremely fast shell speed, increasing to 1921m/s on AP and 1525m/s on HEAT & HE.

-Reticle calibration should be used on the Leopard, while yes it technically doesn’t need it due to already having amazing accuracy & handling, there is not really any reason to not use this consumable. Using it will essentially guarantee that you can’t miss, which can be very useful in many situations, especially as the Leopard 1 has no armour.

Gun Rammer:
The Leopard 1 specializes in its gun, its essentially the main feature of the tank. It needs to have a 10/10 gun to compensate for its large size combined with ultra weak armour (weakest MT in tier 10).

Gun rammer is needed on the Leopard as its a DPM-focused tank, and this DPM is life saving in situations where you have to brawl with another medium, as you can’t use armour or HP to win a fight. Due to its great base penetration, amazing accuracy, and amazing gun handling, you can easily hit small weakpoints on the stronger enemies without needing calibrated shells.

Gun rammer would improve the reload time from 5.9s down to 5.6s, and the DPM from 3670 to 3863.

Improved Assembly:
Due to having no armour whatsoever, there is no reason to use enhanced armour on the Leopard 1. Its better to use improved assembly, which would increase your tank’s HP from 1800 up to 1872.

Vertical Stabilizer/Refined Gun:
Both of these work equally well on this tank for different reasons:

Vertical stabilizer is great due to the Leopard 1 having an active playstyle where its constantly at high speed moving around the map. The tank also essentially can’t sit still, since its armour is so weak. Vertical stabilizer helps the tank it hit shots more reliable while its moving, as the gun blooms out less.

Refined gun improves the already amazing accuracy of the Leopard, this allows it to hit long range shots and snipe small weakpoints easily.

This choice is down to personal preference and how you choose to tackle the gameplay of this tank.

Gameplay advice

The Leopard 1 is a support medium tank. Due to its weak armour and incredible gun & speed, the Leopard thrives on avoiding enemy shots while being able to farm them with great DPM & reload time.

General gameplay:
The Leopard 1 is a tank which is all about gun & mobility use, essentially you need to think how you can use the mobility and gun depression of the tank to put it in a position where the gun can just farm enemies.

Generally this means being played on the medium flank, as the tank does poorly in a heavy tank environment due to its size and armour.

Play the tank carefully and cautiously, almost like a light tank, but don’t drive it all over the place like a light tank, since the Leopard 1 is large and very easy target.

Avoid taking damage or trades as much as possible, especially in the early and mid stages of the battle. Of course, if the battle is quite fast then you can use some HP to get damage, but in longer and drawn-out games, keeping your HP high until the late stages of the game can have a huge impact on winning the battle and/or farming damage.

Try to use the environment as your armour, since you don’t have any yourself. Use buildings as hard cover to hide your tank, use bushes to remain hidden while scouting enemies or setting up shots, and use ridges to reduce your size profile.

Getting damage:
Note that the Leopard 1’s gun is a DPM gun, not alpha damage gun, it requires time-on-target to farm up damage. Time-on-target means you have to expose your tank to the enemy for an extended period of time, letting them shoot you.

In late parts of the battle you need the HP in order to take hits and buy yourself the time-on-target you need.

In early stages you don’t have to have time-on target, you can let allies take hits, or just use camouflage mechanics to reset your camo. This will take 10s (very long for a tank with a 5.6s reload and 360 alpha), but its worth doing to not lose HP. You can still deal damage, but you save all your HP. That HP can be used later when your high DPM and quick reload will matter much more and have a bigger impact.

Use camo:
In battle, use bushes and camo rating to deal damage and set up shots. Often you can conceal your position and remain hidden as long as you are far enough away, and don’t shoot your gun.

Use camo mechanics to spot enemies, and to set up shots on them. Once you shoot, immediately retreat into cover, there is no point to risk losing your HP just for the convenience of not having to move.

If doing this tactic, make sure to shoot only in the right situations, such as if there’s a single enemy only, or the enemies have their turrets/guns facing a different direction.

If you notice an enemy turn their gun towards you, then don’t move back into your position immediately after you reload. Wait 10 seconds, then your camo will reset and the enemy will no longer be able to see you, after this you can move to take another shot.

(Camo & bush use can be seen in the gameplay video in the first battle at 00:19, and a lot in the last battle at 13:15)

Don’t always rush:
Just because the tank is fast and is capable of reaching a position quickly, doesn’t mean its the best play.

On many maps where there’s a position where you might want to “rush” to be able to gain the advantage, there will be other mediums/lights doing the same thing, and often heavies or tank destroyers will watch for early ambush shots. This means that often rushing these positions will result in losing a lot of HP, especially as you’re lightly armoured.

Also consider, if you do rush these positions, you lose HP almost guaranteed, and losing ANY amount of HP in this tank too early is a bad thing, since you it means you’ll have to try harder to win the game in later stages. Unlike other medium tanks you don’t have even the slightest amount of armour, so often you’ll have to buy damage with your own HP.

Sometimes it may just be better to take a 2nd line position, or just flank completely instead of rushing that early position.

Hide the weak hull armour:
While the turret also doesn’t have armour, its still worth keeping the hull hidden if you poke out to shoot enemies.

The hull is weak and large, making it easy for HESH shells to hit and penetrate, and some high penetration regular HE can even go through the lower plate.
The turret offers much better protection as tanks with HESH will struggle more to penetrate the tank. HESH is ineffective against the mantlet, and the angled turret cheeks can resist HESH, so these enemies only have a fairly small area between the mantlet and the angled edges of the turret to penetrate (and many players wouldn’t risk such a shot if you’re moving).

The gun mantlet edges can also sometimes get bounces from badly aimed or unlucky shots, so hiding the hull and keeping the tank moving slightly is still worth doing, despite Leopard having essentially no armour.

Take flanking opportunities:
Use the Leopard’s great mobility to reposition. You don’t have to remain on the side of the map you choose at the beginning of the game, often times, flanking around enemies works out better than just sitting in front of them. You can save HP by not being the main focus from the front, while also letting the high DPM work due to having unexpected shots to the enemy team’s sides or rear.

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The overall gameplay of the Leopard is that of a support medium. Its not best suited to being a hulldown frontline tank, nor using mobility to rush hotly contested positions. Leopard 1 works best by providing accurate support fire from flanks, using its mobility to get around enemies and let its DPM work. It also has to rely on camouflage and speed due to its lack of armour.

Tank gameplay:

Overall

Armour – 1/10
Gun – 10/10
Mobility – 10/10
Speed – 10/10

Leopard 1 is overall a great tank.

Armour is very weak. No area of the tank will reliably bounce shots, HE protection is poor, HESH protection is terrible.
Gun is amazing, very accurate, great gun handling, good penetration, very high DPM, good alpha damage, and a good -8 gun depression.
Mobility is very good, great acceleration with high traverse speed, and very good terrain reistances. Reverse speed is average.
Speed is very high at 65km/h.

Camo cost:

Tech tree overview

To get to the Leopard 1, you have to grind through either the German medium tree (through the VK 30.01(D)), or through the German light tank tree.

All the tanks in either the light or Medium tree have quite painful stock grinds, with multiple stock modules to get through and generally low DPM & low penetration guns.

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-Tiers 1-3 are low tier light & medium tanks. All have great guns, decent armour, and decent mobility.

(The Panzer III is generally better with the stock gun, since it has a faster reload with much better gun depression. The top gun has better armour on the mantlet but you lose both reload time & gun depression.)

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-Tier 4 is the Panzer IV ausf. D, a tank with weak armour but a good gun. It has fairly expensive modules, but a good stock gun with a fast reload (but poor accuracy).

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-Tier 5 is the VK 16.02 Leopard, a light tank with good speed and an autocannon. It has very low penetration but can deal a burst of 300 damage in 15 shells.

The stock grind of this tank is painful due to its poor stock gun, which has terrible DPM and a slow burst (the top gun has very quick burst in comparison). Due to this its best to upgrade the gun first, then get the 2 engines.

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