the Leopard 2, the crew of the PzKW 2000 was reduced to only two men, who were located within the hull. For testing this new two men crew concept, two Leopard 1 tanks (called VT-2000) were modified. The PzKW 2000 was canceled due to the political changes during 1989 and 1990. The next German main battle tank project was part of the Neue Gepanzerte Plattform (new armoured platform) programme, which was intended to develop three versions of a common platform: the first for a tank, the second for an infantry fighting vehicle and the last was designed to be used for support vehicles like SPAAGS. The tank would be armed with a 140 mm gun, be manned by only two men and using modular composite armour. Therefore, the weight of this vehicle would be between 55 tonnes and 77 tonnes. The project was canceled in 2001. No real prototypes were created, only one Experimentalträger Gesamtschutz (EGS), an armour test-bed, was built. The SPz Puma is based on some parts of the Neue Gepanzerte Plattform infantry fighting vehicle variant. Combat history World War I The A7V was first used in combat on 21 March 1918. Five tanks under the command of Hauptmann Greiff were deployed north of the St. Quentin Canal. Three of the A7Vs suffered mechanical failures before they entered combat; the remaining pair helped stop a minor British breakthrough in the area, but otherwise saw little combat that day. The first tank against tank combat in history took place on the 24 April 1918, when three A7Vs (including chassis number 561, known as "Nixe") taking part in an attack with infantry incidentally met three Mark IVs (two 'Female' with only machine guns and one 'Male' with two 6-pounder guns) near Villers-Bretonneux. During the battle, tanks on both sides were damaged. According to the lead tank commander, 2nd Lt Frank Mitchell, the Female Mk IVs fell back after being damaged by armour piercing bullets as they were unable to damage the A7Vs with their own machine guns. Mitchell then attacked the lead German tank, commanded by 2nd Lt Wilhelm Biltz, with the 6 pounders of his own tank and knocked it out. He hit it three times, and killed five of the crew when they bailed out. His Mark IV fired at the enemy tanks and moved. He then went on to rout some infantry with case shot. The two