devastated by the end of World War II, but by the 1950s, the nation began to look at designing new tanks. The next tank design started as a collaborative project between Germany and France in the 1950s, but the partnership ended, and the final design was ordered by the Bundeswehr, production of the German Leopard 1 starting in 1965. In total, 6,485 Leopard I tanks were built, of which 4,744 were battle tanks and 1741 were utility and anti-aircraft variants, not including eighty prototypes and pre-series vehicles. The Leopard quickly became a standard of European forces, and eventually served as the main battle tank in Germany. It was superseded by the Leopard 2. German design and development German tank development can be traced back to 1911, when Austrian Oberleutenant Gunther Burstyn proposed a design for "motor vehicle gun" ("Motorgeschütz") with a turret. He patented his design in 1912 in Germany but it never progressed beyond paper. World War I After British tanks went into action at the Battle of Flers–Courcelette on 15 September 1916, the German Army immediately demanded their own landships. Following the appearance of the first British tanks on the Western Front, the War Ministry formed a committee of experts from leading engineering companies, answerable to the Allgemeines Kriegsdepartement, Abteilung 7, Verkehrswesen ("General War Department, 7th Branch, Transportation"), The project to design and build the first German tank was placed under the direction of Joseph Vollmer, a leading German automobile designer and manufacturer. He was chosen to design the World War I German tanks A7V, and the Großkampfwagen (K-Wagen). The K-Wagen was a German super-heavy tank, two prototypes of which were almost completed by the end of World War I. The A7V tank which actually got into the war, was known as the Sturmpanzerwagen A7V, named after the committee that oversaw its development. It weighed around 30 tons, capable of crossing ditches up to metres wide, have armaments including cannon at front and rear as well as several machine-guns, and reach a top speed of at least . The running gear was based on the Holt tractor, parts for which were copied from examples borrowed from the Austrian army. After initial plans were shared with the Army in December 1917, the design was extended to be a universal chassis which could be used as a base for both a tank and unarmoured Überlandwagen ("Overland vehicle") cargo carriers. Powered