I just opened the tokam 1/35 Leopard 1A5. I have to say I am quite disappointed. The characteristic turret add on armor has excellent surface texture, but so thick that it looks ridiculous. On the real tank it is quite thin, enough only to trigger premature detonation of HEAT rounds. Tokam didn't much bother even with beveling the edges to create illusion of scale thickness.

Also, the mounting studs for the add on armor have matching no locating points on the turret. I suppose we are expected to simply eyeball the location of these studs using one single minuscule drawing in the instruction as guide.

Also, the turrets lack locating points for the armor it has, but has locating slots for armor it doesn't have. So I guess we are just expected to fill those in.

Also, some noticeable details are lacking, such as the actually plate welded over the deleted optical range finder ports. The model makes it look the range finder hoods were sliced off cleanly like a knife through sausage. In reality there ought to be a slightly ridged plate welded over the opening.

Here's a pic I took at Munster of their 1A5 showing the armor thickness(thicker than you'd think really) and the welded over range finder. Could post pics of Takom's turret? If there is indeed a problem with their kit, the question is now whether or not the kit is better than the Revell/Italeri version.

Informative review here


http://leopardclub.ca/reviews/Takom/C2_MEXAS/

I confirm what Erik wrote - the turret armor in the Takom kit is very much in scale. I just returned from Munster a few days ago and examined the real thing quite thoroughtly. The real armor is indeed a thin metal sheet, but it is attached to a thick layer of hard rubber - together they create an armor that is a couple of centimeters thick. Takom represented it correctly.

You are confusing Takom's Canadian Leopard C2 with their Leopard 1A5 kit.
The last one lacks the Mexas armor

This would be the correct link then?,

but does refer to the Mexas review for certain detail.

http://leopardclub.ca/reviews/Takom/1A5-C2/

Yes, this is the right one.
You get the chance to build a German 1A5, or a Canadian C2 without the Mexas armor pack.