Thanks Paul, I like choices

Brad

Sort of a follow-up question regarding the MG, and I will direct it to Rick, Jason, Anthony and any others who have hands-on experience with the 1:1 Leo: I'm currently working on an M1A1 Abrams with the TUSK package,as well as the Leo; any insight on why the Leos don't have some sort of gunner's shield for loader and/or TC like the TUSK Abrams do? Is it a difference in operating enviroment thing ( urban vs open country) ? Doesn't really matter for modeling, but I was just curious.

Trust me my loader could have used one during my time in the sandbox. Never really crossed our minds, mind you Canucks ride low in the hatch ( Sgt Majors made sure of that) and never needed one.

Anthony

Chuck,

Any type of additional topside armour would increase the head on profile of the tank and allow it to be seen further away.

The Leopard C1 and C2 were never envisioned to be used for urban fighting....it was a medium tank, very fast, and a good gun that was designed to fight on the European battlefield.

I suppose a shield could have been retrofitted....but as Anthony stated Canadian crews tend to stay low in the turret and fight from inside the tank. Exposing yourself to use the loader's MG means you are a target.

I think it would have been an easy addition to engineer and attach to the mount.....great for a "what if" along with a mantlet mounted .50 Cal....which was done for subcalibre gunnery training back in the day.

Agreed, but they went to the trouble to attach a sunshade umbrella on top of the tank, I would take more armour over a bit of shade any day.

That is true....but when you have a big old turret with lots of armour you can just traverse and use the coax from inside.

Another reason for no gun shield may simply be the MG mount would not support the extra weight....you can add all the protection you want....but if it weighs too much and you can't traverse manually in a timely manner it is not worth the effort.

The other option would have been to modify the entire loader's hatch as was done on the Danish Leopard 2A5DKs deployed to Afghanistan.

Hey Rick,

Do you have a photo of the rear turret area overall showing the rear plate in between the two storage bins, without the baracuda camo? Tamiya has a couple of rectangular bumps there, and I think those have to be removed and the area devoid of any lumps or bumps right?

TIA

Brad

Here's one from Combat Camera, all mine have the 'cuda cam installed.




Here's the linky...

High res pic


cheers

That's perfect Rick, Thanks Man!

Cheers
Brad

I have a couple of more Leo questions to add to the thread:

1. While we're at the rear of the turret, did the Canadian Leos retain the field cable reel in the rear bustle bin? All the pictures I have of that area have stowage in the bin blocking any view of whether the reel is there or not.

2. Optics- do the periscope and PERI optics have any sort of laser coating similar to what is on the Abrams optics? Every picture I look at suggests no, since it doesn't seem like any of them have that reddish-pink prismatic look to them.In fact they look black to me; just want to make sure before I paint or tint them.

Not 100% sure about the reel, Of the limited pics of inside the rear storage bins that I have they are full of stuff, water bottles, d-rings, chains ect.

As far as the optics go, they don't look similar to the Abrams with regards to tint, it seems like its just dark tint.




Oh, and if your planning on numbering the grenade dischargers using the excellent Echelon decal set, here is the proper sequence





cheers

I haven't seen any images of the coms wire reel mounted.....just the mounting bolts on the back of the turret.

Hi Chuck,

According to my good friend Ken Lecalir, he tells me that we didn't use the cable reel.

Brad

The cable reel wasn't mounted on the turret rear since the slat armour was installed instead. I imagine there was some cable on board but out of sight amongst the other gear. An interesting fact is that the AA MG3 can be stored in the electrical slave compartment.

Ken, Brad, and Jason: thanks guys, I will add the Eduard mounts, but ditch the reel. Appreciate the insight!