In keeping with my current gathering up of non US modern armor, I have now progressed to Challengers. I would like recommendatins on what is good and what to absolutely avoid for a challenger 1 and a challenger 2.

As in kit manufacturers?
I'd go with Tamiya for both 1 and 2.

Trumpeter makes a decent Chally 2 (several versions, actually), but it's not as good as Tamiya's.

Hi steve,

If you want high quality challys then you should go for Accurate Armors - or buy the Trumpeter and add the Accurate Armor update sets. Both versions will give you good AFV's - especially the last choice will be a little more expensive than the Tamiya solution, but a far better result.

http://www.accurate-armor.com

Best regards
Morten

I'm tending to shy away from expensive stuff here. I love WW 2 German armor and just looking at getting some good and interesting kits to work on so I don't burn out. So far I've picked up a couple of Leopards, a Merkava and a Chieftain. Looking for a good deal on the Heller AMX30 and Leclerc. I've seen the Trumpeter and the Tamiya offered on ebay and was curious as to which to focus on. Thanks for the info.

I would stay away from Heller if there was any alternative available. Their Leopard 1A4 defies belief...

That won't stop me getting an AMX-30 one day though.

Are there any major differences btwn a Challenger 1 and 2? It's like a M60A1 and a M60A3 only someone who is really well versed on the intricaies of this tank could tell the diference. Or are the diferences more akin a Leopard 2 and a Leopard 2 A5? You can see the heredity but there is absolutly no doubt which one is which. I've only seen a few photos of Challengers and model box tops and I don't see any major visual changes.

Chally 2 has a whole new turret design and some of the engine cover layout is different as well. It is a mostly new-design tank.

Here's some info on them.
Chally 1
Chally 2

Boh Tamiya's and Trumpeter's kits are pretty good. Tamiya's is a little easier to build, as usual, but also about twice as much.

Over here in the UK I can get 3 Trumpeter Challenger II's for £36, the Tamiya one retails at £34.99. That would explain why I have 5 Trumpeter kits and only 1 Tamiya (got that cheap cos the lhs owner was fed up with seeing it on the shelf). Having said that the Tamiya kit does go together better but I really don't think it's worth 3x the price.

With regard to the Chally I Tamiya have done 2 versions, one in green/black and an uparmoured Mk3 in desert sand. Also Modelcraft do a Chally I if you can find it. I'm 99% sure that it's from an old Tamiya mould because when I opened the box even though the art showed a green/black version all the parts were there to build one in sand. I even built it using the Tamiya instructions.

HTH
Pete

PS If you have a browse thru my Gallery you'll see pics of both Trumpeter and Tamiya Chally II's

I'm currently working on a Trump Chally 2, not a bad kit but not as well engineered as Tamiyas.
I would recommend Trumps as it's fairly accurate for the price and with some additional bits its pretty good.
Note that with Trumpeter there was some changes made regarding the size of the engine grills, the first production run the grills where too small ( I think) and then somewhere along the production run Trumpeter corrected the size to a more accurate dimension. ( If I remember correctlly the Telic/Kosovo Chally has the correct sized grills...double check though)
If you're going to add PE make sure that it is made to kit the right kit, not all PE is the same...
weird but true
HTH
Cheers
Joker

Stay away from the modelcraft chally 1 it's a very poorly copied Tamiya chally kit the figure looks like an Alien! like the old saying you can't polish a turd!

Id go for the Trumpeter kits
there pretty decent
but airfix have just released a chally 2 kit
which is basically the trumpeter kit in a airfix box
paid £11 for that one

If I remember rightly, I read somewhere that the Chally2 only uses 20% of the original components designed for and used in the Chally1 , so basically it is a whole new tank rather than an upgrade

Ian