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:

[Story]

I hope that story is true!

So much about the flavor rings true that I'd buy it for a dollar.

[Frank3k]

I'm almost done with the turret. 80% of the parts that go on are unneeded and to not support the armor - just in case anyone building this kit wants to save some time. The only critical parts are the rails to hold the turret armor and the two disks per side to hold the forward rail. This is the turret ready for the MEXAS armor:





Check steps 28 and 30 of the instructions to see what I mean.

With the armor on:



the right rear armor section is still sticking out a bit - I'll have to re-do it. It seems to be a common issue with this kit - I've seen some online builds with that block sticking out a bit.

One oddity in the instructions is step 32, where you have to add the shield between the rear of the armor and the bustle rack. It calls for two parts "M1" and "M2". M2 is just the matching left side or part C16 (step 33) but I haven't found the "M1" part, anywhere on the sprues so far. If I do find it, it's easy to tuck it in behind the shield.

I mounted the gun barrel temporarily and I think it needs a sleeve to thicken the base of the barrel as it goes into the mantlet armor:

[Kerick]

Lots of good hard work going on there!
Looks like a somewhat over engineered kit.

[Frank3k]

It's not bad - the kit is based on Meng's Leopard 1 (A3/A4/A5) series and they just added the MEXAS bits. In a way, it's instructive to see how the armor is installed on the real tank. If you skip the details, adding the armor is pretty quick and the parts fit very well.

[Frank3k]

I found the mysterious M1 and M2 parts - they were on a sprue attached to the inside of the upper hull turret ring. I'd cut them off and set them aside at the beginning of the build. Doh!

[Kerick]

I would have done the same thing!