Look forward to seeing your paintwork.Ive been working on a Leopard 1A3 today from Italeri 1A4 with a few additions.Im keen to do a Netherlands 1V.
Richard
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Beware that a 1-V will need more work than a 1 (NL). Beyond everything Jay is doing here, it needs turret add-on armour and the most difficult bit, a manhole cover with semi-circular collar in the turret roof for the thermal sight that was planned but never installed.
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Yes indeed mate.Probably have to get a 3D set from Cults 3D.I think i have the smoke launcher set up from an old Revell 2A5 NL.The horseshoe plate on turret would be a chore but im mad enough to try no doubt.I did buy some decals a long time ago in advance of tackling one
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The smoke launchers from a 2A5 NL won’t be of that much use, as the plates they’re mounted on were totally different 
The launch tubes themselves are the easiest bits to scratchbuild of the whole launcher array.
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Hmm think its 3D route mate,Id have a go at scratchbuilding launcher shelves but my skills arent too hot for fiddly bits.Im sure i recall seeing one being made on The Leopard Fibel page.
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As I mentioned much earlier in this thread, my own Leopard 1(NL) got put back into its box exactly because of those smoke launcher mountings … I just couldn’t work out their shapes and sizes, even with good 1:35 scale drawings and photos.
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Thats a shame.But they are a difficult shape it appears.Are there many in Museums in your country or the earlier ones that served early in its career with the Netherlands.I think i shall settle for 3D route.
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There are some in museums and, I think, as gate guardians, but nothing close to where I live. I did take photos of the one that used to be at Overloon, some years after putting away my 1(NL) conversion, but never did try to make the launchers. Just in case they’re of use to someone:
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Nice pictures Jakko and good of you to share.Id try and make the launchers maybe.Im guessing they had to cut into the turret add on armour to mount them or are the NL ones not the blomm and voss ones.
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I’m not sure what the differences in the armour are, as I haven’t compared them. Looking at my photos, I can see a little notch in the armour for the rear vertical bar, which I doubt would be present on the German plates. Maybe also that cut-out at the front of the smoke launcher array?
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Yes Jakko i think you are right.I shall see if a mate can 3D print me a set or 2 from Cults 3D for NL 1V.Will solve the pesky smoke launcher problem no end!!!,Ive still got the Churchill Mark 1 castings whenever you need a set when i get back into Churchill mode.
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Getting my hands on some jars of AK Real Color RAL 6014 Gelboliv gave me some much needed mojo to crack on with this one.
I “Dutchified” the stowage bins, meaning I removed the Belgian armor plating and brackets from the sides of the bins.
All that’s left to do now is locate a third fire extinguisher to go on the starboard side of the hull and make the little heat shield that fits between the two stowage bins on the starboard side. Paint might come sooner rather than later.
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Good to see! You can’t beat some Cold War armour.
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Coming together nicely Jay.Ive just bought the kit last week.Not sure if i will do NL or a Belgian version.Plenty of other ones i must finish first.
Richard
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And onwards!
I started adding stowage. Because the Revell turret stowage baskets are a little crude and I had no desire to rebuild them, I decided early on that I was going to stuff them full of stowage, which I was happy to see is what happened in real life too.
Because of the curved shape on the rear of the baskets, most of the regular after market stuff will not fit. So I made some stowage to go on the outside of the baskets myself. The inside will eventually be filled with a wooden crate and camo netting. This is where I’m at right now:
All that’s left to do is add some buckles/clasps from plasticard.
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For those wondering what I used to make the tarps/bedrolls, I did not make them from any kind of putty or sculpting material. I used a real cheap and easy way to make them, which only requires some PVA glue and some masking tape.
First, you pour a little PVA glue on a flat surface, like a cutting mat. Then, you thin this with water, so it gets real thin and runny. Then you spread this out into a (roughly) rectangular shape.
Allow this to fully dry. Once dry it looks like all you did is make part of your cutting mat shiny.
Use a sharp knife of chisel to ease up one of the corners.
When you have lifted off enough of the dried glue, you can gently peel it off from the surface using your fingers.
You then have a thin sheet of flexible material.
Depending on what you want to do, you can then roll it up neatly (perhaps cut the edges to be neat and straight) and use a thin piece of masking tape as a strap. You can see an example of this on the starboard side of the basket.
Another fun thing to do is crumple the sheet up into a ball, and then unfold it again. The sheet will then be a little more rough looking. I did this and then wrapped the sheet around a piece of resin casting block I had laying around. Which is an easy way to create the “thing in a tarp” that you can see on many models.
This has now found it’s place on the port side of the stowage basket.
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That’s very useful and certainly looks the part.
Just one thing, and I might be teaching you to suck eggs here, remember that camouflage nets do not consist of just nets but are garnished (the term we used to use in the Brit Army) with panels - for want of a better word - of scrim - usually a plasticky-type material, again in the Brit Army, green one side and brown the other. The Dutch and German versions were slightly different in that the coverage of the scrim was quite dense. When a net was rolled up or stashed as stowage, any netting could hardly be seen, just the scrim effect.
On my models I use tea leaves to get this effect and have described that elsewhere several times on the site.
Of course, you may well have your own methodology, but I just thought I’d mention it.
Bit of a Dutch theme going on at the moment on the Cold War section(!)
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No actual netting will be visible, it’ll all be the camouflage material.
And yeah, fun to see so much Dutch stuff, even from people who aren’t Dutch. Looking at the current size of the Dutch Army, it’s hard to believe that at some point the Koninklijke Landmacht had over a 1000 tanks.
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Sorry if I was preaching about the nets!
Those who came into contact with the Dutch Army, certainly back in the 70s, were in for quite a shock; to our somewhat rigid British Army minds they looked a mess. However, they had a union (and God knows most soldiers could see the benefits of that sometimes, given the far too frequent asinine orders from above!), and of course were a conscript Army, as were most of the European nations back then. But their kit was good enough, and kept up to scratch as far as I could make out. As you identify, they had a lot of tanks.
In the late-70s I worked alongside them in a multi-national NATO HQ and they were certainly competent, despite their haste in departing for the weekend on a Friday lunchtime!
Late, I recall they kicked serious a** in the Canadian Army Trophy (a Central Region tank gunnery competition) winning it twice in the mid/late 80s.
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No worries, not preachy at all. The reason I’m posting my progress here is to look for feedback and this thread has already delivered multiple things that slipped past me if they hadn’t been pointed out by others. I don’t pretend to know everything about these tanks, so all input is welcome, even if it may not be new to me, it could be to somebody else.
The Dutch looked a mess? How could you say such a preposterous thing!? Just look at this paragon of professionalism!
The Dutch were indeed a conscript army (Like any guy my age I also had to be tested when I turned 18, to see if I was fit for duty. “Dienstkeuring” was something of a rite of passage back then.) And most of us did our service with “gepaste tegenzin”, meaning fittingly reluctant. But whenever these hairy ne’er-do-wells had a chance to “fight” against another country, it was on. The same “hup Holland hup” spirit (sorry Jakko) as when the national team plays took over and we did our best to kick the other guy’s ass. And as soon as we could, we went back to slacking off as much as we could, drink very cheap beers in the mess and buy cheap, tax free fuel.
There are a number of (apocryphal perhaps) anecdotes of the Dutch playing the bad guys alongside some other countries during larger NATO exercises and getting told to slow down. After all, we couldn’t have the bad guys win the fight, right?
Just look at this mighty, menacing Dutch warrior.
Sylly should turn him into a model. We need some Dutch tank crew anyway.
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