Canadian Leopard 2A6M with slat armor and barracuda mats

Revells Braille Leo2A6M is going canadian...

Well, usually I am not so much into main battle tanks, but when I saw a 1:72 scale Leopard 2A6M with slat armor at a small scale convention I was hooked.  

I managed to secure myself the very last of this conversion, as it was already discontinued quite a while ago. 

These are the resin parts that came with it.
Well, at the end non - except one - of those part were used as finally most of them were replaced by homemade stuff. 

And that ist the way it is suppose to look. The experts will note a few mistakes on first glance. Some of which I will try to correct. 

to cut a long story short: more detailling was possible with some photoetch from E.T. models and some scratched parts where conversion and photo etch lacked necessary items. 

aligning the road wheels after putting some heavy wear on the rubber rims of the was a bit of a challenge. 

I finally managed to get the tracks on. That they do not meet at the upper part does not bother me as it will be hid behind the side armor. 

slat armor was next. Here the one for the turret. You already see the altered version where I tried to fix the mistakes in the layout of the conversion (compare with pic 5) 

Here the slat parts for the trunk with some distortion as you often saw on the real thing. 

The turret primed and with the attachment points for the slat armor added. 

The resin mounting struts were replaced by selfmade ones. 

For a long time I had quite a clear idea of how I want to present this cat but for whatever reasons, it just would not work out when I tried to lay it out. At the end I discarded the original idea and develloped a new one that did work for me. 

this is meant to be a canadian outpost with the Leo on guard. 

Groundwork was done with plaster of Paris, sieved Chinchilla sand, some stones and pieces of coal, all primed with primer from a can and blackend with Tamiya X1. 

The base quite close to completion. Hesco and sand bags handpainted, a shelter from Evergreen profiles built and covered with brass PSP plates. 

The Leos home almost ready for moving in. 

In the beginning canadian Leos did not wear Barracuda mats, but I wanted to take on the challenge and do them in Braille scale. I tried varios techniques and finally advanced with a base of aluminum foil of about 30µm thickness on which another sheet of foil was glued that has been perforated with the pattern of the mats. 

Took me a while to figure out how the umbrella was constructed. That is my interpretation. 

movable brass rods were covered with a Barracuda mat. 

Figuring out the layout of the mats is a bit of a hassle. 

Making them too.
So that is where I am stuck.
Not last because I think I might have a better technique to make the mats but have not found the motivation to try it yet. 

As I do not know of any modern Canadian tankers in scale 1:72, I opted for Cesar's US tankers and declare them canadians.  

Although I do not like the soft plastic of Cesar's miniatures too much, after trimming them they show nice details and will add to the dio.
They were primed in black and received lights in white.  

For almost two months this project sat on the sideline. Now I gave the Barracuda matting another try. Instead of aluminum foil to punch the pattern into I used a special bread bag paper with has a central plastic lining. This provides more stability than pure paper and keeps the shape better. Those sheets were fashioned and glued onto the aluminum backing.  

Here you see them put loosly on top of the turret. They will have to be tweaked, bent and glued.  

This has been on the shelf for quite a while. Now some progress with Js work three tone masks and Real Colors Nato paints - all lightend to scale with some Gunze H-313. 

Not surprisingly one or two details got lost on the way, but nothing that cannot be fixed. 

With the chores of the day done I could make nice use of a few hours of daylight on my balcony to achieve some progress on the three tankers. 

The base coat is a light sand applied in a glazing matter to preserve the shading. The tiny irregular pattern on the uniform I tried to represent by dabbing undiluted paint with a coarse brush onto the uniform. I chose Vallejo Russian Uniform and Khaki. 

After detail painting I outlined some of the details with diluted German Grey. 

Not perfect but I am quite happy how they turned out. 

Next will be the turret. The slat armor received some color too. 

After I finally managed to put the three tone NATO camouflage onto the turret too, I needed some motivational shots in the hope of getting this build going on. 

Here the naked tank as the Canadians bought them from the Dutch 

And here with loosly fitted slat armour as installed in Germany before being sent to A-Stan 

Detail painting finally started. The real tool handles are usually painted green, but I wanted a bit of visual interest. 

The periscopes were painted with a mixture of Tamiya Smoke and Gunze Transparent Green on a Vallejo Air Steel base.  

Those few specks of color required some non-respiratory painting. The transparent colors were painted on top of Vallejo Air Steel (which - despite its name - brushes just beautifully) 

The optics of the rang finder (?) received a 'glas' and the firearms container turned Buff. 

I didn't like the hue of the green (AK NATO Green lighted with Buff), so all the green parts received a wash with Vallejo Reflective Green. The difference can be seen at the right side of the frontal top armour. Now I like it better. 

Good Vallejo color combinations (IMHO) for AKs Nato colors for touch ups and filters: Reflective Green, Flat Brown and Black Gray darkened with a bit of Black. 

Ready for the varnish 

Bits and pieces ready for primer. 

Tow bar (scatch build), stretcher (EMP3D) and spare track links (kit + PE) done. 

painting proceeds. 

Priming the Barracuda mats revealed that the alu/paper version desintegrates with primer alone. So this technique will require a varnish to protect the paper before priming. I think I will go back to the alu on alu-technique.
Mats have to go on next, then the slat armour. 

drybrushing brings details to life. 

Gloss varnish, decals and some oils for a bit of modulation will be next. But I should not go overboard with this as most of the surface will be covered with mats anyway.  

Tedious job but a start. 

The first mats are attached for good. The alu allows me to conform the mats to the shape of the hull quite similar to the real ones.  

More mats in various stages of construction. The painted ones are fixed already. 

Some motivational shots. So far I like how this developes. 

Assembled the rear part of the turret slat armour and added a makeshift grit as the canadians did to create more cargo space. On the upside it gives the piece at least a tiny bit of stability. Some bits and pieces at the mounts had to be added to make its placement at the turret possible. The asymmetric nature of the slat armour did not make it easier.  

Most of the Barracuda mats of the turret are attached for good.  

Slat armour and umbrella are only loosely attached. Constructing the mounts for the slat armour will be next. 

Test fit for the slat armour supports. To add a bit of stability I drilled 0.3mm holes into the ends of the 0.75mm rods and the corresponding (scratch build) mounts at the turret. With pieces of wire the whole construction appears now much trustworthy. Particularly challenging were the angled ones at the rear and the ones between the smoke discharger. 

Glued and aligned the supports wait for the armour.
A further cable housing between the umbrella support and the ECM boxes was constructed, painted and mounted.
The two spare track links are prepared to be painted. 

Grit the second. This time soldered 

The covers were once done but disintegrated over time. Apart from that they had the wrong color. Construction is done. Paint will be next. 

Washes on bits and pieces 

All support struts for the turret slat armour mounted. The Barracuda mats received washes with light and dark brown to create some color variation.  

When dry I intend to lighten the hue of the mats with a thorough drybrushing again. 

Got sweaty palms when I think about the assembky of the slats. Looks right now that there are still a zillion things to do before I can call this one done. 

Finally got the last three antennas constructed. I tried 0.5 mm styrene rod, but the antennas taper toward the top and I couldn't replicate that. Slide to fit tubes finally did the trick. The two identical ones are made from 0.3 and 0.5 mm brass tubes topped by 0.1 mm wire. The smaller one is made from 0.4 mm brass tube and 0.2 mm copper wire  

Slat armour of the turret is finally on. A lot of dry fitting and tweaking was necessary until it finally worked.  

The manhole covers were done and placed too. 

Starts looking the way I envisioned it. 

Added ALL the decals. That is - two. Okay, I cut one into pieces before, so it's actually four. ?
Now the registration at least starts with 85, as all 2A6 Leos in A-stan did - at least to my knowledge. 

Drilled out the headlights, painted them silver and glued glasses in I cut from a winker of a scale 1:35 M151A1. 

Boxes from all kinds if sources. Coloured in various hues of green. Metal ones received a brown wash and some metallic pigments, wooden ones got drybrushed with buff and aluminum ones were treated with an aluminum colour drybrush. 

Some will be cargo on the Leo, the rest ends up under the shade. 

Closing in on the final layout of all the stuff to fill the cargo space.  

Detail shot of some details whose completion I could check off.
- umbrella mount
- cupola covers
- MG mount 

After a bit of contemplating of how to do it I finally managed to construct the supprts for the rear slat armour. I-beams 1,5 x 1,0 were cut longitudinally and bent to shape. The top row is just glued to the attachment points, the lower row received wire inserts (0,3mm) to enhance stability. 

The side slat armour requires quite some identical supports. To achieve a homogeneous appearance the cut 0.75 x 0.75 styrene rods were put on tape and their ends sanded evenly. 

This worked to my satisfaction.  

0.3 mm wire studs placed where supports are needed. 

Leo goes porcupine. One row of supports done. The front armour has a second lower row which is prepared for painting. T-34 PE track parts served as braces. 

Starts looking like a canadian Leo. 

Final chore of the day: building new mirrors. 0.3 and 0.5 mm slide to fit brass tubes came in handy for that. The Barracuda mat had to be modified a bit to accomodate the mirror struts. 

The mats for the hull are layouted according to the information available to me. The perforated layer will be next. 

One side of the hulls Barracuda mats constructed, trimmed and put - so, ready for paint. 

Finally done. All the hulls mats are ready for color. 

...and dirt.
Pigments - bought and collected - with and without fixing fluid were used to dust the cat up. 

To enhance details washes and good ol dry brushing were used in conjunction with the pigments. 

As seen on some real life pics some of the mats were shown peeled off were the velcro didn't work anymore. Made from aluminium this was easily achieved by bendind and coloring the inside grey. 

Some more little detail painting. 

To my pleasant surprise mounting the slat armour on my home made struts appeared to be much easier than expected.  

So all that's missing now are the cargo for the turret, the second row of struts and to mount the antennas.
That seems doable. ? 

To rehydrate the guys I added some beverages in bottles and cans. The latter were cut from 0.8mm rod, painted with Alclad airframe aluminum and decorated with scavenged decals. 

All other stuff has been fixed for good. 

I seized the opportunity to add some splashes of color. 

Homing in with the turret. The antennas and the umbrella are just tucked into thier supports so that I can easily separate them for transport. 

Two or three more bits and the turret is done for good. 

Finally the second row of the slat armour struts are fashioned and mounted. 

The front segments have a lower row of supports. 

On the left side only two supports were needed as the first one was removed due to the heavy bending of the slats. Where supports have been some red color was added as can be seen on the real vehicles.  

The top row of the supports were constructed as outlined in pic 90. 

One or two needed to be redone and are still in want of a coat of color. 

Hull completed, turret attached.  

Started 10 years ago it is a great feeling to see this one finished. 

The last two steps were the addition of the tow bars and the cables. 

Here some details at the supports are visible.  

I wanted to use the scissors scope under the shade. But I didn't like the tripod. After a bit of pondering I build a new one. 

That's pretty much the way I want it to look like. 

Let's bring a bit of life to the base.  

Added some detail shots for the fun of it. 

The last bits and pieces received the first coat of color.  

Painting done. Redid the sleeping pad. I like the blue color better than the orange.  

But not only the tidbits received attention, the basegot a decent makeover too. Groundwork needed some leveling in places. Painting it was necessary again as a result, followed by some washes to add variation, highlights and shades. A drybrush followed for ground and Hesco bags. At the latter to emphasize the metal basket that surrounds them. The red basket was filled with some towels that I cut from aluminium foil. Folding, priming, painting, drybrushing and varnishing followed. 

Grrr. Trying to protect the base from the pigments I put tape around it. Some peel off has now to be fixed. 

But the base is done now 

Let's fix this stuff for good. 

Fixed and done. 

Not entirely happy with this part, but this will have to do. 

A more convincing perspective IMHO. 

For a sense of scale. 

Wasn't happy with the foreground and modified it a bit. The equipment stand was secured with some rocks. Now it won't topple over all the time. The even ground received some more pigments and little gravel to make it look more convincing.  

And the badge arrived...