Rick, thanks for the pic of the leo. There were alot of vehicles in our motorpool that had straigh green part on them that came from the maker that way. It was up to each unit if they wanted to repaint the camo or not, most of the time we just left the part solid green.

The rear hull and sides repainted in that image are a result of the mounts being welded on and the sections repainted.....not all the tanks were repainted and most have the NATO cam on the rear and sides.

Hi. I have finished (well, almost, There is some tough-up and weathering to do yet) the slat armour on the right side of the Leo. Here are some pictures for comment. I have banged up the armour a bit as I saw that in some pictures. It would be great to get some comments on how this armour works and how common it is as I have not seen a lot of pictures of it and description.

Thanks!

The slat armour gets pretty banged up.



The Danes have the slat armour as well.




And the Brits






It's actually very common. The theory behind is that RPG rounds will get pre-detonated by striking the slat armour which will reduce its effectiveness.


cheers

Robert your build looks great so far and I like how you damaged the bar armor. I plan to use mine straight from the box with no damage to them. Like Rick said, it's used to reduce the effect of the warhead which is great against single type warheads like the rpg-7 and the law. This kind of armor has been used as far back as WWII when the germans applied thin sheat metal to their panzers. The russian even used bedsprings as extra protections against the panzerfaust and shrek. Cheap and effective kind of armor that any machine shop could make.

Here are my latest and greatest updates on the build so far. I am getting a lot closer to completing this tank as I am itching to build another Canadian vehicle now. This build is taking longer than I would like too as I can only paint one thing at a time and wait for things to dry before moving on. The tracks and the road wheels were my biggest hold up since I had to paint all the rubber portions by hand. Once this was complete, I could begin to assemble the rest of the hull and side skirts just before I begin adding the entire bar armor to the hull. I still have a few small things left to do to hull before it will be finished. I toned down some of the dust on the upper deck with some filter from mig as I felt it was too stark for the effect I wanted to achieve. I have also begun some of the weathering on the turret with a pin was of buff oil paint and pigments and applied a second coat of grey filter. To make the rain streaks on the side of the tank, I took some grey filter, mixed in some gulf war sand. I also started to add some gear for the crew of the tank, but still needs to be painted up. I am tossing around the idea of the tank crew talking over some maps with an US soldier to add some interest with the simple base. I still have to order a set of Canadian crew for the tank, but for now, I will just finish the build.

Well I am one-step closer to completing the model, just a couple more things left and I can add this into the display case with my other completed models. As you can see I have the entire bar armor installed on the turret and one side of the hull. The armor has some design flaws from HB, but is easy to work around. As you can see, the side panels do not match up with the rear panel and leaves a rather nasty gap between them. The supports for the armor need to be adjusted before it is glued in place. In addition, I have painted and installed some basic gear for the crew from Tamiya and Legend, but kept the amount down, as the crew would be out of the FOB for only 72hrs. All the equipment was tied in with the turret with a light dusting with mig pigments to show that even crew gear is not immune from the harsh desert conditions. I replaced the kits MG3 with a Gen2 MG42 from dragon, as the details on HB were very soft. Some detail painting was done on the base with details being picked out with a fine brush and different Vallejo paint. The crushed oil drums were base painted with a dark brown oil paint, and then stippled on some rusty pigments.

I think it will look just fine, you just have to tie the side and rear sections together.




cheers

Very nice job Chris,

I'm about to do the slat arrmour.I found the same problem with the turret sitting too low on the back.I added 2 balsa supports to level the lower hull and it totally fixed the problem. I would pos pics if it it was't so complicated.I'm not much of a computer guy.

tom

Rick, I have not installed the photo etch barckets for the armor yet, but I did not realize there was that much of a grap between the side and back armor. I still have to see if the brackets will even fit the armor or not, nothing more I will make my own parts. I highly recomend people not to use the drill holes in the side skirts and top of the hull to locate the bar armor, it's just going to cause more problems than just freely moving the parts around.

Thanks Tom, I wasn't sure if I was the only one having these kind of problems with the armor since I haven't seen anyone else build up this kit yet. I'm not sure if the turret is too low to the hull or if the armor is too big. Either way, the rear armor panel is going to ride on top of the engine deck, one reason why I have the turret turned just a bit. I'm very curious to see how the balsawood works. Maybe on my next go around with the leo I will bend the support brackets for armor to make more clearness.

Hi Christopher, you did an excellent job so far. The plastic slat is turning great.

Your ground work is very realistic but its color still appears too uniform to me. I guess it's not finished yet.

Keep on the good job.
Olivier

Hey,

I didn't have much problem with the fit of the rear slat but I agree with ignoring the drill holes. Also the turret does sit a little too low and as such had to keep the turret angled as well. I would love to see the balsa solution too.

I mean I did have the problem as well with the rear armour... sorry.

Thanks Olivier for the comments. The slats turn out just fine, not quit to scale as a photo etch would of, but still I like working with plastic more. As far as the base goes, I still have to add a few more washes to it and pick out a couple more detials.

Robert hopefully someone will release a correction upgrade for this kit that will allow the turret to sit higher or something. Right now the only thing I can think of is to either rebuild the rear armor panel or make new brackets to raise the armor more.

Hi Robert,

The balsa fix was so easy I even amazed myself.
After looking at the lower hull,I could see a or warp in the center of the of the top.To bring it up to level I cut 2 pieces of balsa slightly higher on the inside off the lower hull.glued them downThe turret then moves freely and the back comes were it should be.

Wow Tom, that is an easy fix and I can see what you are talking about now, no need for pictures. I just looked at my hull and you can bearly see it, but the turret ring sits lower than the rest of the hull. I'll post a picture later tonight so everyone can see the problem area, I'm going to try to see if I can wedge some plastic to raise the ring. Great catch Tom

Here is a simple fix to solve the problem with the turret bar armor riding too low and hitting the engine deck. Thanks to Tom's use of balsawood to raise the deck so that the turret would sit higher, I used a plastic tub with strip plastic shimmed under it to raise the turret ring more.


Before placement of turret ring support


After support installed

You can bearly make out the gap between the lower portion of the rear bar armor and the two intakes on the deck for the engines

Hey Christopher,

Thanks for posting the photos.I can load them to my gallery,but for the life of me I can't seem to get them onto a post.

Tom

Hey Tom, not sure if this is what you were talking about doing with the balsawodd, but it was a quick and easy fix for me to make. The turret seems to work alot better now and none of the armor hit the deck anymore.

Tom there is also a link on the forum for posting pictures, it's very simple to do and I have posted the link for you to check out
https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/120940&page=1

Chris

Thanks for the link Christopher and what you did ith the tubing is exactly what I did with the balsa.

Tom

I think, that is poorly located rear of the slat. All Leo 2, also at the Tamiya model must underpin the rear of the hull.


more photos
http://www.realmodel.cz/index.php?option=com_phocagallery&view=category&id=28:cdn-leopard-2a6m-wslat-armor&Itemid=49

Miloslav, I'm not sure what you are talking about exactly. I'm guessing you are saying the supports for the rear armor should be lower. Main problem with the HB kit is there's no good solid location for any of the support brackets and have alot of play in them which causes the panels to sit lower or out more from the hull.

Yes, I also thought, but from Edward Slat armor is a similar problem.
The main cause is the rear of the sunken hull. The problem with Leopard from Tamiya and Hobby Boss as well. I also rebuilt all Leo, here is a photo.

I defiantly see what you are saying now. I didn't bother checking to see if there was any wrappage in the kit before I started building. My next time around I will fix all these problems during construction. Kind of sucks we are catching all these problems after the fact, oh well live and learn

This can not be fixed. I did it with Tamiya. I cradled Hull hole for the tower.