This model finished I turn to new projects that could not wait, after a while going through the book again my attention was drawn to the Leclerc/Gepard project described in one of the chapters. Having a Gepard in stock and never quite knowing what to do with it, this „what if?“ variant seemed very tempting.
In the Tankograd book on modern German AA Tanks I found out that the initial hulls, with the big BIber rear doors where actually utilized, so now I can build the Tamiya kit with just having to extend the lower hull a bit.
This conversion is quite straight forward, inserting a new turret ring to fit the Gepard turret and most of the work is done. In addition I added an exhaust pipe and cover for the Gepard to the right side of the Leclerc as this would be the only place to take the APU instead of the spare ammo bunker. To make things a little more detailed I also added the armored NBC intake from the Gepard to the right side of the Leclerc.
Other wise it was just assembling the Leclerc hull and the Gepard turret accordingly.
But there is one thing I still need some idea or input, the French being french they would add their own style smoke dischargers, but which ones?
The other thing still missing are the Stinger pods on the gun housing, another thing I haven‘t gotten around yet to construct.
I usually don‘t build „ what ifs“ but this project was quite fun up to now, still leaves me to finish the AMX 30 ARV I started a while ago. And waiting for somebody to produce a good Leclerc ARV so I‘ll finish my Bergepanzer 1 till then.
Christopher A. Noone
