Leopard 1BE (Belgium)

First non-German customer for the Leopard 1, the Belgian Army received 334 Leopard 1BE between 1968 and 1971.

Apart from the Belgian FN 7.62mm MAG co-axial and top-mounted machine gun, the Belgian Leopard were at first almost identical to the German ones. Some modifications were implemented in the 70s, like the big external toolboxes and a thermal sleeve for the main gun. Also between 1974 and 1977 all the Belgian Leopard were updated with a weapon stabilisation system and part of them (120) also received a new and very modern for the time Fire Control System developed by the indigenous firms SABCA (the rest were only updated between 1980 and 1985), this version of the Leopard becoming know officially as the Leopard 1 AVLS/SACT.

© C.Bray

© C. Bray

© C. Bray

For all informations about these vehicles and fantastic photo walk-around, I can only recommend the exceptional serie of books by Patrick Winnepenninckx by Trackpad publishing.

The kit is the Leopard 1A2 from Italeri, an old one but still a very good base to work with. (made 2014-15)

 

Leopard C1 (Canada)

Starting in June 1978, Canada started to receive their first Leopard C1, 114 of them having been ordered in replacement of their Centurion MBT. The Leopard C1 was a modified version of the Leopard 1A3 fitted with the Belgian SABCA computerized fire-control system and, at left of the main gun, a PZB 200 TV camera with image-intensifying technology giving the tank night-fighting capabilities without the use of infrared light. Starting in late 1985 the Leopard C1 were fitted with a IRS 100 thermal-imaging system which greatly enhanced the tank night-fighting capabilities and were installed at the left of the PZB 200.

Starting with the Italeri Leopard 1A4 I have done a lot of conversion work to get my Canadian Leopard C1... and I am quite happy with it 😎 As I would like more of them, it is too bad that no resin conversion exist for this one (ModellTrans if you hear me 😇 as you already have a lot of Leopard conversion...) (made 2021)

Work in progress

While waiting to find the time to take some decent photos of my vehicle collection, here are some not so good photos of my latest projects in progress:

2 Belgian AMX VTT waiting for a last weathering

The one with turret is the ACE model and the other one is from TAS

Waiting to be painted, a Canadian Leopard C1 converted from the Italeri Leopard 1A4

In the building phase

the new Revell PT-76B which will join my NVA units