First, I have not posted on Armorama for years due to something called "the real life" so hello to all new and old Armorama friends. I have finally found the opportunity to start building again so hopefully I will be a bit more active in this community in the future.
Second, this post is as the heading indicates about the “new” Leopard 2 for the Norwegian army, named Project 5050. This project will be realized in a couple of years, and you are hereby warned; this build is a what if…
The current Leopard 2A4 in the Norwegian Army is more or less a Dutch A4 version with a few Norwegian mods such as radios, gps and bustle rack. How the new version will be is anybody’s guess, but I suspect it will be digitized, and it will have a RWS Nordic (Very similar to the CROWS 2, only better). My best guess is that due to the cost of the F-35 it will not be money for brand new tanks, so I based my model on a Leopard 2A4, with extensive upgrades.
The baseline kit is the Hobbyboss Leo2 A4. In addition I use the Y-Modell Leopard 2A4 Can resin kit and bits and pieces from Hobbyboss Str 122 kit. I don’t remember what brand the whitemetal tracks are from, but they are really nice to work with. There will be several other pieces used, which will be added in time. The pictures and text below shows the progress and current state of this project.


I started off by building the hull. Mineprotection from the Y-Modell kit is a nice add-on. This model will be a display model at work, so for once I'm not into my usual rivet counting.


I really liked the tracks. They look good and are easy to work with.


Tracks with some paint.


This project includes some plastic surgery. Most of the redmarked areas are shaved off.


Modifying the turret. No way back after this.


My idea is to merge part of the Str 122 turret with the A4 turret.


After merging the Str 122 roof top I made som extra bolt on armor.


In between I built the Blast CROWS2. It is really nice.


To get something sensible out of the drivers periscopes I had to rise one of them before installing the ad-on front plate.


Filled and sanded.


Periscope and front plate glued on.


Dryfitting. I have used a L-55 barrel instead of the usual L-44.


And this is basically what it looks like right now...

And since I remember it was popular to show off the workbench, I end this first post with a picture of my current set up.


Cheers
Erik

Wow, that is some impressive work! I look forward to seeing the finished product

Welcome back!

I want to see more.

Following.

Cheers!

Marco

Very nice work!
I too enjoy knocking out a "what-if" now and then, it can be soothing after a tedious, research-intensive build.

Really nice work Erik. Always interesting to see more Leo projects. I'll definitely be following your build.
Terry

Good work, nicely done!


CagkanC

Wow!

So glad to see you back Erik, I wondered what had happened to you.

Cheers,

Christophe

Can't wait to see how it looks painted. Impressive.

Paul

Nice "conversion". Looks really great, I can't wait to see it with some paint. And thats not your real work bench, there is nothing on it, its waaaay too clean. All kidding aside, nice work space you have there. Keep up the nice work.

Dan

From a real Leopard Guy, this looks great, keep us updated.

Cheers

Anthony

Really cool project and good to see you back to the bench and forum Erik. I guess it won't be too long before sth like this will be avail in plastics
Andreas

Amazing!!!#

Welcome back Erik .... very nice looking norwegian cat ... great idea and great modelling.

Cheers
Walter

Totally realistic what-if. Check out these guys & share your work over there too:
Beyond The Sprues

After finishing my Leopard 1 I found motivation to continue this project. Not so much has been done, but I glued on some slat armor rear protection (worst job ever!) and finished the RWS. I removed the machine gun which I originally mounted for the commander simply because it looked stupid. Still a lot to do, but the worst parts are done now.

Well done

I'm glad to see this one back in business. Very impressive so far.

What will be the paint scheme for this one?

Mario

It will be a very boring forest green All Norwegian military vehicles these days are painted in that color or desert tan. I will try to "dress it up" a bit with a arial recognition panel, desert tan RWS and some equipment.

Erik

Looking really cool

I shot a quick layer of matt black to get an idea of how resin, styrene and scratchbuilt parts blend together. I would say it turned out ok. I have also added a VHF/UHF antenna and some vehicle cameras. After I took the pictures I also added some missing lifting points to the turret.





Erik

Hi Erik.
Nice to ee you back at the bench.The model looks great.
Cheers.
Richard

The Leopard has got some paint. After the black primer I highlighted with white and sprayed Tamiya field grey and Nato green. Some oils have also been applied. There is still a lot to be done regarding painting so the current version is far from the end product. Finally I enlisted and promoted a Tamiya M113A2 driver as tank commander. His equipment is close enough to illustrate a Norwegian tanker.





This picture gives the best impression about how the colors realy looks.


Erik

I managed a couple of hours at the bench this evening and most of the time was used to paint lights, tools, indicators etc. Only thing worth showing is the RWS who got the basic layers of paint.





Erik

your build is looking great ,thaks for shareing.

I guess I will call it finished.