the crew stayed under cover until the strikes stopped, then ran back to the tank in broad daylight, started the engine, and drove it out from under Russian observation, Khodak noted.
He added that his platoon commander had already pulled off the same kind of recovery twice.
The end of the tank has been greatly exaggerated, a Leopard is an absolute monster and blowing it up is actually pretty damn hard.
worth noting this was apparently a Leopard 1 which is from the era of German tank design where it was thought it’s pointless to have lots of armor because it would be penetrated by anti-tank weapons if hit anyway.
They, however did not cheap out on things like armored storage, fire supression and spall liners to protect the crew.