Mercedes-Benz/Krauss-Maffei Wegmann Leopard 2A5VSP

Gallery Article by Tom Choy on Jan 4 2004

Silly Week 2004

 

Well, here's my first entry for ARC's Silly Week, and my second entry in ARC overall. I was going to put this on the What-If website (we have a racing tank group build at the moment) but since ARC's having Silly Week I'd help spread the joy of what-iffing/silly modeling.

The model is made from a Zhengdefu 1/48 Leopard 2A5, and it's motorized (though I haven't given it a speed test yet). The idea in our group build was to choose one of these Zhengdefu tanks ($5, cheap cheap!), trick it out in racing décor, and time it in 10-meter drag strips for bragging rights. The only thing I added was the spoiler, which was made of strip and sheet styrene, and painted in 3-tone camouflage scheme of Testor's Metalizer Aluminum, Gunmetal and Dark Anodonic Gray. Decals came from Decals Carpena's 1/24 Mercedes CLK-LM Nos. 35 and 36 from the 1998 24-hour Du Mans race. The decals were a little on the thick side, and needed a little help from a hairdryer and Solvaset to get them to snuggle down around the sharp angles and rivets.

I haven't completely fleshed out the story yet, and with my rate of work and my feeling a little out of it right now I'll fill you in on what I've come up with so far. The back story of this tank has something to do with Canada, sausages and Alvis Petrie eventually becoming Prime Minister of Canada, thus making obsolete all wheeled/tracked vehicles as a result of one of his childhood dreams. How a chain of events could possibly happen is something I haven't written out completely, but it should be fleshed out in a week or so and I really believe would probably happen if Alvis did become Prime Minister of Canada, as highly unlikely that may sound!

 

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Anyway one day Germany gave up using conventional tracked tanks in favor of hovertanks, and suddenly there were thousands of vehicles to be scrapped. A Bundeswehr tank mechanic, who obviously had a little too much time in his hands, came up with the idea of converting these tanks into sporting vehicles, which appealed to the German government's idea of recycling whenever possible. America, in its insatiable hunger for the ultimate reality TV show, had resorted to real gladiatorial combat, so it wasn't too difficult to get this whole plan going. The idea was to race stripped-down tanks, and the main gun was modified to fire non-lethal rounds that could disable a tank but not kill the crew/vehicle (though accidents have been known to happen). The engines were also modified.

In this case, Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW), the maker of the Leopard II tanks (now makers of the Leopard III Hover Tank) approached Mercedes-Benz to trick out the vehicle to racing specifications. Other countries have also adopted hover technology and have done likewise (Britain has it's Challenger tanks modified to racing specs by Lotus, while the US has teamed up its Abrams tanks with GM and Dodge. The Italians naturally went with Ferrari.). Modifications included replacing certain pieces of armor with carbon fiber composites and other lightweight materials thus reducing the weight significantly, removing non-essential equipment, replacing the engine with a much more powerful and faster engine (it now uses jet fuel), and a spoiler wing (to help compensate for the added speed). The tank, now renamed the Mercedes-Benz/Krauss-Maffei Wegmann Leopard 2A5VSP (VSP as an acronym for Verflucht Schneller Panzer, or "Damn Fast Tank."). Speed tests on the track have clocked the VSP going at nearly 200km/h. The most exciting parts of the race are when the tanks have to suddenly decelerate in order to make the tight turns, and also during combat (the tanks try to take each other out during the race. The winner is either the tank that finishes the race first, or manages to disable all other tanks.)

Racing tanks have been slowly gaining acceptance in the racing community, and is slowly forming its own Formula 1 league. The league's ultimate claim to legitimacy came when the Americans used an Abrams/Dodge ViperTank to drag race a Lockheed Martin F-22, much like how the Italians raced a Ferrari against a Eurofighter in 2003.

Unfortunately, this particular vehicle was lost in a racing accident, when a freak wind condition caused the tank to suddenly lose its downdraft, making the tank flip over during a race. Fortunately, the tank crew, headed by driver Klaus Stapelfahrer (oddly enough, a forklift driver in a warehouse in his previous profession), survived the crash unhurt, tanks (bad pun intended, ba-da-boom!) to their excellent safety systems and race harnesses.

Well, this has been a fun project, and thanks to some translating help from Dennis Mathes and Lothar Wolf, I've been able to get as close as possible a Mercedes-sounding name as possible for this tank. I hope this will inspire you to try building a silly model or two soon, and maybe even take part in the racing tank group build.

Tom Choy   http://www.whatifmodelers.com

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Photos and text © by Tom Choy