By 1990 the L/44 was not considered powerful enough to deal with the future Soviet armour, which stimulated an effort by Rheinmetall to develop a better main armament. This first revolved around a tank gun named Neue Panzerkanone 140 ("new tank gun 140"), but later turned into a compromise which led to the development of an advanced 120 mm gun, the L/55, based on the same internal geometry as the L/44 and installed in the same breech and mount. The L/55 is longer, giving an increased muzzle velocity to ammunition fired through it. As the L/55 retains the same barrel geometry, it can fire the same ammunition as the L/44.