Model and painting by Jürgen Kreissl
Report by Stephan Hinz
Model: Hobby Boss No. 82401 - Leopard 2A4
Track: Trumpeter No. TK-09 - Leopard 2 workable track links
Gun Barrel: RB Models
Smoke discharger: Euro-Model Switzerland - EMP-35002
Decals: Echelon ECH35008 1:35 Echelon Leopard 2 - Fearsome Cats of the European Nations
Mirrors: Echelon?
Update: various parts from Perfect Scale and bits and pieces from the spares box (mainly home-cast)
Finnish parts: home-made and partly hand-cast
Colours: All self mixed Humbrol or Tamiya
References: Internet, websites Mil.fi and
Andreaslarka.net and photos from Antero Oikkonen.
For a long time I have researched the Finnish Leopard 2A4. I like the splinter camouflage, and the Finnish amendments which make the Leopard look different.
There were some nice photos on the homepage of the Finnish Army (mil.fi), but they are not available. Some of the photos really caught my interest because they showed a Leopard where the light green colour had been replaced by a brown colour. Furthermore, the storage box on the left hand turret front looked different. All other amendments can be found on all Finnish Leopards. I have no clue why there was only one Leopard painted in this particular colour scheme.
I found out that the photos were taken by Antero Oikkonen from Finland at Parola in January 2008. I contacted Antero and he allowed me to use the photos as reference and he sent me high-res copies of the photos.
My friend Jürgen Kreissl always likes 'unusual' subjects, so he decided to make this model.
Again the HobbyBoss 2A4 model is used, updated with home-cast sprockets from the Tamiya Leopard 2A5. Some major update parts came from Perfect Scale, but the skirts, etc. have been amended to show the typical Finnish layout (bigger climbing holes to fit the Finnish winter boots, amended rear plate, etc.
During the build we also found that the turret roof had a different layout of the non-slip patches. They were replicated using 'Roughcoat' spray from Games Workshop. Included are photos of the real thing just to prove it did exist (photos courtesy Antero Oikkonen).
The model was finished in July 2014, long before the new Meng Leopard 2A4 appeared. The 'in progress' photos give an idea of how many updates had to be made by Jürgen to resemble the typical look of this 'one-off' Finnish Leopard.
We hope you like it.
Model by Jürgen Kreissl.
Report by Stephan Hinz.
I always wanted to have a model of the Leopard 1 with a dozer blade. I acquired some self-made parts from a friend and also had some parts from the Mouse House dozer available. These were added to the Italeri Leopard 1.
The model is old, but still pretty nice and I have a lot in my stash. The wheels were always the weak part of the model so they have been replaced by the bolted wheels from the Leopard Workshop range. The tracks came from HKCW (Elite) and a lot of self-made details were added. I remember that some parts from DanScale were also used which are now available from Accurate Armour.
I made the rear turret basked from plastic sheet with etched screens.
Of course, the rear hull screen was replaced by a casting from the Meng part and used their etched grille. Also, a lot of small details were added from the spares box and home-cast items.
All of a sudden, Perfect Scale released a kit of the dozer, so I decided to paint the model without the dozer and waited for the Perfect Scale parts to replace all my scratch-built parts. I planned to make the dozer movable, but due to fiddly construction and also due to some 'alignment issues' (in fact the dozer is not really parallel), I decided to fix it in a raised position.
You can see from the photos that I decided to show the tank with a slight 'nose-down' position to show the additional weight of the dozer.
The tank was inspired by photos of the Danish Open Days in Blavand, where the Danes show a lot of their tanks, and those from the museum. Therefore it also shows the smiley on the dozer blade front.
After the model was nearly finished, I realised that the front stowage box is not fixed to the tank which I'd been chosen to build and, therefore, I amended the model accordingly. It was a bit risky, but I removed without any damage to the model. During this operation, I also amended the cable cover on the hull front and changed the smiley into a thinner look by using smaller cut strips of paper.
I hope you like it.
Model by Jürgen Kreissl.
Report by Stephan Hinz.
This model is the Meng kit straight from the box. Allthough the kit's wheels are a little sharp edged and do not look as good as the items from Leopard Workshop, I used them because I wanted to have a quick build without a lot of changes. The poorly detailed exhausts were replaced with the old, but still good parts from the Italeri kit. Meanwhile, nice replacement parts are also available by Leopard Workshop.
I still had a set of HKCW (Elite) tracks available which I used instead of building the kit track. I therefore had to fix the suspension, because the HKCW track is not so flexible than the Meng track.
As references for this tank, I used photos from the internet, showing this Leopard on parade in Athens. During the parade the tanks were always clean. Furthermore, they were equipped with machine guns on Dutch-made cradles and had only one antenna. To add a little detail, I put a commander's helmet on the gunsight.
The model is painted in self-mixed Tamiya colours with only a very light washing.
I hope you like it.
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