Heller Leclerc: Any Good?
John
Is the Leclerc from Heller any better than their other armor kits? Any
advice?
Thank you,
John
AMPSOne
Yes and no. It is a better kit in regard to the execution, but as with all
Heller kits, whoever designed it did not have modelers in mind. The use of
a great deal of clear parts in bad places makes finishing and painting very
awkward. The brass parts are for the birds, and a lot of new items have to
be added to bring it up to speed.
Steelmasters, the French armor magazine (and even though it is totally en
Francais one of the best around) really chewed this kit up in order to get
a good model out of it.
Cookie Sewell
AMPS
Mike Kendall
>Thank you,
>John
Hi John,
Quick, run away from this kit as fast as you can! It kinda' reminded me
of those early Aurora 1/48 kits with the working suspension....
Seriously, there are some really interesting aspects to the kit and some
really BIG seams to fill. After putting a lot of effort into the thing
just trying to get the pieces to fit, it felt like I really needed some
references to detail it up a bit, but there's not much out there. One of
the Brit modeling mags did a few shots a year or so ago, and as Cookie
mentioned Steel Masters also had a review, in French. Some of the problems
I had:
1. The front of the top hull plate should angle down just forward of the
driver's hatch, but mine didn't, even though the side hull plates have the
right shape. I had to scribe a line on the under side of the hull plate and
gently bend the thing to the right angle.
2. Most of the commander's, loader's and driver's cupola/view block plastic
is molded in clear plastic, and interesting idea but a bit of a pain in the
ass as they also don't fit right. I guess the idea is that you just mask the
blocks and paint the whole thing, removing the masks later. Because of all
the putty necessary to make the areas decent looking, I just sprayed the whole
thing and added view blocks from clear acetate rectangles painted dark purple
on the back side.
3. The front side hull plates are located a mm or so out
from the hull, and should be attached to the hull. There are hinges on these
plates at the top which are supposed to attach to the hull, but as designed
the kit side plates hang off in space. Remove the excess plastic on the back
of the plates so they attach to the hull, leaving the seam.
4. Drill out the smoke discharger holes in the rear of the turret... the
cover plates around these holes are just thin metal and should look rather
flimsy.
5. The piping for the rear aux fuel tanks is hard to figure out.
Pipes should leave both drums and lead to the collector mounted between them
on the hull rear, then a tube from the collector goes to the right and enters
the rear hull plate near the top and close to the right hull side.
6. Trash the decals as they are way too thick and can't be made to behave
anyway
.7. The commander's large drum viewer on the turret roof is lop-sided.
I didn't notice this until I was finished and it really is a pain to try to
correct at that juncture. You might also hollow out the actual glass front
plate and add a sliding cover door, then the glass behind it.
8. The kit instructions would have you mount the gun mantlet flush to the
turret face. Of course in real life this would make it impossible to elevate
the gun. There is a gap between the mantlet and turret, covered by a
wrap-around canvas piece. I made the gap by some means I forget now and
filled the gap with soaked tissue, pushing it in until it looked right and
letting it dry. Worked fine.
9. The photo etched metal screens on the rear
deck have really TINY holes and will fill with paint unless you thin it ALOT!
10. Build the Heller camel and Bedouine and place in front of the tank to
hide and distract anyone's eye from viewing the vehicle. I managed to get by
a couple of times at contests using this trick. The kit includes a couple of
rounds of ammo, which was nice, but the knock out pin marks were a bit of a
pain to fill (went half way through the shells!).
If you get down to eye level with the AFV it really does look cool, sort of a
Darth Vader look with a really low profile turret, etc. But plan to spend
some time with the above and a bunch of little bolt heads, etc. and some
references to get it to look really nice. By the way, the tracks actually are
pretty good and the suspension is hidden by the side plates. I made mine a
desert version and added a rear turret basket, which also helps it stand out
from the crowd. Come to think of it, I haven't seen any other LeClercs at
contests.... Hmmm....
Hope this helps.
Mike
PS- If you ever figure out which way the exhaust deflector elbow is supposed
to point (straight up, out at an angle, etc.) let me know, will ya'?
MODEL HAWK
>>Is the Leclerc from Heller any better than their other armor kits? Any
>>advice?
>
>>Thank you,
>
>>John
Can't speak for the model kit but the 1-to-1 scale real McCoy is a piece
of crap
Happy modeling: ModelHawk
"...good times and riches and son of a bitches,
I've seen more than I can recall"
J. Buffett
John Harris
In article <19970920231...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
mode...@aol.com (MODEL HAWK) wrote:
>
> >>Is the Leclerc from Heller any better than their other armor kits? Any
> >>advice?
> >
> >>Thank you,
> >
> >>John
>
As far as I can tell, it's reasonably accurate, though references are rare.
There was an article in the French magazine "SteelMasters".
The kit includes etched metal and clear parts for the vision periscopes. The
detail is a little sparse, but the parts are okay. It includes some of
Heller's bizarre split front and back crew figures. Not up to Tamiya / DML /
Italeri, but not too bad.
JH
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| UK Military Modelling Home Page : http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/jch |
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John
MODEL HAWK wrote:
>
> >>Is the Leclerc from Heller any better than their other armor kits? Any
> >>advice?
> >
> >>Thank you,
> >
> >>John
>
> of crap
>
> Happy modeling: ModelHawk
> "...good times and riches and son of a bitches,
> I've seen more than I can recall"
> J. Buffett
Gee, I thought it was supposed to be the apex of modern armor!
John
Eddie Krieger
John wrote:
>
>
> >
> > >>Is the Leclerc from Heller any better than their other armor kits? Any
> > >>advice?
> > >
> > >>Thank you,
> > >
> > >>John
> >
> >
John,
The Heller Leclerc kit is pretty much typical Heller, be that good or
bad. The kit is not very crisp, and the fit of the front glacis plate
is poor, and the vinyl tracks are terrible. On the up side, there is a
decent photo-etch sheet included. The kit can be built up into a decent
looking model, but if it is a show model you are looking for, you might
want to look further. FSM did a kit review several years back, maybe
someone can help you with that.
Eddie Krieger
IPMS USA 36293
"Modern Armour is Art"
Rembra2100
Strong reply Modelhawk. I am not well versed on the Leclerc and am curious
why you feel it is so bad and what you base the opinion on. I remember
similar comments on the M1 untill the bugs were worked out. Then after
Desert Storm all you heard was how it was the best in the business. It
takes time and effort to develope a complicated piece of technology capable
of being used by the common short term soldier.
Rick
AMPSOne
The Leclerc is overengineered and not very soldier-proof, which are not
good qualties to combine. Not sure if they have fixed it yet, but one
major problem with the tank had to do with the fact that it had to have the
hatches sealed before the weapons would fire. This means no TC in the hatch
in combat, and most commanders will bristle at that thought in a heartbeat.
You gotta keep it running for it to be an effective tank.
Cookie Sewell
AMPS
GRBroman
In article <19970926003...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
amp...@aol.com (AMPSOne) writes:
>You gotta keep it running for it to be an effective tank
In the immortal words of SSG Jahner, "Well, if'n it don't run, it ain't
nuthin' but a pillbox, and if'n it don't shoot, it ain't nuthin' but a 52
ton portable radio....."
AMPSOne
Glenn,
Eliquent -- succinct, but eliquent.
Cookie Sewell
AMPS
Dan Winfield
Re: Heller Leclerc: Any Good?
Cookie:
You just put another meatball in our Francho-American spaghetti, now
they'll never join NATO....................Oh well.
MRLB Dan=B9