Has anyone tried the Verlinden Challenger Armour Skirts and Fuel Drums set? I know it's OOP but I was looking at picking it up for my Tamiya Challenger MK3 which has the skirts but I know there is an Accurate Armour set that is supposed to be better than the kit.

TIA,
Paul

Paul,
I picked one up on e-bay a couple of years back and used it on my Challenger 1 mk.3. The fit is a little finicky but I think it really improves the look of the kit. I have not seen the AA set but I have heard it is nice (and readily available).

HTH,
Mike

Accurate Armour set is great, but not exactly cheap. I also have Chally 1 Mk3 and want to improve side armor. Today I bought new Trumpeter Chally 2 Op.Telic version and side skirts are much more accurate in this kit than in Tamiya one. Maybe bolt details are not as sharp as those in Tamiya, but in general Trumpeter armor is better. And it can be used to improve Tamiya kit as most parts are the same in both tanks, so I now consider purchasing another new Trumpeter Chally 2 - Kosovo version this time, and build it without extra armor - I could use its armor parts for old Tamiya Chally 1. Sure it will not look as nice as AA set, but new Trumpeter kits are just $16 in Poland - approximately the same price as Accurate Armour set - and you get the whole tank!

Rgds,
Pawel

Be carefull about mixing the Chally 1 and 2 up-armour packs. Although the side armour blocks are basically the same the mounting hardware for the Challenger 2 up-armour kits is different than that used on the Chally 1. There are also some differences in the frame for the ROMOR blocks on the nose between the two vehicles. Unfortunately simply using the Trumpeter bits on a Chally 1 will not result in a purely accurate representation (strictly speaking).

In the final analysis you probably would do quite well using the Verlinden set if the price of the AA (Accurate Armour) set scares you. I personally think the AA up-armour set is the better of the two but then again the mounting hardware (for the side armour blocks) on the AA set is out of scale (too thick) while the Verlinden set is pretty close. Also, the Verlinden set includes the fuel drum mounts which is an additional set with AA. It should be noted though that the AA fuel drum set represents the later and more common version of this assembly. I think the Verlinden set represents the earlier and not widely adopted version of the fuel drum brackets.

This is of course just my CDN $0.02 (0.0214 after GST) - Dan