Hey all, was wondering if I could get some advice concerning a Challenger 2 tank.

First of all I'll preface by saying I'm working on a Hobbycraft Canada Challenger 2 I picked up at a club swap meet for around 3 dollars, plus or minus. I assume that this is a trumpeter kit because....well basically the sprues say "Trumpeter".

I also gather from lurking through these threads that the trumpeter kit is really not as good as it could be, or should be. Is the Tamiya kit better, and if so by how much? Also let me state that the building of this kit was a real bear at times to handle. You dont know how many times I wanted to take the thing and fling it against the nearest wall. But luckily I have controlled myself and my tank is nearly finished even though an expert on Challengers could spot my mistakes a mile away.

I am trying to hide a few of the mistakes, namely missing lift handles and uneven mounting of the fuel tanks at the back of the vehicle by covering them with camo net. I was wondering if camo net could be used on a desert version of this tank. I wish to do a desert scheme.

Also are there aftermarket parts of the side armor, the Chobahm plates...because in this kit you have to scratchbuild them. I know scratchbuilding these parts should be no big deal but my skills are not up to it and I do not have rivets to complete this project so I just wanted to know if an aftermarket alternative is available.

Anyway thank you for your time and hopefully i'll post some pics of this beast once i get some paint on it.

Yes, the Tamiya kit is much better than the original Trumpeter (reboxed as Hobbycraft of Canada). The Trumpeter one is generally softer in detail and had some issues with the rear deck. The road wheels hubs have the wrong profile and are more oval than round as well. There are lots of other issues with them as well.

There are aftermarket skirts and update/correction kits from Accurate Armour. For the price of the upgrades, you could probably buy 2 of the latest Tamiya Chally 2 Desert kits though, so its not really worth it.

I would just chock it up as a good practice kit and get either one of the newer Trumpeter Chally 2 kits, or the Tamiya kit and do up an accurate Chally 2 from them.

Hey man!. Yeah the Hobby craft is a Trumpeter kit.

There is an arcticle to make an accurate challenger.

Accurate Chally 2 .

As for the armour there are a few options.

Op Telic Up armour set

Kosovo Up armour set

Challenger-2 TEC

Challenger-2 TEC Trumpeter

Hope that helps

Trumpeter's Challenger 2 kit has had a checkered past. It was initially released prematurely with numerous mistakes, and the turret detail appeared literally unfinished, with the scalloped armor joint missing on the right front, and obvious swirl marks in the side panel where the mold had not been polished out. The engine deck grills were misproportioned, and the road wheel hubs were molded off center, while the inner and outer wheels were not even the same thickness. This is the kit most of the archived reviews are based on, but to their credit, Trumpeter went back and fixed a lot of it.
The engineering is still not as positive as Tamiya's and there is a lot of slop in the fit of the main gun trunnions, so the builder must take care that the mantlet isn't positioned too far in or outside of the turret shell--it should project just slightly past the leading edge of the turret armor face.
With a set of aftermarket photoetch, Trumpeter's Challenger 2 can look quite respectable, but it wiill require a fair amount of work. Tamiya's kit is better and includes the full applique armor package, but costs over twice as much, so it's up to the individual to decide which is more cost effective. If you want to make a really great model, it's cheaper in the long run to buy the Tamiya kit and tweak a few things rather than buy Trumpeter's and replace much of it with resin and brass.
Trumpeter offers two kits in their own boxes with the ROMOR applique armor suite, which would be significantly cheaper than the aftermarket resin items offered by Accurate Armour (though the resin bits will have more detail, generally). Trumpeter's "Operation Telic" Challenger 2 kit offers a full suite of the armor, while the "Kosovo" kit has the side armor but substitutes a dozer fitting for the front. The Hobbycraft and Airfix boxings include only the basic vehicle with the scalloped side skirts and no applique armor, but they do feature the corrected molds.

There have been several threads recently asking about the on the use of camouflage nets on Challenger 2s. I started one:

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/138978#1160490 .

Also take a look at this thread https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/139425#1164921