Hobbyboss South African Olifant Mk.1B. 1:35

[Shar2]

South African Olifant Mk.1B

Hobbyboss 1:35

 

History

The Olifant Mk.1B (Elephant) is an upgraded variant of the Olifant Mk.1A tank. The Mk.1B was developed as an interim solution. It entered service with South African National Defence Forces in 1991. About 44 vehicles were upgraded to the Mk.1B standard. The Olifant Mk.1B main battle tank has a number of armour improvements over its predecessor. Passive armour has been added to the glacis plate and nose of the hull. Turret has been fitted with stand-off composite armour. Protection against mines has been improved by adding double floor. New side skirts were fitted. This main battle tank was also fitted with an automatic fire suppression system.

 

The Olifant Mk.1B MBT is armed with the British L7 105-mm rifled gun. This gun is compatible with all standard NATO 105-mm munitions. A total of 68 rounds for the main gun are carried inside the vehicle. This main battle tank was also fitted with new fire control system. Secondary armament consists of two 7.62-mm machine guns. One of them is mounted coaxially with the main gun, while the other one is placed on top of the roof. The Olifant Mk.1B tank has a crew of four, including commander, gunner, loader and driver.

 

The Olifant is powered by a new Continental turbocharged diesel engine, developing 950 horsepower acquired from Israel. These replaced the petrol engines in the earlier variant and improved the power to weight ratio. By fitting the diesel and additional fuel tanks range was increased by quite a margin.

 

The Model

It’s been a long time coming and on the wants list of many an armour modeller, but at least it has been released and joins an ever growing list of South African military vehicles now available in injection moulded plastic. The kit is packed in a nice sturdy box with a depiction of the tank on the move on the front. Inside there are six sprues and four separate parts, all in a dark yellowish styrene, four sprues in a brown styrene, on in clear, twenty four plastic “tyres”, two sheets of etched brass and a small decal sheet. The mouldings are, as usual very well done, with no sign of imperfections or flash, but there are quite a few moulding pips to clean up before many of the parts can be used.  The moulded detail on the hull and turret parts is very nicely done, and matches pretty well with the real vehicle.

The build begins with the fitting of the torsion bean suspension arms to the lower hull, along with the lower glacis plate and three under side mounted access panels. Each of the axles is then fitted with their respective shock absorbers, with the foremost and rearmost units being fitted with bump stops. The twelve double return rollers are then assembled, each from three parts, while the two part drive gear covers are fitted with a single roller These assemblies are then glued into place on the lower hull. Each road wheel consists of an inner and outer wheel, separate tyres and an outer cover. Once assembled these are then glued to their axles, as are the two piece idlers and drive sprockets. The individual track links are held onto the sprue by only two gates, thus making them easy to clean up.  What is not so easy is the assembly of ach track length. Consisting of one hundred and five links, each link has to be glued to the next, which is fine for the upper and lower runs, but less easy getting the correct flow around the idlers and drive sprockets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moving on to the upper hull, the driver’s vision ports are fitted from the inside, while on the outside the track guards and rear mudflaps are attached. The large forward mudflaps are next, and these are fitted with three attachment straps before being glued into place. The rear lights, towing hook and eyes are fitted to the rear, along with a large breaker bar. Also fitted to the rear bulkhead is a large storage box, which is covered by a PE chequer plate along the top and sides, the two exhausts are also fitted, one each side of the storage box. Several small brackets are glued to each side of the hull, along the track guards, while on the drivers position and large external armoured vision port is fitted, along with its associated wiper and wiper motor box. The large spaced armour block is fitted to the upper glacis plate, along with several small items. The drivers hatch is then assembled from three parts and fitted into position, while either side of the front engine deck, two, three piece intakes are attached, probably air conditioning units. Staying on the engine deck, several guards and grab handles are attached along with more brackets. The upper hull is then attached to the lower hull, followed by the fitting of the two five piece heavy duty towing eye blocks, which also incorporate the headlights are fitted to the glacis plate. Two more eyes and their shackles are fitted to the lower rear plate.

 

The main gun is split in two parts longitudinally, once the two halves have been glued together, they are slid into the four piece mantle. Inside the upper turret section the commanders clear vision ports are fitted, before the gun assembly and the lower hull section glued into place. On each side of the rear of the turret there are four smoke dischargers, their two bar guard and just behind them an unusually shaped bin. The rear bustle of the turret is fitted with three sets of three track links and their fixing bars. The top of the turret is fitted with two more vision blocks on the gunner’s side, lifting eyes and two aerial bases. The commander’s side is then fitted with a sighting unit which also has a wiper and associated motor, plus to protection bars over the top, at the same time the gunners hatch is assembled and glued into place. Finally another large sighting unit is assembled from nine parts, and fitted onto the commander’s cupola, followed by the three piece hatch and two more two piece aerial bases. The completed turret is then attached to the hull completing the build.

 

 

Decals

While there is really only one colour scheme, the decals have markings for up to four different tanks. Essentially only the turret markings and numbers plates are different, although there are enough individual numbers to change two of the number plates to any tank with the same prefixes and suffix letter you can find reference for. The decals themselves look to be the usual fare from Hobbyboss, there are bright. clear, with good opacity and little carrier film.

 

 

Conclusion

It’s great to see this tank finally being released, bringing another part of the Centurion story to life. Not only that but with three South African vehicles now released, who knows what might be next, as there’s plenty of weird vehicles to choose from. The kit itself appears to be quite accurate when comparing with pictures of the real vehicle on the net, well, once I’d got over the fact that there is the Mk.1B and Mk.1B Optimum which is quite different from the kit tank. There’s nothing in the kit that should cause anyone any problems, other than the tracks, which can always be replaced with metal or resin aftermarket items. That said, I wish Hobbyboss/Trumpeter would make their tracks as user friendly as MiniArt are doing with their latest releases. Oh, and what were they thinking when they moulded the road wheel tyres separately? I guess once painted and weathered they will look ok, but for some modellers they will have to be replaced with resin road wheels or scrounge a set from the AFVClub Centurion kits.

 

 

Review sample courtesy of

[Julien]

The AFV Club kit I have has rubber road tyres for the road wheels.

 

Julien

[Shar2]

That's interesting. Thanks Juilen. Resin it  is then if the kit tyres don't come out right.

[Julien]

I hope someone does a replacement barell for this though,

 

Julien

[Antoine]

Let's hope HB has some plans to backdate this 1B to 1A at some point in the near future.

[christof]

I've noticed that the 2 hatches on the turret sides are wrong on the kit part, too tall. The box art shows how they should look

[Vlamgat9]

11 hours ago, Antoine said:

Let's hope HB has some plans to backdate this 1B to 1A at some point in the near future.

It’d need to be an almost an entirely new kit given how they’ve moulded it

Edited December 31, 2018 by Vlamgat9

[Kingsman]

I've just got hold of one of these at half price.  Rude not to.......

 

It is a very nice-looking kit and a surprisingly impressively bulky wagon for what is in effect still a Centurion.  But I second the wish above for a replacement single-piece barrel.  The join will be very hard to eradicate and the ribbed recoil bag is far too regular and nowhere near baggy and saggy enough.  I can't see aything else that will work.  It is essentially still the L7 but has a completely different barrel jacket and fume extractor.

 

As for the wheels, HobbyBoss have fallen into the same trap as just about everyone else who has kitted a Centurion variant and missed the reinforcing rings inside the rims.  The advantage - and the ony advantage - of using flexi vinyl like AFV Club and someone else (Tiger??) is that this material permits them to be moulded.  It cannot be done in injection plastic.  But then you end up with the wheel rim as part of the vinyl tyre moulding.  Moulding the tyres in hard black plastic as HobbyBoss have done is entirely pointless as it still does not allow the ribs to be shown.

 

Some of the resin after-market wheels do show the ribs to at least some extent.  Avoid the Legend ones as they don't.  Panzer Art do so very nicely, and are probably the best bet to get.  Brach's wheels do, but not very well.  I haven't seen the MR Modellbau wheel set or the Firestorm replacement rims for AFV Club, so I can't comment on those.

 

It will be interesting to see how Amusing Hobby tackle the situation on their 3 announced-but-not-released Centurion kits

[Julien]

On 29/06/2020 at 17:30, Das Abteilung said:

 

It will be interesting to see how Amusing Hobby tackle the situation on their 3 announced-but-not-released Centurion kits

This is the wheels on the AH Centurion V

[Kingsman]

No reinforcing rings again.  Impossible to mould like that in plastic anyway, It needs a separate outer rim ring, which is what AFV Club and others tried to achieve with vinyl tyres including the outer rim.  Resin moulding works, which is why the Panzer Art and Brach wheels, the Firestorm tyre set and AFAIK the MR Modellbau wheels are able to include them.  The Legend wheels don't have the rings.

 

This is what an early Centurion wheel rim looks like, and the later more reinforced type seen on later models.  Cross-section diagram below.  Yes, Centurion started with Comet wheels.  Chieftain started (and ended?) with Centurion wheels.

 

 

 

Cross-sections

[Kingsman]

I don't like the split gun barrel in the Olifant kit, but there are no after-market alternatives for the complete barrel.  However, the section forward of the fume extractor looks very much like that on an M60A3 so I might try one of those from RB.  The ribbed section at the mantlet end is actually much baggier and less regular than HobbyBoss have moulded.

[NFR]

Just added this to my stash. Thanks for the review