Churchill Mk. VI

In July 2024, I bought this already built model from someone here on Scalemates. It’s missing a few bits that came off in the mail, but they’re all there except for the mud chute on the right-hand side. 

This is the kit turret as built by the previous owner, straight from the box. The other part is the lower turret part for the Churchill Mk. IV, which is also in the kit. 

On the real tank, the Mk. IV and VI turrets were the same height, but the Mk. VI had a thicker turret ring — which the kit depicts, except it’s also been made too tall. The height problem is apparent here: the height of the Mk. IV part is correct for both Mk. IV and VI. 

I had to take apart the turret to correct it. Luckily, the previous owner had not used as much glue as I would have, so I could break apart most of the seams by carefully using a knife. I had to saw through the left-hand side, though. 

Another shot of the difference in height between the two lower turret parts. Notice that the Mk. IV part (on the right) has a “bump” on it at the back, which the Mk. VI doesn’t. 

Here, that bump is removed. This was fairly hard work with a heavy-duty modelling knife and a file. After taking the photo, I glued some plastic strip into the slots and then added putty over them to blend them into the turret. 

To make the thicker turret ring, take some 1 × 0.5 mm plastic strip. Wrap it around something that’s about 47–48 mm diameter and cut it to length so it fits nicely once around it. Then glue a second strip over the first to make a circle of 1 × 1 mm material.

When the glue has set, cement the ring to the lower turret part, evenly centred on the existing ring. When that too is dry, cut off the bit that sticks out on the RIGHT-hand side only. Don’t cut anything off on the left! 

I used more putty to close the gap between the ring and the kit part on the left-hand side, and also put thinned putty all around the ring to make it look like it’s cast integrally with the rest of the turret. 

For fun, I decided to also modify the turret to actually be that of a Mk. V. The Churchill Mk. V had a 95 mm howitzer, but photos show that its turrets were sometimes used for Mk. VI tanks. The difference is that the Mk. VI has a diagonal upper corner, like here, while on the Mk. V, that corner was square. You can see lines there on the kit part because AFV Club also has a Mk. V kit. 

By sawing, cutting and filing along those moulded lines, it was easy enough to square the corner. 

A few months later, I’ve finally done some more work on this model. I wanted spare track armour over the hull and turret, as is often seen on Churchills in photos from late 1944 and 1945, so I delved into my spares boxes to find suitable ones. On the hull front and sides are Churchill tracks from AFV Club (brown) and Sherman tracks from Panda (grey and painted metallic on the front), Tamiya (green length) Asuka (green separate links) and Dragon (grey links on the sides). 

The right side of the turret with spare tracks from AFV Club (brown), Dragon (grey) and Tamiya (green). The Dragon ones are awful to build, and I’m glad I never bought a Sherman kit that had them (I got given a few sprues of them earlier this year). 

Left side, now with links on the turret too, from Dragon (grey), AFV Club (brown) and Bronco (light brown) which are also awful to assemble, but in a different way to Dragon’s 🙂 The white stuff around the suspension is coarse, acrylic, texture gel to replicate mud. 

Model complete, ready for painting, I think. The commander figure is from Bronco, and I added some stowage on the back as well as a tow cable hanging over the left mudguard. 

The stowage is mainly resin boxes from Panzer Art, jerrycans from Bronco, a Resicast mess kit and some assorted bits and pieces. 

Cheap grey primer sprayed all over, mainly because I wanted to test this particular type, and also because of the metal barrel and etched and resin parts. 

Base colour of Mr. Paint SCC 15 (British olive drab) sprayed all over, and Tamiya Medium Grey for the tracks. 

First, I sprayed little patches of Mig IDF Green into the centres of all of the panels to break the monotony, then I put a wash of Army Painter Soft Tone (this is a translucent brown paint), thinned about 1:1 with water, over everything. When that had dried, I drybrushed the whole model with Humbrol HD1 Aircraft Grey Green, from a very old tin.

Not visible in the picture is that I applied more mud after I had put on the base colour, with the same acrylic gel as before, because I felt the tank wasn’t dirty enough yet. 

Side view with the spare tracks and stowage mostly painted, as well as the commander, and markings on. 

For the star on the turret roof, I used a marking I found in my spare decals box. To make it fit over the ventilator, I made an 8 mm hole in it with a large-size punch-and-die set. 

And here’s the cut-out portion applied, too. I put plenty of Micro Sol over both parts to get them to settle down over the detail, but I think I’ll have to add more later, and I will also need to use some white paint to touch up the area where the decal got damaged, and to connect the centre part with the outer one. 

After a comment elsewhere confirmed my suspicions about the Churchill track colour, I repainted them grey with a wash of Army Painter Soft Tone over that. 

The tank is now dirty from an overall wash of Tamiya Flat Earth while the mud has been painted dark grey-brown (mixed by eye) with an even darker wash over it, and the running surfaces of the roadwheels and the teeth on the idler wheels with Humbrol Polished Steel. 

And it’s finished from here on 🙂 

 

 

 

 

Painting figures is not my greatest skill. Which is to say: I’m worse at it than I was twenty years ago — back then I could (and would) have done the shading and highlighting better, and also have painted his eyes, but my fine motor skills are failing me 🙁 

I also completed painting this street corner by DioDump today, so I thought I’d photograph the Churchill on it, too. The model is loose, as I want to use the base for taking photographs of different models, displaying models on it at shows, etc.