1:72 Leopard 2 A4 – Revell 03103

Entering service in 1979, the Leopard 2 was designed for use in the West German Army during the Cold War. Top of the line accuracy and speed plus countless modifications to the original design see this tank still in use today!

Introduction

I was excited to open this one up as it was my first modern AFV to date. Unfortunately it is an old Revell kit, with poor quality plastic.

Revell Leopard 2 A4
These are the main body pieces.
Revell Leopard 2 A4
Side armor, lower hull and turret.
Revell Leopard 2 A4
Wheels and tracks.

Assembly Process

The lower hull is assembled from 3 pieces. Care must be taken because there are only 2 support points that you can guide yourself to align it properly.

Revell Leopard 2 A4
Carefully align the 3 pieces.

The main wheels have to be assembled from 2 pieces each. The rest of the wheels come on a single file (which is quite nice but a bit hard to remove from the sprue without damage) and you only have to glue the covers on them.

Revell Leopard 2 A4
This concept actually works quite fine.

Since there are only 3 pieces per side it took almost no time in fitting them onto the hull.

Revell Leopard 2 A4
Fit them carefully not to break the small plastic injections.

However now the big test arrived in the form of the tracks which are an old crappy plastic glue them piece by piece model. It goes as far as 22 individual small links that need to be glued together with the other 8 bigger pieces.

Revell Leopard 2 A4
There are 22 single links, 4 medium sized links and 2 big link tracks.

It actually took around 20 minutes to glue the first track together because of my lack of experience. Once that was done the second track was ready in 5 minutes.

Revell Leopard 2 A4
Not cool at all.

The upper hull has most of the stuff pre-molded on it and the only things you need to pin are 2 headlights, 2 rear mirrors and 2 towing hooks which is quite poor.

Revell Leopard 2 A4
Not a very nice piece.

The turret is a pleasure to assemble as it looks quite sleek and dangerous.

Revell Leopard 2 A4
5 pieces make up this turret.

But the details that have to go on it are again a pain to stick as there are no indicators available so one has to do his best following the instructions.

Revell Leopard 2 A4
The smoke launchers were kind of a guess work.

Once this was done I glued the upper and lower hull together (they don’t fit that well and small gaps can be seen). After that I snapped the turret in its place (it has a nice 360 degrees action going on).

Revell Leopard 2 A4
The completed model does look nice.
Revell Leopard 2 A4
Revell Leopard 2 A4

Evaluation

Plastic Quality 3 (Mediocre) Bad soft plastic. Minor flash had to be removed.
Number of Details 3 (Mediocre) Not that many details on the main body. I appreciate the decals present in the box.
Instructions 3 (Mediocre) Instructions are missing some details and are only black and white so no color scheme is represented.
Building Time 3 (Mediocre) Build time was 80 minutes. 15 minutes were only the tracks.
Enjoyment 3 (Mediocre) I liked the kit however plastic tracks that have to be assembled one by one is a chore.

The biggest flaw that I can find to this model has to do with the main body which has so many details just casted on it and not giving us the joy of actually working it.

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