Leopard 2A5 DK kit bash-Tamiya and Hobby Boss question

Armor/AFV Modern
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Will the Tamiya 2A5 hull top fit the Hobby Boss Leopard 2A5DK hull bottom, or do I need the Tamiya hull bottom?

I have the Hobby Boss Leopard 2A5 DK kit (82405), and a couple of articles on kit bashing the Hobby Boss and Tamiya kits. I can get a Tamiya hull top & bottom from eBay. Just wondering how much I need.

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I don´t think so. Tamiya and HobbyBoss a worlds apart, I consider the HB Leopard´s the worst Leopard kits ever. You can try attaching some of the DK specific parts from HB to the Tamiya kit, but I guess the APU might generate some problems.

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Since Hobby Boss copied a lot the ‘interfaces’ to other kits are good. But in case of the upper/lower hull connection they did it different to be more flexibel.
Their 2A5DK kit can be used as a conversion kit well. Not that good as the Accurate Armour one but much cheaper. The HB smoke dischargers are awful.
WIP of a LEOPARD 2A7+ QAT using Tamiya upper hull, HB lower hull and Y-Modelle converion parts:
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The upper sidewalls I used from Tamiya.

The bad areas of HB LEOPARD 2 kits are mainly the upper hull anti slipp patches (far too thick), the TkCdr’s periscop (lack of detail) and the smoke dischargers of their none-A4 kits. In other aspects they are not that bad and pretty cheap.
Of course Border and RFM are in lead nowadays.

Just a senseless testfit - HB upper / Tamiya lower hull :grin: :

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HTH

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WOW! HB definitely created a new lowest standard for an upper Leo 2 hull.

That Hobby Boss upper hull actually looks worse than the worse parts of the40+ year old Italeri Leo 2 upper hull plus the worse of ESCI Leo 2 upper hull combined.

@LeopArt09 your Tami-Boss kit bash is looking good :+1:

The Hobby-miya mock up is hilarious :joy: due to the Hobby upper hull - wow!

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Thanks for the info. The photos really help. Bottom photo really brings out the deficiencies in the HB upper hull. Looks like the Tamiya hull is the way to go.

I’ve got the “How to Build the Leopard Family” compilation from Spencer Pollard. John Murphy does a Tamiya-HB kit bash for 2A5DK. And, I’ve ordered a couple of Leopard Files from Leopard Workshop on various kit bashes for Swedish and Danish Leopards.

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A little bit off-topic. This is my STRV 122 kitbash of RoG and HB parts.

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I found that RoG kit is a good and cheap base OOTB and kitbashing.

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Hello
Trumpeter/HB announced months ago on FB a new tooled Leopard 2 serie: greek, DK, STRV122… ones.
It could be good to wait a bit and see if this serie is accurate.

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Thanks for the update. Definitely worth waiting for then.