Introduction

The Leopard 1 main battle tank designed and produced in West Germany first entered service in 1965. The design started as a collaborative project in the 1950s between Germany and France, and later joined by Italy, but the partnership ended and the final design was ordered by the Bundeswehr, with production starting in 1965.

During the service life a need for attachments for clearing obstacles was raised and an Engineer Equipment Interface Modification Kit (EEJM) has been developed by Krauss-Maffei of Germany. The Dozer blade entered service with the German military and was brought into service with fellow NATO armies shortly after.

The Dozer attachment weighs around 2100 kg, and provides a blade width of 3250 mm. Raising and lowering of the blade takes about 10 seconds in each direction. The blade has no levelling function; therefore its usefulness depends upon the skill of the operator. The dozer is normally used for the construction of scrapes for tanks when in defensive positions, or for the preparation of entry/exit points on rivers, or for assisting the preparation of a suitable location for a bridge layer tank during gap crossing operations. There have been many modifications to the design and are available from Perfect Scale Modllbau as well.

Contents

5 Resin Sprues of parts
1 Resin Dozer Blade
1 fret of photo-etch
Instructions

Review

The Dozer kit assembly starts with the Dozer hull attachment and the fitting of the support arms for the blade. These parts snap into place and once the construction continues CA glue will be required to attach the support arms to the rear of the blade.

The photo-etch parts are easily added to the blade and one must use good reference material when adding the headlights to the mounts. Some countries mounted them upside down, with the blackout drive pointing downwards for the driver to see when operating in low light conditions.

Conclusion

The assembly is straight forward and easy to follow, with the detail being crisp on the resin. This is a great addition to the Leopard tank range from Perfect Scale Modllbau.

I commanded a Dozer equipped Canadian Leopard C2 MEXAS in Afghanistan in the summer of 2007 and this kit is a great addition for anyone wishing to build a Leopard fitted with the Dozer. But, you will have to research on the correct way it is fitted for each nation and depending on what time period is being modelled as modifications were completed to the hull to mount the dozer attachment.