Ukraine gets first Skyranger 35 systems on Leopard 1 tanks

Ukraine’s Armed Forces have shown footage of what appears to be one of the first Skyranger 35 short-range air defense systems mounted on a Leopard 1 tank chassis to reach Ukrainian units.

GAU, an account that tracks German military assistance to Ukraine, identified the unit in the footage as Ukraine’s 1020th Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment, part of the Ground Forces. The account said the regiment appears to have taken delivery of the first Leopard 1-based Skyranger 35 systems built by Rheinmetall.

Rheinmetall announced the contract for the systems in October 2025, saying an unnamed European Union country would finance the deal using proceeds from frozen Russian assets under the EU’s Windfall Profit Mechanism. The company put the order’s value in the hundreds of millions of euros and said production and integration would take place at Rheinmetall Italia’s headquarters in Rome. Ukraine had already fielded earlier Skyranger 35 systems mounted on truck chassis; the Leopard 1 version is a separate, tracked variant.

The Skyranger 35 is built around a KDG 35/1000 revolver cannon firing 35x228mm ammunition at a rate of 1,000 rounds per minute, with an effective range up to 4,000 meters (2.5 miles). The system fires airburst rounds that detonate near a target and scatter tungsten sub-projectiles, a design intended to improve hit probability against small, fast-moving threats such as Shahed-type drones and FPVs. Rheinmetall has said the turret shares a high degree of commonality with the company’s Oerlikon Revolver Gun Mk 3 and could eventually be fitted with guided missiles.

Rheinmetall first showed the Leopard 1-based Skyranger 35 publicly in September 2024, at a demonstration event at the Erprobungszentrum Ochsenboden test site in Switzerland. That demonstrator used a Leopard 1A5BE hull with an unmanned turret carrying 252 rounds, with the two-person crew, a commander and a gunner, seated in the front of the hull. Representatives from defense ministries and industry in 26 countries attended.

Germany’s own military has ordered 19 Skyranger systems and has discussed acquiring several hundred more, following reports of unidentified drones appearing in European airspace. Ukraine’s version reaching the field ahead of Germany’s own fielding was noted at the time the October contract was announced.

Rheinmetall has previously delivered Skyranger 35 units to Ukraine mounted on wheeled truck platforms. The Leopard 1 chassis gives the new variant tracked mobility and armor protection not available on the truck-based version, allowing it to operate closer to the front line. Ukraine has received roughly 170 Leopard 1 tanks from Germany and other partners since 2023, with about 25 confirmed damaged or destroyed, according to the open-source tracking project Oryx.