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Trumpeter TK-09: German Type 570P ‘Diehl’ Track Links (Workable) for German Leopard 2 A5/A6 MBT
View attachment 469461
Having recently purchased and by now mostly built a set of these tracks, here’s my impression of them.
In the box, you get two bags of eleven black sprues each, which look like this:
View attachment 469462
And in close-up:
View attachment 469463View attachment 469464
Very nicely moulded, with little or no flash and — importantly— the ejectors next to the links instead of on them, like some manufacturers put them. Also only two attachment points per link, all of which makes for pretty simple clean-up. There are two things to be aware of, though: take care not to break the track pins when cleaning up the blocks, and take a lot more care still that the tiny central connector pieces don’t go flying. They’re only about 3 × 1 × 1 mm “big” so chances are that you will lose some if you’re not very careful. As a further tip, don’t remove the end connectors from the sprue, but cut that into short pieces with two connectors each. Here are the separate pieces that make up the links:
View attachment 469465
The tricky part of assembly is putting the central connectors to the links. I found the best way to do it, to pick up one connector with a moist finger, then grip it between two fingers so that I could manoeuvre it for gripping with the point of thin, flat pliers. Once that has been done, it’s fairly simple to click it into the middle of a block. Again, take great care that the small piece doesn’t go flying during any of this. If it doesn’t, you quickly end up with some of these:
View attachment 469466
Those can be easily linked together by laying them flat on a surface and just sliding them together until they click again. That done, take a bit of sprue with the end connectors and slide them onto the track, with the flat side of the connector on the inside:
View attachment 469467
This is pretty simple to do, because the connectors are spaced just right for the links. I first tried it with lengths of four, but that proved too much to easily line them up, but halving that makes it much easier. Add one on the other side too:
View attachment 469468
… and all you have to do is cut off the bits of sprue to get a piece of working track:
View attachment 469469
The connectors are tight enough that they don’t come off, but loose enough to keep the track properly flexible. It fits easily around a Leopard 2 drive sprocket, for example:
View attachment 469470
All in all, I would highly recommend this set. Other than the central connector, it’s about as painless to build as sets of separate-link tracks get, and the price is very good too — I paid just €12.85 for it. The only drawback I can see is that it doesn’t have any links with ice cleats: on the real track, the rubber blocks can be removed and replaced by steel ones with an X-profile, that are carried on the tank, but there are no links with these in the set. But if you don’t need those, that isn’t a problem at all anyway.
View attachment 469461
Having recently purchased and by now mostly built a set of these tracks, here’s my impression of them.
In the box, you get two bags of eleven black sprues each, which look like this:
View attachment 469462
And in close-up:
View attachment 469463View attachment 469464
Very nicely moulded, with little or no flash and — importantly— the ejectors next to the links instead of on them, like some manufacturers put them. Also only two attachment points per link, all of which makes for pretty simple clean-up. There are two things to be aware of, though: take care not to break the track pins when cleaning up the blocks, and take a lot more care still that the tiny central connector pieces don’t go flying. They’re only about 3 × 1 × 1 mm “big” so chances are that you will lose some if you’re not very careful. As a further tip, don’t remove the end connectors from the sprue, but cut that into short pieces with two connectors each. Here are the separate pieces that make up the links:
View attachment 469465
The tricky part of assembly is putting the central connectors to the links. I found the best way to do it, to pick up one connector with a moist finger, then grip it between two fingers so that I could manoeuvre it for gripping with the point of thin, flat pliers. Once that has been done, it’s fairly simple to click it into the middle of a block. Again, take great care that the small piece doesn’t go flying during any of this. If it doesn’t, you quickly end up with some of these:
View attachment 469466
Those can be easily linked together by laying them flat on a surface and just sliding them together until they click again. That done, take a bit of sprue with the end connectors and slide them onto the track, with the flat side of the connector on the inside:
View attachment 469467
This is pretty simple to do, because the connectors are spaced just right for the links. I first tried it with lengths of four, but that proved too much to easily line them up, but halving that makes it much easier. Add one on the other side too:
View attachment 469468
… and all you have to do is cut off the bits of sprue to get a piece of working track:
View attachment 469469
The connectors are tight enough that they don’t come off, but loose enough to keep the track properly flexible. It fits easily around a Leopard 2 drive sprocket, for example:
View attachment 469470
All in all, I would highly recommend this set. Other than the central connector, it’s about as painless to build as sets of separate-link tracks get, and the price is very good too — I paid just €12.85 for it. The only drawback I can see is that it doesn’t have any links with ice cleats: on the real track, the rubber blocks can be removed and replaced by steel ones with an X-profile, that are carried on the tank, but there are no links with these in the set. But if you don’t need those, that isn’t a problem at all anyway.
