Hooben Leopard 1A5 review

[RichJohnson]

I have received my Leopard 1a5 yesterday.
Packed extremely well as Hooben does. Everything was braced very well and nothing was damaged even though the very strong box took some hits.
I ordered an extra set of track so they cut a section out of the white foam to fit that in the box and keep it secure from floating around and breaking anything.
The only part that was off the tank and in the bottom of the box was the driver hatch which is not retained on the tank, it lifts off to be rotated open and can be taken off.
The turret hatches both open gently they are very tight fit and you dont want to be rough with them. The commander hatch lifts all the way out as well, it is not retained.

Hooben now supplies a TK26 radio control system. I havent gotten to drive it yet. I did power up the tank and test out the functions. The screen does nothing. It does not light up, it for fpv only. Figuring out the buttons was a bit tough to learn what did what. There is an instruction sheet included which labels all the ports on the MFU in the tank if you need to unplug stuff for service.

I powered it up and found the turret would not rotate all the way around, the gear would spin but the turret would stall half way around. I took the system apart a couple times and fiddled with it and somehow seem to have solved the alignment issue with the turret and the rotation motor gears so I got the turret to rotate normally without issue.

I operated the functions and the sound system had some great unique sounds but it has a junky speaker so its over driven and raspy.
There are a decent engine sound and throttle rev, two machine gun sounds, one operates the coax MG and the other does nothing, it sounds like a MaDuce .50, and then the main gun sound that operates the main gun. Its decent but has some extra sounds in the file and is a bit overkill in my opinion.

On the rear of the tank the tool box is magnetized and under it is the power switch, a plug to charge the battery if you use the HL type Lithium Ion battery, and a tube to fill the smoker up with.

Personally I do not have a use for smoke at all, I think it looks lame, and it just sucks your battery down fast so none of my tanks have smokers. I plan to remove this system as well. Especially since the smoker tubes all get in the way of getting the top of the tank back on properly.

Accessing the battery requires removing the 6 screws from the bottom of the tank. Its a pain to say the least. I have tested using just the two middle screws holding the tank together enough to drive and I suspect that will work. Thats why they include the charger cable built in but I dont use those batteries in my tanks. Well I do in my M5 Stuart because its tiny.

I ordered the metal control arms and sprocket upgrade. I scratched the back of one arm and verified that they are metal arms. I assume the sprocket is as well. This was a weak point on the merkava and I only resolved the 3d printed arms from breaking on that tank by modifying their 3d design and removing a nut cavity that was the weak spot causing the breaking. On this tank, with metal arms that will never be a problem. The upgrade was worth the charge for sure.

I confirmed the idler is adjustable. I can see the metal arm, its designed just like the HL tank idler adjusters.

The track is not the same width as Tamiya. I suspected that hooben copied tamiya while designing their tank but I think they did not. The track is narrower than the Tamiya track so the aftermarket metal track with rubber pads will not fit. I also do not think there is enough clearance to use a tamiya sprocket on the hooben even if it fit the shaft and had the proper backspacing. The sad part of the track is it has no pads. It is just like the metal tamiya track I have on my other leopard tanks after the rubber pads rip off.
Below I have a picture of the hooben track on a tamiya sprocket for comparison.

In test driving it on the bench I discovered that when you turn left or right, the turn signals automatically flash front and rear. Sadly if I scrap the TK26 I will loose that function.
In bench driving it, I found that as you turn, when the stick gets past a certain point in a linear turn curve, the inside track slows down, then reverses itself. That kind of algorithem is in the DK tank and I cant stand it becuase it creates a slow turn and as you get tighter it suddenly reverses that inside track and sends your tank into a violent super spin turn and you wind up facing the direction you just came from. Its a very terrible stupid algorithm. With a proper modern tank algorithm the inside track should slow down until the point that it stops but even then it would skid steer so you would have to be ready for it, a better way yet is for the outside track to speed up before the inside track would stop so you would have a continous curve not a violent change. Any way we will see how it drives when I get it on the field, maybe today.

To nitpick a couple things, The hull mounted lifting lugs front and rear are way too thick. About 3 times as thick as tamiya ones. That is the ones near the top on the back and the two on the front side glances of the glacis. Man I would love to break them off and sand them down because they attract my eyes and look horrible.
The canvas on the mantlet is amazing, it is held on the way the real one is with a loop and wire fasteners. I love it.

So far overall I am quite satisfied with the look feel and operation of the tank. Driving is just a function of the mfu which will get replaced because I cant battle right hand drive. I will put my ibu2 from my abrams in this tank and a battle system.
I think thats it for now

[Rubicon99]

Looks pretty nice👍👍👍. Can't wait to hear how well it runs.

[SoCalBobS]

Looks nice. Good to know Hooben makes some good products. I experienced the same issue with the TK-26: little turn, little more turn, ZOOM! Same for acceleration when I used it in a light weight tank. always loved the turret shape.

[tank_me]

Those narrow tracks are probably the same ones they put on my Hooben ZTZ-99A. I have the same issue not being able to change them from HL version or any other because they will hit the skirts. I do like the cast turret also.

Derek

[RichJohnson]

I have done a little driving now and while I can proportionally drive the tk26 to my satisfaction, it stalls out incredibly easy. It stalled on me a lot during very. Old terrain driving and forget about grass.

[SoCalBobS]

One of my early kit builds, from the 1960’s when it was new:

[SoCalBobS]

Web glitch duplication.

[RichJohnson]

I’m actually in the middle of building 6 Tamiya leopards. Kits vary from old 1970s clutch drive, 1980s motorized, and 2010 rc able static. I will have 3 welded turrets and 3 round turrets. None will be German. Australia, Belgium, Italy, Canada, and maybe Netherlands.
this hooben will become Norway.

[RichJohnson]

So today I got out in the field and tried to do some driving. I drove around last night in the dark in the dirt next door and the tank locked up and jammed a little bit causing the stalling out.
Today in the field I drove for just a few minutes when I noticed a clicking and lots of track jamming and locking up and the mfu stalling out. I did some testing and got on the ground and laid on my belly to watch the tank try to drive. Litterally nearly every time I tried to drive the tank, one track or both would lock up.

It took me a little bit to determine the track coming off the sprocket going forward was dipping down and catching on the top of the rear shock absorber.
The track is a tad too loose but it wasnt coming off due to the retaining ring but this is a side effect problem. The single pin mock double pin track doesnt flex as well as say tamiya double pin track does so it tends to cling to the sprocket a little longer on a curve before it peels off. This is with all single pin tracks.
So the goal was to tighten up the track and do some test driving before I modify or remove the top of the shock absorbers.

I took the idlers off by just unscrewing the long 2.5mm screw holding them into the metal splined bracket that is screwed to the hull. I found one of the bracket screws was missing a nut, it vibrated loose so I replaced it and put some rtv on it to retain it.
I have to say, I am super impressed with the idlers on this tank. Where the idlers on the merkava had very large few number of splines on the idler shafts allowing for a very coarse large adjustment that really sucked, this tank with its metal idlers and metal brackets has twice as many splines and smaller size allows for a very fine idler adjustment.
And a huge benefit as well, the idlers at least have ball bearings on the inside and outside, also the hub caps fit tightly and have a tab on each side 180 degrees from each other to make them fit even tighter.
Now I did have a an issue with the retained nuts for the idler wheel axle and the idler arm its self fall out of the bracket. They are just sitting in cavities. I used some glue to hold them in place to put the idlers and wheels back on.
I was successful at getting a good track tension by removing a track pad section on each side and lowering the idler adjuster one position point. The track is now taught without being too tight. I hope its at the sweet spot for now until it stretches out. Then I will revisit the issue just like the Merkava but this tank is so much easier to fine adjust and tune.

Here are some photos showing the slack in the track, the damage to the shock absorber top and the idler components.

I have to say, I am even more impressed with this tank now. Where the Merkava lacked in technical quality hooben has adapted and made those changes to their process and made all the right technical mechanical parts the best way possible. So far, I call this tank a winner. Would I buy it again if I somehow lost it, heck yes.

While Im not jazzed with the TK26 I dont fault hooben for that at all. Its a control system. I dont care for the older 2 piece tamiya DMDs either
This tank has all the detail you want, and so far the good mechanical that you want as well. In many ways, I rate it higher than a tamiya, and I would know, I am building 6 of them, and have 1 completed.
The only draw back is the model of leopard that it is. It has the vertical rear exhaust grills. Only batch 1, 2 and 3 of the 4 batches of the leopard 1 had vertical grills. All the rest have the horizantal grills. The only countries that had vertical grill leopards were Germany and Belgium, who bought batch 3 tanks. (You might have noticed one of the tamiyas I building is a Belgian) Belgium I dont think made their Leopard 1 tanks into a5 variants, I have to verify that.
Now, the Bundeswer sold off most of their leopard 1a5 modernized old leopard 1 tanks. The only countries that got vertical grill A5s are Turkey, Greace and Norway. Norway has a cool cammo pattern and a big tool box on the glacis for the grousers so I am going to pry off the grouser part on the front and build that box and paint the norway pattern.

If hooben had made the horizantal grill, it could serve to be a Leopard 1a5 from any number of Nato countries that moderinzed their leopard 1 tanks into A5s but with the vertical grill it could only be as I described above.
Also it would be cool if Hooben made a model without the A5 kit and had the origin al plain leopard 1 sights and didnt have side skirts but they told me they are not interested. Though I think most people I have talked to would prefer an early plain Leo1 without side skirts. Im building a tamiya one like that that will be Italian.

I did make some recommendations to Hooben based on my knowledge of the tank and details and things I thought would improve its cool factor that would be easy to do since its all 3d printed.
If I were not building 6 tamiya leopard 1 tanks, I would buy another and try to back date it, but Ive got enough leopard projects for now LOL

[RichJohnson]

A few photos from the field today during testing.

[RichJohnson]

I set the tension of the track as best I could and went back out for a drive in the field.
The track was still catching on the Shock top points but not as much.

The scale of the shock absorbers is smaller than on the Tamiya Leopard. Because they are smaller the top where the mount is that would bolt them to the hull is small enough that it fits right into the gap between the end connectors of the track. Even with the track properly tensioned they catch sometimes. Not all the time but often depending on what kind of terrain you are negotiating. Semi flat dirt I drove for quite a bit without a problem but uneven terrain would cause the track to stretch or tighten as the wheels move up and down and any slack and the single pin track clings to the sprocket and then catches the shock top and jams.

I resulted in just grinding the top off the shock absorber on each rear shock. I drove though a rut in my yard where I first noticed the jam and it never jammed again. Need to get in the field to try it out on rough terrain but I think its resolved. Yes it sucks I had to do that, but sometimes even henglong tanks require mods to work good. Look at this TD M60 that is out, they are kina a hot mess that you have to resolve.

[SoCalBobS]

Great tank, great color, great area! Looks like we missed each other at the field by just a day.