The Panzer 61 was a

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

era medium tank later reclassified as a second-generation

main battle tank A main battle tank (MBT), also known as a battle tank or universal tank or simply tank,Ogorkiewicz 2018 p222 is a tank that fills the role of armour-protected direct fire and maneuver in many modern armies. Cold War-era development of more po ...

. The tank had a weight of 36.5 tons and was powered by a 630 hp diesel engine, which gave it a top road speed of . The primary armament of the Panzer 61 was a 105 mm main gun.

History and Development

During the early 1950s the Swiss Army tried to buy modern tanks to reinforce the armoured forces which, due to the war in Korea, proved to be impossible. As a stop-gap solution, the Swiss army purchased

AMX-13 The AMX-13 is a French light tank produced from 1952 to 1987. It served with the French Army, as the Char 13t-75 Modèle 51, and was exported to more than 26 other nations. Named after its initial weight of 13 tonnes, and featuring a tough and re ...

light tanks from France and decided to develop a domestic medium tank. The first prototype and production vehicles were designated Panzer 58. The first Panzer 58 prototype was armed with a domestic 90mm rifled gun, the second Panzer 58 was fitted with a British 84 mm calibre

Ordnance QF 20 pounder The Ordnance QF 20 pounder (known as 20 pounder, 20 pdr or simply 20-pr) was a British 84 mm (3.307 inch) tank gun. It was introduced in 1948 and used in the Centurion main battle tank, Charioteer medium tank, and Caernarvon Mark I ...

. and the third prototype as well as the production model was fitted with a

Royal Ordnance L7 The Royal Ordnance L7, officially designated Gun, 105 mm, Tank, L7, is the basic model of the United Kingdom's most successful tank gun. It is a 105 mm L/52 rifled design by the Royal Ordnance Factories, intended for use in armoured fighti ...

105mm rifled gun. The Panzer 58 served similarly to a preproduction model of the improved Panzer 61, and in 1961 the Swiss parliament approved production of 150 Panzer 61s. The vehicles were delivered between 1965 and 1967, produced at the

Eidgenoessische Konstruktionswerkstaette ''Eidgenössische Konstruktionswerkstätte'' English: "Federal Constructions Works", short K+W, was a Swiss state-owned enterprise, with the aim of making the Swiss military independent of foreign sources for its equipment needs. It was establishe ...

(today RUAG Land Systems) facility at Thun.

Service life

The vehicle would serve for nearly thirty years with the

Swiss Armed Forces The Swiss Armed Forces (; ; ; ; ) are the military and security force of Switzerland, consisting of land and air service branches. Under the country's militia system, regular soldiers constitute a small part of the military and the rest are ...

. A replacement effort would be the pursued in 1967, with the purchase of 150

Panzer 68 The Panzer 68 was a Swiss main battle tank developed by the Eidgenoessische Konstruktionswerkstaette in Thun in the late 1960s, and was the main tank of the Swiss Army until the late 1990s. History The Panzer 68 was based on the Panzer 61, ...

tanks, although the effort was not wholly successful due to several glaring issues with the new vehicle. From 1967 onwards, Panzer 61 vehicles were upgraded and retrofitted with technology found on the more advanced Panzer 68. The Panzer 61's original coaxial 20 mm autocannon was found to have no use in practice and was replaced by a coaxial 7.5 mm machine gun in the Panzer 61 AA9 variant. Panzer 61 would never serve in combat but examples remained in service well up until the production and commission of Panzer 87 and, although relegated to secondary duties, would serve up until the final units were reequipped with Panzer 87s in 1994.

Legacy

The chassis formed the basis of the

Panzerkanone 68 The Panzerkanone 68 ("Armoured gun 68") is a Swiss self-propelled howitzer produced by the Eidgenoessische Konstruktionswerkstaette (Federal Manufacturing Works) to meet a Swiss Army requirement. Only four were manufactured; they served for three ...

self-propelled gun Self-propelled artillery (also called locomotive artillery) is artillery equipped with its own propulsion system to move toward its firing position. Within the terminology are the self-propelled gun, self-propelled howitzer, self-propelled mo ...

, the prototype of the

Entpannungspanzer 65 The Entpannungspanzer 65 (EntpPz 65) is a Swiss armored recovery vehicle developed by ''Eidgenoessische Konstruktionswerkstaette Thun'' in the late 1960s. The vehicle served as a traveling workshop for the Swiss military. The prototype for the E ...

armoured recovery vehicle An armoured recovery vehicle (ARV) is typically a powerful tank or armoured personnel carrier (APC) chassis modified for use during combat for military vehicle recovery (towing) or repair of battle-damaged, stuck, and/or inoperable armoured f ...

, and for the initial prototype of the ''Brückenlegepanzer 68''. Wheels and tracks from the Panzer 61 were also used on the

Zielfahrzeug 68 The Zielfahrzeug 68 ("Target tank 68") was a decommissioned Panzer 68, which was converted to the target vehicle role. A total of ten of these vehicles were in use. Conversion The Swiss Army ordered from the company Eidgenoessische Konstruk ...

. A number of Panzer 61s have survived in museums and private collections including

The Tank Museum The Tank Museum (previously the Bovington Tank Museum) is a collection of armoured fighting vehicles at Bovington Camp in Dorset, South West England. It is about north of the village of Wool and west of the major port of Poole. The collectio ...

References

External links

* * https://web.archive.org/web/20130719085845/http://www.armeemuseum.ch/uploads/media/Dok_Panzer_68.pdf.pdf (document not available in English)
Action shots from privately owned Panzer 68 and 61
{{Cold War tanks, style=wide Tanks of Switzerland Main battle tanks of Switzerland Main battle tanks of the Cold War Medium tanks of the Cold War Military vehicles introduced in the 1960s