A tail of two Churchills

[RCD]

I have had mixed experiences with the Churchill. the first tank I built was Airfix's Churchill 1/76 . It nearly put me off for life!

A while ago I saw the Dieppe Churchill from Dragon on sale. The first thing was to do a little research on which colour to use brown or green. Its a real can of worms. A friend of mine who lives Canada contacted the local miltary museum - a lot of different opinions on the colour. I tried Bovington - did not bother to reply! The " coloured" pictures of green tanks are probably tinted. The MkI will be painted green G4 and the MkIII will be painted SCC2.
Shortly afterwards I came across a model that got away in my youth namely the Hasegawa MkI Churchill. The Dragon was put on the backburner and I started this model.


This certainly was a very ancient kit with single colour instructions and the transfers (as decals were usually called then) look unusable and yellow.


Lets starts.
First to notice is that the plastic is harder and there was absolutely no flash - its in perfect condition. Its the original MkI with the early form of exhaust which was modified. I wanted to do a Dieppe MkI which will be modifying.


Saw an article about Churchill MkI CS in North Africa. There was a picture of " Crude" with had the original exhaust so I will go for this. Interestingly enough the 2pdr and 3" howitzer were swopped around as it was found that this made the tank more effective.

[Cardinal]

During the Dieppe raid I do believe the brown was not adopted for most Churchill tanks if any at the time. There were about 60 Churchills operated during the operation, and likely most were painted green for the operation, where when I see brown Churchill tanks its during Normandy landings in 1944, where some were brown. I think it's not out of the ordinary though, because it would fit a beach setting.

[B4en]

The Hasegawa is a pretty nice kit, a much easier build than the old Airfix one. Have fun!

[RCD]

Started to assemble the Hasegawa Churchill last night . Its amazing - it goes together with perfect fits . No flash, filler or clearing up required. Considering its age one would have suspected problems would crop up and would not be so easy to assemble. With the model assembled time to paint an produce some appropriate decals.

As for SCC2 ( often called dog s--- brown) it would be a logical colour for the Dieppe period as chromium ( that is not to say that it was the colour!) was in very short supply and was directed for specialist steel manufacture rather than green paint. From what I have find out from experts like Mike Starmer suggest MkI and II were generally green while MKIII are SCC2 brown. There might be more evidence out there but I have not seen it. As for Normandy SSC15 was the principle colour not SCC2 for the Commonwealth forces . Obviously there were exceptions ie the RM Centaurs.

[flakmonkey]

You can never go wrong with bronze green.

[beany]

My son has recently got back into modelling and armour in particular. He is a stickler for accuracy and has been talking via email with Mike Starmer recently which resulted in him buying all four of Mike's books on WWII armour colour schemes. He recently completed the Tamiya 1/35 Churchill and it looks superb, so much so I need to get one myself now so I will also be watching your build with great interest. I too still have the mental scars from building the Airfix Churchill as a youth!

[RCD]

The last few days have been spent painting this Churchill mkIc (2pdr in hull, 3" in turret). Being very old fashioned I still paint with a brush. In Tunisia many British tanks were in G4 . I have use Mike Starmers ' blend in the past but have found Hataka G4 the same to my inexperienced eye. Went on well. the transfers (shows my age) were both homemade and some of the original ones which were still good despite their age.






Well, its been one of the best model I have built for ages. Goes together with no filler and pieces go together to produce a very presentable model.

Now for the Dragon Dieppe MkIII Churchill. Reading some of the reviews about this model about fit problems it should be interesting.

[B4en]

That came out just great! Nothing wrong with brush painting.

I-Spy Orion tanker figures?

[RCD]

Yes they are orion figures. Found them a mixed bunch. Most fine but too many with large amounts of flash.

[Cardinal]

Came out pretty nice. Can’t wait to see the next one

[RCD]

Just starting the next phase with the Dieppe Churchill MkIII


This is a fairly modern model compared to the Hasegawa MkI. Obviously it should better engineered but I am a little worried as there are references online that there are problems with the fit of this model. lets open the box.
First impressions: Good - the tracks are vinyl but very good, The transfers - very good.
Bad - I have not seen so much flash in a long time. Unfortunately it is around the wheels. The modern plastic is soft so hopefully it
will come off but it will be time consuming.

[B4en]

Bad - I have not seen so much flash in a long time. Unfortunately it is around the wheels.

That's annoying. I haven't done a Dragon kit in a long while, but they used to be very good quality. Looking forward to seeing this one develop.

[ShaunW]

Great work with that Hase Mk I and it's good to see an early Churchill, especially one done that well.

[RCD]

FINISHED AT LAST!
I am an not the greatest modeller in the world at this model put up a right fight! Having finally cleaned up the flash I started to complete the model. These were some fitting problems especially, A30 an A11 but I was already prepared for this having read about the problem. There are some very delicate pieces especially with the wadding equipment that broke while removing them. Oh well, finally it came together.
Painting was straightforward using Hataka SCC2. In the past I have used Mike Starmer's mixture but to my eye there is little difference.






It depends on what you want in a model. Without doubt Dragon Churchill produces an exceptionally interesting model with outstandingly detailed tracks and decals. The minus side is that some of the small pieces are very fragile and there are fit issues.
The MkI is an " rave from the grave". An expert modeller will probably comment it is inaccurate but I was surprised how clean of flash and it fits together like a dream.

...... and any model of the Churchill cannot be as bad as the Airfix one with all those wheels.

[ShaunW]

Sounds like a challenging build but what a great result and the base sets it off very nicely.