The Panther KF51 is a German main battle tank (MBT) that is under development by Rheinmetall Landsysteme (part of Rheinmetall's Vehicle Systems division). It was unveiled publicly at the Eurosatory defence exhibition on 13 June 2022. KF is short for 'Kettenfahrzeug', the German word for 'tracked vehicle'. The KF51 is based on the hull of the Leopard 2A4. A new turret is to be mounted on the Leopard 2; the main gun is an autoloaded 130 mm calibre. On 5 December 2022 Rheinmetall announced that it plans to mainly target existing Leopard 2 operators with the KF51. Rheinmetall began the development of major subsystems related to the Panther in 2016, with system-level design commencing in 2018. The Panther has been developed as a private venture by Rheinmetall to demonstrate by 2026 the potential for increasing the lethality, mobility, survivability, and networking capabilities of MBTs without incurring a significant increase in weight. To reduce the weight of the Leopard 2A4 platform on which the development vehicle is based, Rheinmetall prioritised active over passive protection. (Source: Wikipedia.org, CC BY-SA)