Ukraine Got Exactly One High-Tech Tank From Belgium. Don't Expect More.
The Leopard 1A5/C3105 costs too much.
Last year, Belgium pledged exactly one new tank to Ukraine: a 1980s-vintage Leopard 1A5 fitted with a new turret from Belgian defense firm John Cockerill Defense.
That tank has arrived in Ukraine, as recent—and partially redacted—imagery attests. Don’t expect any more Ukrainian Leopard 1s to get the new C3105 turret, however. At several million dollars a pop, the C3105 simply isn’t worth the cost.
In May 2025, Belgium pledged an additional $1 billion in military aid to Ukraine. This aid package included medical equipment, portable drone-detection equipment, night-vision goggles, 16,000 guns, 20 Cerberus counter-drone systems and what the newspaper De Tijd described as “a Leopard battle tank with a new gun turret for testing purposes.”
It was a clear reference to the C3105, a plug-and-play turret combining a 105-millimeter main gun with a machine gun, day and night sensors and smoke grenades and other defenses, all in a two-person aluminum turret with an autoloader for the main gun.
The Belgian firm has sold similar turrets to India and Indonesia.
Where most Western-style tanks have four crew—a commander, a gunner, a loader and a driver—a Leopard 1A5 with a C3105 turret has just three crew. The one-person reduction in crew, along with Cockerill’s decision to use ballistic aluminum instead of steel, shaves tons of weight off a vehicle fitted with the new turret.
For Ukrainian tank crews facing Russian drones, this weight reduction isn’t insignificant.
