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Panzerhaubitze 2000 build

Turret

The turret is next on your progress list and I strongly advise you take the time to check through the steps involved before starting. You do have to do some minor surgery depending on which version of the Panzerhaubitze 2000 you decide to build, and this surgery is best carried out before construction progress is made. You will also need to check the parts very carefully as the ejector pin marks on the back of some mouldings will prevent a good fit.

Step 18 is where you begin work on the turret. You start with the assembly of the main gun and the mantlet. The aluminium turned metal barrel is very cleanly turned and is a nice inclusion from Meng. The only issue I had at this stage was mating the two halves of the sagging cloth cover; I had to glue one side and let that set before gluing the underside and applying quite a lot of pressure to close the joint. Moving onto the mantlet, I was very impressed with the effort put in by Meng to ensure the correct orientation of the smoke dischargers, an area which is often made more difficult that it needs to be.

Note

There are a few jobs here for the scratch builders: you can add the wiring from the plugs to the sensor on the gun, and you may also want to add the chains from the smoke launcher covers to the support frame.

Step 19 covers the installation of the main gun into the turret. This step begins with the addition of two small armoured windows, and these windows take a lot of fettling to get them to fit correctly, but it is possible. When it comes to inserting the gun I strongly advise you to attach the gun first, as it is a pig to make it sit right. Once in place and secured it does offer a very smooth movement to the barrel and it holds itself where placed; this is a surprise as it is quite a heavy part of the model. You now get to add the mantlet, and you need to make sure that you have cleaned up the ejector pin marks on the back completely or it will not sit right. I have enjoyed building this model so far, but it will punish those who overlook the basics of modelling, or fail to clean up parts completely. According to the instructions, that is this step completed, but I again recommend that the base of the turret is added at this stage, as the fit can be problematic. The effort I had to put into adding the turret base will, I believe, result in broken and/or knocked off parts if left until a later stage.

Step 20 is where you begin to detail the turret itself. None of the parts here caused me any issues, and I was especially pleased with the fit of the turret panels. One thing this model does make you do is to read the instructions carefully, this due to there being five finishing options. One of the options is for a Greek vehicle, and there are a lot of subtle differences that require minor surgery or filling, so as I have said before, decide on your finish early and watch out for the changes.

Step 21 continues the detailing of the turret, and again some minor surgery is required depending on your finishing choice. The hatches are fitted at this point, and these are moveable, but with no interior details don’t fret if the hatch ends up being stuck down. The rear road convoy light is a bit of a pain as one of the connection points is on the lens, and so that point will need to be polished to remove the mark.