Meng 1/35 Leopard C2 MEXAS (21B)

[Frank3k]

Greg and Stephen have come up with some believable armor upgrades in their Antipodal Armoured Collaboration thread.

I really liked this tank:



and procured the gun from Sprue D of the Hobby Boss 1/35th Scale IDF Merkava Mk. IIID  that I got from ebay. The tank itself is the Meng 1/35 Leopard C2 MEXAS w/Dozer blade. A great kit - it goes together quickly, well and logically engineered and good detailing.

I started it yesterday:



and with a few interruptions along the way, i was this far by 5 PM:



The vinyl tracks are fine. There's a long OOP workable track set from Meng, but it's not worth hunting it down. Everything has fit well so far, and from looking ahead, the rear of the body may need some putty, but not much. I also put together the Hobby Boss 120mm IMI MG251 barrel. It needed some work and will probably need some extra detailing, but i think the hardest part of this build will be getting a good match for the weathered NATO/CARC green camo.

[Old Wombat]

Will be watching this build with considerable interest, Frank. 

Although the painting won't be quite as important. 

[Frank3k]

This kit is interesting - you can build a Leopard 2 almost straight out of the box... then you start adding the MEXAS armor, like on the real thing.

So far, I've managed to knock off a small L-shaped bit at the rear of the hull (should be easy to replace) and a square part that goes over one of the toolboxes. I have to do a deeper search tomorrow.

[apophenia]

And we're off ... 

[Frank3k]

This kit is a fun build, with only minor (possibly self inflicted) issues. This is where I stopped today, with most of the hull done. There's some PE, but it's not difficult to bend and place:





This is the original Leopard 2 turret, before most of the armor is attached, but with the mantlet and the Merkava gun gun attached:



The molding and detailing on the gun is softer than on the Meng kit, but it'll do. It still need a few parts and some detailing:



This is the only difficulty I've found, so far. I tried attaching the final armored skirt to the rear of the tank (parts A29 and A30, step 11) but it just wouldn't fit. The culprit seems to be parts A3 and A4 in step 7; it just goes back too far. I snipped it off to the end of forward armored section and it fit (you can see one of the sections I had to cut off on both sides just below the tank:



PDF of instructions

I don't know if it's my fault or Meng's, but since the hull is pretty much finished, I don't care; it was a quick and easy fix.

I'll work on the turret tomorrow and I'll scratchbuild the exhaust heat shield as well.

[Old Wombat]

[Kerick]

I’ll be watching!

[Frank3k]

I never found the missing piece (it'll probably show up once I'm 100% done with this build), but the Merkava sprue had two almost identical parts. You can see it below:



the kit part is the small square with an elliptical section, right above the top toolbox. The Merkava part is at the bottom and it's outer edges are slightly angled. I may just take the kit part off and replace it with the Merkava part, just to keep it even.

[Claymore]

Looking good. 

[Buzzbomb]

Like the others very keen on this build. The topic is really well thought through

[Story]

Can't remember if I posted this before, but bein's as the British didn't deploy MBTs and the Canadians did (call sign LEOPARD 2?) & an L7 (105mm), I do believe this is apropos.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o8OFJyutZg

See also https://beyondthesprues.com/Forum/index.php?topic=1300.msg208653#msg208653

Double-dog dare you to add speakers. 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/176069410820

[Frank3k]

I hope that story is true!

This picture from the thread you linked is a pretty good example of the greenish blue fade on the NATO/CARC green on those Leopards: