Leopard II Tanks

[DavidN]

I have 4 Leopard II tanks in my collection. I don't know what camouflage scheme I should apply on the 4th one (far left). It is a Tamiya. I don't want to mess up. Any recommendation? I don't like white that much. Thx!

[Meter Rat]

A couple of Finish Leopard 2.

[keilau]

I painted my Leopard 2A6 by copying the original Heng Long Leopard2A6. You are probably looking for something different.

I have a working Frankenstein German Leopard 2A6 with Torro metal lower chassis, Torro plastic upper chassis and Heng Long turret with servo mechanism. I used a Valejo WWIII NATO Armour & Infantry color set, but concern that the 17ml bottles are too little for multiple coatings of a 1/16 scale tank. I decided to use 2 spray cans for supplement. I used Krylon Colormaxx Italian Olive which is a perfect match for the NATO green. I cannot see any difference in shade when I used the Valejo NATO green for patch up correction. The Krylon matte black is too black because NATO black is a black grey. I hand painted the NATO brown using Valejo because the area is small. Now I get a Frankenstein painting too. The HL NATO camouflage on the turret is not accurate. The same paint on the plastic upper chassis and metallic lower chassis have slightly different shade too. After 2 layers of dull coat, they look good enough and I call it done.

I use the HL chassis as my painting guide. Instead of playdough, I used caulking cord for soft edge marking.

I did not get a soft edge in the new NATO camo. I believe mostly because the spray paint can comes out too hard. I will need to go back to airbrush to get the soft edge effect.

[tank_me]

Greek:



Hungarian:

[DavidN]

From some suggestions, I like this one. Is it also the Greek's version?

[Meter Rat]

David. Have you looked on the Leopard Club Site.

https://leopardclub.info/

I think the scheme you posted might be Chilean. It is mainly aimed at 1/35 models, but some of the pictures in spotlight can be useful.

[keilau]

David. Have you looked on the Leopard Club Site.

https://leopardclub.info/

I think the scheme you posted might be Chilean. It is mainly aimed at 1/35 models, but some of the pictures in spotlight can be useful.

The picture says "desert - tri-color paint scheme". I do not know Chile has so much desert. The paint scheme does look very good. A nice change from the NATO tri-color.

However, the Chilean Army does not operate the Leopard 2A6. Chile operates the Leopard 2A4CHL, a specialized variant of the Leopard 2A4. Not sure how much mod it takes to convert the 2A6 Tamiya to a 2A4CHL.

[sclui56]

The picture says "desert - tri-color paint scheme". I do not know Chile has so much desert. The paint scheme does look very good. A nice change from the NATO tri-color.

Must be the Atacama Desert, with 60%+ lithium carbonate reserves globally.

[keilau]

Must be the Atacama Desert, with 60%+ lithium carbonate reserves globally.

However, the Chilean Army does not operate the Leopard 2A6. Chile operates the Leopard 2A4CHL, a specialized variant of the Leopard 2A4. Not sure how much mod it takes to convert the 2A6 Tamiya to a 2A4CHL.

[Meter Rat]

However, the Chilean Army does not operate the Leopard 2A6. Chile operates the Leopard 2A4CHL, a specialized variant of the Leopard 2A4. Not sure how much mod it takes to convert the 2A6 Tamiya to a 2A4CHL.

I only said it “might” be Chilean, looking at some of their camouflage schemes. It has been reported that Germany was to have sold some surplus 2A6 to Chile.
The scheme sown is possibly a “what if” scheme in development, as it is very ambiguous.

[Meter Rat]

From some suggestions, I like this one. Is it also the Greek's version?

A bit more delving. This looks to be a factory paint job, offered by Krauss-Maffei, as an off the shelf camouflage scheme for prospective desert users. A bit like the 3 tone camouflage. Computer sprayed, so all would look the same. I will try to confirm this.
If you like this camouflage pattern, just do it. You now have a back story.

[cleong]

However, the Chilean Army does not operate the Leopard 2A6. Chile operates the Leopard 2A4CHL, a specialized variant of the Leopard 2A4. Not sure how much mod it takes to convert the 2A6 Tamiya to a 2A4CHL.

A lot. I rolled a Tamiya Leopard 2A6 back to a 2A4.

[keilau]

A lot. I rolled a Tamiya Leopard 2A6 back to a 2A4.

Did you ever post a mod journal? If yes, can you provide a link?

What are the major differences between the 2 Leopard models?

[cleong]

Did you ever post a mod journal? If yes, can you provide a link?

What are the major differences between the 2 Leopard models?

Yes, it was posted elsewhere but I'll just give the broad rundown here.

The key visual differences between a 1:1 Leopard 2A4 and the 2A6 are the length of the gun barrel, revised muzzle, add-on arrowhead armor packages around the front of the hull, relocation of the optical sight from being within the right-side turret cheek to the roof, an extended turret rear bustle, thicker armor skirting around the front quarter of the hull, with the rest of the skirts having a straight profile rather than a zigzag profile and the driver's hatch being modified from a swing style to a sliding style hatch.

Tamiya faithfully reproduced the 2A6 visually but did not leave room for easy modifications for the rest of the changes. There was nothing easy about the conversion, not even chopping the L55 to an L44 even though there was guide lines on the barrel. I had to get Carson DKLM to 3D print an accurate L44 muzzle for me.

Other than that, managing reduced internal volume was (and still is) a challenge. I am in the midst of re-doing the cable management to free up some space as Tamiya has allocated generous lengths of wire that need to be tucked in spaces that I no longer have.

I removed the lower half of the Ludwig 2A4 turret so I could mate it to the Tamiya turret's lower half, as it carried too much of the necessary structure - turret rotation, barrel elevation, etc. As a result I had to modify the Ludwig mantlet to fit to the Tamiya mantlet carrier.

Lastly, there was extensive replacement of the hull's driver roof and turret ring area to accommodate the correct swing-type driver's hatch. Its not something I am looking to do again anytime soon...

[DavidN]

I was about to prepare my Tamiya Leopard 2 for the paint job. Just pulling out the rubber tires already seems to be too much work. I might want to go with the winter scheme instead.