Another 5 Star model! Beautiful details!

Did the rubber road pads from your model “The Perfect Chain” ( http://www.3dvia.com/alfredix/models/E2EF05D8EAFCCEE0 ) get lost on the Gepard and the Leopard? I know, picky, picky, picky!

For more historical information try this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopard_1

And for some great video try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sf0zMYALeg&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.google.com%2Fvideosearch%3Fhl%3Den%26source%3Dhp%26q%3DLeopard-1a5%26um%3D1%26ie%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DN%26tab%3Dwv&feature=player_embedded

Thanks Don. Nothing lost :) all three models are using the same road pads from a unlimited pool of virtual rubber. the perfect world for the perfet chain so to say :)

The video is great Don. I found another pretty cool one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWTCbUkH1G0&feature=related

Nice video! Do not try that at home! (a standard American joke about the legal statements here about not doing anything except breathing without legal counsel close by).

I should have been more specific. The road pads look like rubber on the Perfect Chain, but look like metal on the other 2 models. Looks like they’d be good in actual combat, but would tear up the roads in every town on the way in maneuvers.

My brother-in-law was stationed in Germany three different times and even as a helicopter pilot, he was very much aware of the need to not “break” things on maneuvers. :D

oops, I haven’t seen that before.
The Perfect Chain was uploaded directly as STEP from Pro/E.
Gepard and Leopard were created in Pro/E and then the STEP file was cleaned from not needed surfaces in Inventor.
All three of them use the same tracklink. the tracklink is 1 part where the surfaces of the rubber were colored different
the metal chain element (metal color in ProE) and the black rubber pad (black rubber color in proE). Looks like Inventor took clor from the mainbody (the metal part) and just asigned it to all surfaces. I never realized that :)
In fact “The perfect chain” was developed tosuit all tanks. It was done on the example of Gepard/Leopard. So all tanks of the Leo1 family will use the same tracklink. (and there are still a few to come…).

Btw: On a Bundeswehr show in my hometown around June, there were a lot of tanks and Bundeswehr equipment performing some “stunts”. And there I saw how fast a tank can stop. No wonder with the friction distributed on so many pads :) Nevertheless, pretty scary on the road :)

btw: the same happend to the tools on the side :) See my webalbum on Picasa for the actual pics of Gepard and Leopard: http://picasaweb.google.com/alfredeix/Leo1Family?feat=directlink

Ahh, it does make sense that in the complicated chain of steps you explained, that a color here or there might get changed. Thanks. :)

That must have been quite a show! We seem to have a lot of air shows, but not many shows for armor. I did see a folding bridge deployed (at an air show) and that was cool. I would not want to be the operators, since it took long enough to deploy that even if the folks in the barracks were asleep, they’d still have time to come out and defend the crossing!

In photo #9, what is the coppery-looking part where the cannon meets the turret?

I see what you mean about the tools too.

It is sort of a bellow, that is mounted on one side on the cannon and on the other on the turret. In reality I think this beloow is made of leather (I am not sure).
In any case it covers the upper part of the sliding mechanism of the cannon. I used a canvas texture in ProE to give it a more fabric look. Normally this bellow is more or less crunched, depends on the angle of the cannon. But that kind of crumpling was hard to model, so I decided to make it a more generic look :) Some Leos don’t have that. It is more a dirt protection (as far as I know)

Thanks Alfred. That all makes sense, since it certainly is critical to protect the surfaces that allow smooth cannon positioning.

you seem to be into war mechanics and vehicles.

that looks very good
don’t want to be a criticbut the colour is not good for this one…too bad about the textures uploading…

Congratulations Alfred! Your model has been included in the 43rd weekly Top 10 models blog with pictures and links to your model.

Go to http://www.3dvia.com/blog/3dvia-top-10-models-043/ to check it out!