This will be the first time a Bundeswehr vehicle has been built. Inbox art, an anti-aircraft gun that goes upwards to the limit makes me eager to build.
Like the Jagdpanther I made last time, the box is quite thick. I don’t feel like opening it up and assembling it all at once unless I am in high tension because the parts seem to be packed tightly. Why don’t we watch a video of Gepard to make ourselves feel better?
The chassis has quite a few small parts to attach. Maybe I don’t need to install it because I can’t see it very much. After all, it is hidden by a roller. I didn’t do the part shaping very carefully, but I put them all in.
I was able to assemble it with a pretty arrangement of the wheels. If the center is misaligned, the track will not fit well.
(2021/06/25)
The top surface of the tank is molded with sandy anti-slip material. Great.
After installing the wheel, the body part didn’t have so many parts, so it was assembled pretty quickly. The hatches at the front of the tank were bonded in a closed state, because of the complexity of bonding various parts.
It looks like the old man often seen in the assembly manual of Tamiya.
Actually, the suspension moves. Or rather, I am worried about the strength because the shaft is twisted, elastic, and bent. I think I’ll fix it with a lot of adhesives after winding the track.
There was a silver seal on the mirror part of the rearview mirror. I think I will use masking sol after pasting.
(2021/06/27)
This Gepard antiaircraft AFV track is very cumbersome to assemble. The work I can do is to separate the parts of the connecting track one by one, arrange them on one side, and assemble them all with glue. Like this time, it is too much work to put the parts on a special jig and sandwich them…
The adhesive is strictly prohibited on the attached jig. However, it is difficult to fix the small parts, so if I use the adhesive unintentionally, it gets dirty, and when I try to peel the parts, they break into pieces. It didn’t go well. The accuracy of the parts itself is not bad. So if I persevere, I’ll see the goal someday. If the accuracy of the parts is poor, it is the level that is thrown away.
I tried to assemble it, again and again, using a jig about 3 times. But it worked well until the middle, but it broke apart. It’s hard to have five parts per track. I can’t say anything because I’ve never made a Leopard kit with other kits, but this is too much!
I can’t see the upper part of the track because it is a side armor, so the work is finished here. Leaving a few spare parts will help to recover from failures on the other side.
The trick I learned from my personal experience was to glue one track at a time and glue a little bit to the hollow in the middle. I think we can maintain strength if we pour a lot of glue after winding the track around the roller. In this case, the suspension function of the roller wheel was ignored and all were bonded. Priority is given to the strength of the lower part of the vehicle. It will be over if I get used to assembling and staying patient.
(2021/06/30)
After attaching the side armor, it becomes like this. I can’t see the upper half of the crawler belt. I had a hard time assembling the track, but I can somehow manage to see it.
I noticed later that if there is something like a sleeping bag in the back, it will get in the way when I put the decal. Eventually, it will shift the decal slightly. Not too bad.
The assembly of the parts other than the turret was almost completed. I enjoyed assembling the appropriate amount of etched parts and high-quality clear parts. Except for the track parts… I didn’t need a trunk at the back for A1 type. It will get dirty if I remove it now, so I will leave it as it is.
From here, I am going to assemble a pair of antiaircraft guns and turrets, which is the most distinctive feature of Gepard. At first, I am assembling small parts that I don’t know which part will attach to.
You can choose between the A1 type and A2 type. I wonder if A2 has more parts to use. In my case, I chose the A1 type, so I think there are more unnecessary parts.
(2021/07/02)
It’s great. The anti-aircraft gun is cool. I remember that this process was very difficult at Tunguska of Panda Hobby. This MENG Gepard is all very easy to assemble.
The left and right anti-aircraft guns are structured to adhere to each other inside. It’s not strong enough, so I think it’s better to dry it for a while. Even after completion, the angle is changed by holding both barrel ends. To be honest, this is the part I don’t want to move to.
The chain of the smoke discharger is shaped like a very fine chain when it is crushed with pliers after the fine copper wires are put together. If you cut and glue it to a suitable length, it will look like a homemade simple etched part.
Some parts use clear parts such as headlights and periscopes, so I covered them with masking tape and masking sol before painting. This time, I’m going to mask the fragile rearview mirror without gluing, installing it at the end.
(2021/07/04)
This time, the angle of the gun barrel is movable. So I took a shot with a different angle.
The rear panel under the rotating radar at the back of the turret didn’t have to be assembled if it was assembled in a closed state. I have some leftover parts. But I feel the enthusiasm of MENG to reproduce this part.
At first, I used matte black as a primer.
I will use NATO black again as one of the camouflage colors, but I don’t have an image yet, so I painted the whole with the base NATO green. As you will see later, NATO black is rather like gray, so if you keep it as matte black, it may be too black.
Come to think of it, the German Bundeswehr tank is painted for the first time. I have never had NATO black, NATO brown, and NATO green paint exclusively for NATO AFV. Perhaps I could have substituted an approximate color for something. I tried the exclusive colors released by Creos. I’m used to using lacquer for the basic painting, so I ordered Creos this time as well. Tamiya also sells NATO black, NATO brown, NATO green, I’ll try using Creos which I’m used to. I don’t think it’s much different from the dark green and red-brown used in WWII German camouflage, so maybe it doesn’t make much sense after the process of weathering.
I attached the decal that comes with the Gepart kit. This decal is very thin, adheres to the vehicle body and the color is very beautiful. I thought MENG was great, but it was a Cartograf decal. I think the MENG kit is high level overall. That’s why they order from Cartograf.
(2021/07/07)
The Gepard antiaircraft tank was finally completed. It’s cool to look up the 35 mm twin guns at a sharp angle. When I watched the shooting scene in the video, the firepower and the shooting speed were tremendous.
Marking is Westerwald Caravanguard, 2nd Regiment 2nd Armored Anti-Air Battalion, Bundeswehr, 1989.
It was deployed to West Germany in 1973 and dropped out in 2010. There seems to be a type of Gepard with Stinger attached, but it is not reproduced in the MENG kit.
What are they piled up in the back? A sleeping bag or a tent? This vehicle is operated by 3 persons. I think it is quite busy of its size. In the future, these weapons may be operated by one person or unmanned.
I like this orange vehicle number because it stands out.
What’s this mark for? “Don’t step on.” or “Don’t stand in front of this? “
Oerlikon’s 35 mm cannons employ an excellent fire control system and are used in many countries. It seems to be used for self-propelled antiaircraft guns in the Japan Self-Defense Forces.
In Germany, there was a 38(t) light tank-based anti-aircraft tank called the Gepard at WWII. In Japan, the battleship that played activity in WWII is reborn the same name as the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force battleships.
Before I started making it, I thought it would be difficult because of its complicated shape, but the assembly manual was surprisingly easy to understand and I was able to complete it smoothly.(2021/07/09)
I am interested in models of tanks, airplanes, ships, military figures, I build them little by little when I feel like it. I am also interested in the history of war. My starting is Tamiya’s Military Miniature series in elementary school.
From elementary school through university students repeatedly suspend and restart my modeling, it’s about 25 years of this hobby’s history.
From February 2007 I was quietly doing a site called “Miniature-Arcadia”. It is being transferred to this blog with the same name from December 2016. My update pace is uneven, but please come to see me here occasionally.
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