German Leopard 2A6/A6M Main Battle Tank - 1:35 Revell

[Mike]

Leopard 2A6/A6M

1:35 Revell

The Leopard 2 is the successor to the earlier Leopard Main Battle Tank (MBT), and was developed in the 70s, entering service just before the turn of the decade. The original had a vertical turret front, while later editions had an improved angled armour applied to the front that gives the tank a more aggressive look and provides much better protection. It has all the trappings of a modern MBT, including stabilised main gun for firing on the move, thermal imaging and composite armour.

The original Leopard 2 entered service in 1979, but has been through a number of upgrades through its service life and is currently at version 2A7+. The 2A6 is still current however, and likely to be so for some considerable time. It sports the Rheinmetall 120mm smoothbore gun and MG3 machine guns for close-in defence, and has the by-now familiar arrow-head front to the turret, as well as a number of more subtle upgrades that follow on from the 2A5. Sales of the Leopard 2 have been good overseas because of its reputation, and Canada, Turkey, Spain and most of the Nordic countries use it as well as many other smaller operators.

The Kit

The box is Revell's usual black end opening box with a painting of the Leopard wearing European camouflage while a disembodied head of a real leopard roars behind it. After the Puma's box art, I'm beginning to wonder whether they've hired a motorcycle airbrush artist to do their box top paintings. Inside are seven sprues in Revell's green styrene, which I wish they'd move away from personally. There are also four spruelets of wobbly black styrene/rubber, plus four runs of track in the same material, and a clear sheet of acetate that is marked as "window sheet" on the instructions. A short length of wire is taped to the instruction booklet, and the end is quite sharp – I managed to stab my finger tip when re-boxing this kit, so watch you don't shed any blood when handling it. The decal sheet is hidden away in the centre of the booklet, and is protected by a sheet of thin greaseproof paper.

Looking past the dreary green styrene, the kit is clearly a modern tooling, and has some nice detail on the outer hull, including patches of anti-slip coating on the main surfaces. The large circular cooling fans on the rear decking are particularly nicely done as separate parts, and should look well once painted. The odd layout of the track could cause some problems however, as each track is made up from two halves that must be glued together before they can be added to the tank.

The hull is built up from separate sides, which are held in alignment by two bulkheads that sit in the central are of the chassis. This should make construction a lot easier than wrangling lots of parts with no way of telling if you have the angles right. It would be wise to dry-fit the top of the hull to this assembly before the glue fully cures though, just in case any minor easement is required. After this, seven roadwheel axles are added to each side into keyed slots in the side of the hull, with additional drive and idler axles as well as extra suspension detail that is glued into place on the side of the hull. The roadhwheels are fitted to the axles in pairs, and have their rubber tyres moulded in place, as do the four return rollers on each side. The idler wheels are smaller than the roadwheels, and the drive sprockets are built from two separate parts each. If you have chosen to build the A6M variant, an additional applique armour part is added to the underside of the tank, which improves its mine resistance, hence the M designation.

As mentioned earlier, the tracks are of the rubber-band type, although detail is nicely done, and if you can live with the curving of the tracks around the drive and idler wheels they should suffice perfectly well. Each length is made from two sections, which have a generous four-link overlap and two pins on each link to strengthen the join. They are supposed to be glued with ordinary plastic adhesive, and you are recommended to clamp them together and wait until they are properly cured before handling them. The pins protrude through the track pads on the outer face, so hiding them under the fenders and against the ground would be advisable once you have attached them to the vehicle, so that they don't show after painting. The rear bulkhead of the vehicle has a large radiator grille running along the full width, which is a little lacklustre, but should suffice for most purposes. Under it hang the two flexible mudguards that are made from the same plastic as the tracks, and various shackles, hitches, panels and the rear light clusters are added at this point.

The top deck is supplied as a single part, and simply drops onto the lower hull, which should hopefully align neatly if you have been diligent with its construction. The two large cooling fan grilles are added, as is a small insert that must be specific to this version on the right side of the rear deck. Some pioneer tools are added to the rear deck, and the towing ropes are made up from flexible plastic rope attached to styrene towing eyes. If you're not happy with a moulding seam running down your tow-ropes, now would be the time to replace it with some braided wire from RB Model or similar.

Moving to the glacis plate, spare track links plus the usual hitches and shackles are added, along with the front driving lights and the driver's hatch, which can be left to slide within the hull by careful gluing of the panel inserts to its front and rear. Whether this is worth the effort is moot, unless you plan on installing a driver figure into your Leopard. The fenders are integral to the top hull, and only the side-skirts need to be added. These are made from two basic parts on each side, with the thicker applique armour added over the front two roadwheels and idler, tipped by a triangular shaped block at the very front.

The turret is a complex shape, and even the base is made up from three parts, onto which the main gun is built up. The barrel is supplied in two halves, split lengthwise, and has some nice moulded detail, so take care when cleaning up the seam. The barrel is tipped with a hollow muzzle, but this is a little shallow, so might be better drilled out once the glue is dry. The mantlet section that raises with the gun is built up around the large location pin, and this is then added to the underside of the turret, being locked in place by a pair of upstands that permit the barrel to raise and lower. The top of the turret is a larger single piece with only one panel in the rear right added along with the sighting system's lenses. This is added to the bottom of the turret, after which the side panels and bustle are added to complete the main part of the turret's construction. The side panels that bolster the armour of the turret's arrow-head shaped front are installed next, and here there are some quite significant sink-marks. Initially I suspected that they might be flexible panels, but from looking at photos of the real thing, they aren't, so will need filling until they are flat. This could be a bit tricky however, as there are bolt-heads moulded in that portray the mounting points for the applique armour.

Once the main construction of the turret is complete, the various small parts are added, along with the two crew access hatches and additional sensors that festoon the commander's hatch. Both hatches have triple-layered doors that are laminated from separate parts, and they look ostensively the same, apart from the square cut-out on the gunner's hatch for the hinge. Triangular mesh baskets are installed on the angled rear corners of the bustle, and these styrene parts would be prime candidates for replacement by aftermarket mesh to give a more realistic appearance. The smoke grenade launchers are fitted to each side of the turret just forward of the baskets, and these are made up from individual barrels attached to a rail with supports moulded in. The gunner's MG3 is also added to the edge of his hatch, and you are told to heat up two 75mm lengths of wire before plunging them into the aerial mounts that were added earlier in the build. Whether super-glue would be a less dangerous option is up to you – just be careful you don't poke yourself with the wire at any stage. It hurts.

The turret can then be added to the hull by twisting it into place to lock the wings under the turret-ring flange. A pair of rear-view mirrors are added to the front of the tank, and a small sensor is added to the recuperator bulge on the barrel in the final few steps, and the last part of the build is to decide whether to lock the barrel to the rear for transport, or leave it free with the transport-lock stowed between the two large fan grilles.

The painting diagrams are included in the instruction booklet, and as there is only one scheme so far, this is given on the first page, consisting of bronze green, leather brown and tar black, or more correctly NATO green, brown and black. Four choices of markings are provided on the small decal sheet, as follows:

• 2.Zug/4. Kompanie/PzBtl 203, Augustdorf
  
• 1.Zug/3. Kompanie/PzBtl 203, Augustdorf
  
• 3.Zug/4. Kompanie/PzLehrBtl 93, Munster
  
• 1.Zug/4. Kompanie/PzLehrBtl 93, Munster

The decals are in excellent register, have good colour density and minimal carrier film. Of note are the small scissor symbols printed next to some of the unit badges that are fixed to the rear baskets on the turret. This apparently means that you should cut the "paper picture" out an glue it to the baskets, which would result in a slightly unsatisfactory and likely wooly looking result. A better option would be to paint up some scrap styrene and apply the decals to that instead, glue the finished article to the turret baskets instead.

Conclusion

The Leopard 2 is an impressive and capable tank, and this kit is a good rendition of it on the whole. My only issue with it that will affect most modellers are those prominent sink-marks on the sides of the turret front, but I personally dislike rubber tracks and that dark green styrene that Revell continue to use - I promise I'll stop going on about it eventually, although I can't guarantee an exact date.

Ignoring those gripes, and assuming you don't poke out an eye with the antennae, it should build up into an impressive model of this MBT, and with a little research and some scratch-building you could instead portray it as one of the many overseas operators - I would imagine that the Canadian machines would be quite an attractive option, as they loaned a number of them for service in the Middle East, and weren't allowed to make many modifications to them because they were expected to be handed back eventually.

Recommended.

Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For further information visit

[Hit Or Miss]

Tamiya's rep for the 2A6 has always puzzled me as the kit is rather a pain to build with particularly it's floppy upper deck that wants to fold in the middle when you put the turret on it. This kit, for all it's multi-part hull buildup complexity, doesn't have that problem. It is also dimensionally correct whereas the Hobby Boss Leopards are something like 4mm too narrow. The biggest problem with the Revell Leopard 2A6 is just finding it. It was so unpopular for awhile that prices dropped to 20-24 dollars each and now it cannot be had for less than 50 while the Tamiya is often 40 or less.

Especially if you're looking to decent indilink with metal, a 69 dollar Revell (Amazon) plus 50 dollars for Fruil tracks is a bit of a non starter, so, given I would do the same for the others (excepting the HB which is dimensionally incorrect), it's a case of pricing to market. Revell has the price point and couldn't sell them. Now they are at or above retail and I can't find them.