1:35 Leopard 2 MBT chassis road wheels

Sixty tons on fourteen wheels

The Leopard 2 is among the heaviest machines Western Europe ever put into service. It arose in the seventies after the ambitious joint project with the Americans came to an end, and entered service in 1979. A turbocharged twelve-cylinder of fifteen hundred horsepower, a smoothbore 120 mm gun and layered armor made it the measure by which the others were judged. All that weight is carried into the ground by seven road wheels a side, suspended on torsion bars with rotary dampers.

What the set changes

Road wheels in a box tend to be split into two halves glued together, so a seam stays in the middle of the tire and remnants of the mold around it. A casting sidesteps this problem: the tire is whole all the way round, the holes in the disc have sharp edges and the casting blocks are led onto a surface which disappears inside once glued. The time saved on sanding is counted in hours, because there are a great many wheels on the chassis.

The procedure and painting

First try dry how the casting seats on the stub of the torsion bar and widen the hole gently if need be. It is glued with cyanoacrylate glue (super glue). When painting, set the dark tire apart from the body of the wheel in the base color of the vehicle; it is just this contrast that keeps the running gear legible even once dusted.

The individual users cannot be told apart by the running gear: the wheels stayed the same across the modernizations and the export versions alike. The changes happened elsewhere: in the make-up of the front armor, in the length of the barrel, in the fit-out for fighting in built-up areas and in the electronics. A chassis built from these parts will therefore serve for a whole range of variants.