PZ 87-140

[Grey Havoc]

https://www.reddit.com/r/TankPorn/comments/185cohm/the_panzer_87100

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/TankPorn/comments/185cohm/the_panzer_87100/

PZ 87 140​

A Pz 87 was used during the development phase of the joint KWS III project, to see if a 140mm bore calibre main gun could be installed on the Leopard 2. This would have required changes in the turret to accommodate the larger rounds and autoloader.

A single Pz 87 was fitted with a 140mm main gun, however Germany eventually went with the longer 120mm L55 smoothbore. Its visible from images that the vehicle featured mock up modular armour on the front and sides of the turret. The Pz 87 prototype was reverted back to a standard gun tank.

Pz 87 Tank | Swiss Pz 87 Leopard 2 Tank | Full vehicle details

The Pz 87 tank is a Swiss built Leopard 2A4 with some minor differences. It trialled a 140mm main gun & is now upgraded to the Pz 87WE.

fighting-vehicles.com

Note: The KWS (Kampfwertsteigerung) III program, also referred to as KWS Stage III, was formally cancelled in 1995. Somehow I wouldn't be surprised if both the Germans and Swiss are rather regretting that decision now in the present day.

Regarding the trials gun that was used:

The "Leopard 2-140" used a really awkward semi-automatic system where the front ammunition rack held the projectile end of the 140mm round and the rear bustle held the propellant-primer charge. The human loader rammed a projectile into the gun and the autoloader finished the job and closed the breech. It may have been the other way around though. That's not really workable in practice, but KWS III was the German equivalent of the American Thumper. It was to see what changes would be needed to Leopard 2 to make carry the 140mm. Turns out it would need a new turret entirely. So KWS III died and KWS I/II lived because they were just armor and fire control updates to the existing turrets.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Hold the phone. A bit more digging seems to indicate that, rather than use the same gun as the Leopard 2-140, the Pz 87-140 actually used a 140 mm gun developed by the Eidgenössische Konstruktionswerkstätte [aka the Federal Design Workshop, or K+W] (what would later during the 1990s become the SW Schweizerische Unternehmung für Waffensysteme AG, and then subsequently the SW Swiss Ordnance Enterprise Corp division of RUAG). Sorry for the mistake.

EDIT: Ammunition is likely to have been developed for the gun by the Eidgenössische Munitionsfabrik Thun (Federal Ammunition Factory Thun, otherwise known as MF+T).

 

[sp_mm]

View attachment 736147

That is a normal Panzer 87 WE.

PZ 87 140​

A Pz 87 was used during the development phase of the joint KWS III project, to see if a 140mm bore calibre main gun could be installed on the Leopard 2. This would have required changes in the turret to accommodate the larger rounds and autoloader.

A single Pz 87 was fitted with a 140mm main gun, however Germany eventually went with the longer 120mm L55 smoothbore. Its visible from images that the vehicle featured mock up modular armour on the front and sides of the turret. The Pz 87 prototype was reverted back to a standard gun tank.

Note: The KWS (Kampfwertsteigerung) III program, also referred to as KWS Stage III, was formally cancelled in 1995. Somehow I wouldn't be surprised if both the Germans and Swiss are rather regretting that decision now in the present day.

That text is wrong. The Swiss tests with a 140 mm gun on the Panzer 87 were neither coordinated nor related to the third stage of the KWS program. They used a completely different gun, which was developed at a later point of time as private-venture of the state-owned military industrial cooperation RUAG.

140mm Versuchskanone für Leopard 2 – Militär- und Festungsmuseum Full-Reuenthal

www.festungsmuseum.ch

The Swiss Army only started testing the gun in the mid-1990s when the tri-national smoothbore gun from RGR Armaments GmbH was already cancelled. It didn't have any autoloader as it used smaller and weaker ammunition than the Franco-German-British gun, which could still be handeled by a human loader (albeit slower, because it was still two-piece ammunition).