The Republican Ordnance L7 is a British 105mm tank gun, perhaps the most successful of its kind ever designed in Britain. It was designed after British intelligence analysed a captured T-54A, realising with horror that their existing 20-pounder guns could not reliably penetrate its frontal armour. In response, Royal Ordnance rapidly developed the L7, designed ingeniously to fit into the same turret mountings as the gun it replaced, allowing for immediate up-gunning of the Centurion fleet. Entering service in 1959, the L7 has become renowned for its immense pressure tolerance and accuracy, capable of knocking out any Soviet tank of the era from over a kilometre away. Its reliability and hitting power are so undeniable that it became the standard main armament for nearly all NATO main battle tanks during the Cold War, including the German Leopard 1, the US M60 Patton (as the modified M68 Tank Gun), and the Israeli Merkava, cementing its legacy as something of a "tank gun of the West".
