The Leopard 2A6 is the latest development of Germany's main battle tank. It's an improved 2A5 with a Rheinmetal 55-caliber 120mm smoothbore main gun. The 2A6 is scheduled to replace all of the 2A5 models in Germany's arsenal by 2006, and will also serve in the armies of Spain, Greece, and the Netherlands.
Likewise, Tamiya has upgraded its 2A5 kit with a new main gun barrel, two new figures for the turret, and, as a bonus, two road signs, useful for dioramas. The parts are molded in dark olive plastic, with Tamiya's usual high standard of detail. The kit features one-piece vinyl tracks. A clear sprue has lenses for the headlights, taillights, and goggles for the figures. A die-cut plastic sheet provides the clear parts for the various vision blocks and sensors on the hull and turret. The 16- page instruction booklet includes excellent assembly instructions and a detailed guide for the NATO tri-color camouflage scheme showing all sides of the vehicle, including the hull without the turret in place. Decals for four different vehicles are well printed.
There was nothing difficult or tricky about the assembly. Tamiya provides plastic jigs to align the suspension arms. Detail on the hull is outstanding, and the finely molded intake screens are a marvel of modern injection molding.
The turret is a little more complicated than the hull, but everything fit perfectly. I found the vinyl mesh for the turret baskets difficult to cut, and even more difficult to glue to the framework.
Painting the Leopard is the most challenging task. The complex NATO tri-color scheme is a standardized pattern, so I enlarged the painting diagrams from the instructions to the scale of the kit. After painting the hull and turret green, I cut the green areas from the enlarged diagrams and stuck them on with small blobs of blue sticky putty for masks. I sprayed on the brown, then repeated the process for the black, then hand painted the add-on details. Here and there I airbrushed a patch of lightened camouflage color for a more realistic finish.
The finished model matches the dimensions at
www.army-technology.com/projects/leopard. I spent about 24 hours building and painting my Leopard, a little longer than normal due to the complex camouflage scheme.
- John Plzak