Leopard 2.
A German tanks that has seen limited deployment. Good gun and fire control systems but not as safe as say as a late model Abrams. Due to budget cuts not many are probably available. Dangerous but reasonably cheap to aquire, maintain and operate.
Abrams? It drinks twice as much as any other tank. That's got to be a serious detriment in the long run. And I think you're underestimating the Leopard 2. There must be a good reason so many nations use it.
Leopard 2 us comparatively cheap the main draw back is the armor.
It would be very good at knocking out say Russia tanks but it's a lot more vulnerable than the Abrams both if it gets penetrated and getting penetrated.
It's pretty much best tank you can get and run at a price that doesn't require oodles of money and a lot were sold when the Germans downsized
How would we know ?
Speaking of untested, exports and Germany: I think (maybe due to misguided patriotism) that the Leopard 2 is still at the top. It has the same (German manufactured) main gun as the Abrams, better range due to less fuel consumption, and superior protection.
There were some articles last year that a few were destroyed in Syria, but those were old Cold War era models sold to the Turkish Army.
The ones Germany still has (all five of them) have upgraded armor to operate in urban environments.
The Leopard 2 used to be widely available for cheap. This wasn't due to its design or anything so much as the fact that the German army had an excess of them after reunification and the government was happy to sell them for cheap. By now the market for second-hand German Leopard 2s has dried up, and it's either third-hand Leos, if anyone were selling, or new production Leopard 2s, which would actually be rather pricey. It's hard to price individual tanks since they are sold in batches, often with spare parts, ammunition, and maintenance contracts thrown in, plus who knows what political understandings and deals not in the contract. But a
recent Hungarian order for 44 newly built Leopard 2A7+ tanks and 24 newly build PzH 2000 self-propelled artillery pieces reached ~$565 million, or roughly $8.3 million per vehicle (this assumes the howitzers cost the same as the tanks, which may not be true). That's quite a bit, though again, this article didn't mention maintenance, ammunition, spare parts, etc.
As for armor and firepower: it depends. The early models (A0 through A4, though these are basically the same in most ways and only the A4s onward are still around) appear to have decent armor and the L/44 120mm Rh120 gun firing tungsten APFSDS rounds (or HEAT, or HE). However, they're also forty years old. Their armor is not quite up to snuff anymore. Newer models from
the A5 onward have wedged appliqué armor on the turret faces. This seems to be hollow steel, and increases the standoff distance of HEAT rounds (like ATGMs, RPGs, and some tank rounds) and should also increase protection against APFSDS.
Models from the A6 on have the longer L/55 cannon for extra velocity for their APFSDS rounds. This was tested on the Abrams and rejected - apparently the US Army is satisfied with the performance of its rounds, and the added length causes issues with barrel droop, heat distortion, and just bumping into things. Cannon barrels are long and heavy things only supported on one end, and this, combined with subtle warping from the heat of repeated firing, means that eventually they droop, which harms accuracy. The only advantages of a longer barrel, besides looking great, are first-shot accuracy and higher penetration from APFSDS rounds. The US uses depleted uranium (DU) APFSDS rounds, while the Germans use tungsten alloy (WA). DU is effectively self-sharpening as it penetrates armor, and is flammable, so it penetrates a bit better and can inflict better horrors on the inside of its prey. The Germans prefer WA - I'm not sure how their supply of DU is, though apparently they export some DU to Russia, but the usual explanation I've seen is that DU has some nasty side effects in areas where DU ammunition was used, or where DU armor plate was damaged, like cancer and birth defects. Most likely German tanks' APFSDS rounds would be used in defense of Germany, so they probably don't want to deal with that stuff on their soil. Point is, the Leo has a longer weapon but the Abrams gets better penetration for maximum effect anyway.
As for armor, the Leopard 2 most likely is worse than the Abrams. Leaving aside reports of the German team possibly cheating in the 1970s races between the Abrams and Leopard prototypes by removing the armor, modern Abrams variants have had...I've lost track of how many times the turret face armor has been upgraded, but I believe it's something like four or five times by now. The M1IP and M1A1, then the M1A1HA, then the M1A1HC, then the M1A2, then the three different SEP variants until the Army got sick of the increasingly unwieldy names and used letters instead. And they were upgraded with
DU plating, no less! As many can relate, the Abrams, by now forty years old, has put on some weight, and went from 54 metric tons to 66.8.
Meanwhile, the Leopard got some steel. Just steel.
It's not a bad tank, but as mentioned, the Leopard is more likely to get penetrated and is more likely to explode if it does compared to the Abrams. It has somewhat less armor, it doesn't include the same composite armor or DU the Abrams does, and it stores some ammunition in the hull. The Abrams, aside from the T-14, is the only tank that stores all of its ammunition in sealed compartments with blowout panels. If the ammunition explodes or burns, the pressure blows out panels covering the exterior of the ammunition compartment rather than exploding inside the crew compartment, so even if it goes off, the crew is safe.
As for the Leopards and Abrams tanks getting destroyed recently in the Middle East, that's not due to flaws in the design so much as due to flaws in use. Likewise, Russian tanks of all kinds, but most infamously T-80s, got massacred in Grozny. Some blamed the T-80's turbine engines and their volatile fuel, but in truth, getting shot from multiple directions with RPGs is ill for the health of any tank and is not recommended.
