Another contribution to the gallery of my finished models. The vehicle is Israeli APC Nagmachon, based on the Centurion chassis. It is one of those unique conversions, IDF is famous for. Using its experience from Intifada and years of low intensity conflicts, IDF realised it needs heavily armored personnel carrier capable of defeating the latest RPG weapons. At he same time vehicle did not need heavy caliber gun, as there were no enemy armoured vehicles to counter. Instead the need was for high situational awareness of the crew in urban areas and firepower against soft targets.

The kit is a Legends conversion for the AFV Centurion kit. Once built there is not a lot left from the AFV kit, only the lower hull and chassis is used. The conversion is extremely detailed and comprehensive kit, but the fit of parts is good given its complexity. I have seen comparison of the Legend conversion vs. Cromwell model’s one in older issue of Model Military and I think Legend’s kit is superior in the level of detail. In addition to the conversion I used Merkava IV rubber rimmed wheels as these are the correct ones as well as workable tracks. I was bit afraid as the stowage basket has to be built from scratch, at the end it went well and I have added some stowage bits and made tarps on top. Antennas were made from brass wire.

One interesting challenge were the three armored glass panels in the superstructure, I was looking for the best material to depict these for a while. At the end I have used poly indexes –  transparent plastic page dividers I bought in the Grand & Toy. They sell them in sets of different colors, I used the one with blue tint. I cut them to the right size and for each panel I glued one from outside and one from inside.

Apart from that everything is provided in the kit, using large number of resin and photoetch parts. Warning – this is not a quick build.

Model was painted with Tamiya acrylics and lightly weathered with oils and pigments.

As usual more pictures can be seen here: Nagmachon