Royal Ordnance L7
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
Royal Ordnance L7 is the basic model of Britain's most successful tank gun. The L7 was a 105 mm rifled design intended for use in armored fighting vehicles. It was so successful that it armed not only British post-war designs, but was used almost universally in "the west" as the main armament of almost every main battle tank.
Developed by Britain's Royal Ordnance to equip British tanks of the post war (Cold War) period.
The L7 was a popular weapon and it was maintained in use even after it was superseded by the L11 series 120 mm rifled tank gun for some Centurion AVRE vehicles. The L7, and adaptations of it, can be found today as standard or retrofitted equipment on a wide variety of tanks developed during the Cold War. It is also being used as the main armament of the US Army's newest direct-fire weapon, the Stryker.
Variants
- L7A1
- M48A5 (US Modified breech) for M60 Patton
- Type 79/81/83, Chinese copies of an L7 supplied by Austria.
Use
- Centurion
- Argentina L7A1, built under licence TAM medium tank,
- Leopard 1
- Merkava MBT
- Olifant MBT
- Osório MBT
- Stryker MGS
