Dragon 1/72 Churchill Mk IV
By Chris Banyai-Riepl
Overview
Designed as the replacement for the Matilda II and Valentine tanks, the Churchill heavy tank started out a bit weak with poor performance. A strong showing during the Second Battle of El Alamein proved the type, and the Churchill went on to remain a major vehicle in British forces for well into the post-war era. During that long lifespan the Churchill underwent many modifications and improvements, resulting in lots of variant designations and with that, confusion for those trying to keep them straight.
The Kit
The Churchill has been fairly well represented in small scale, with kits from Airfix, Hasegawa, Italeri, and Matchbox. Now we have Dragon entering the fray with this new release of a Churchill Mk IV. Molded in the usual Dragon light gray plastic, the kit comes with tan colored DS tracks and a small decal sheet with markings for a single option. The quality throughout is quite good, with crisp edges and petite detailing. Starting with the turret, this does a good job of capturing the shape of the Mk IV cast turret. It has a two-piece assembly, which helps keep the curved edges well formed. The main gun is nicely done and comes with two different options, both of which are hollowed out. The machine gun is also well done, but is too small for the hollowing treatment. The hatches are separate, as is the rear storage basket. When it's all together it should make for a nice looking turret. Unfortunately it is a bit of a mixed bag, as the upper turret molding has the ventilator location for that of an early turret, while the lower piece has no overhang, marking it a late turret. It's a small problem, and can be covered up by the addition of camouflage netting and spare track links, as was commonly seen, but it's annoying given the amount of information on the Churchill out there. For the main hull assembly, the Churchill has some rather unique running gear that creates a bit more work than one might expect. The drive and idler wheels are as one would expect, molded in right and left halves. For the road wheels, these are molded integrally with side assemblies. The inner road wheels have the springs molded with them, while the outer road wheels are molded with the outer hull sides. These assemblies fit onto the one-piece lower hull, with the one-piece upper hull adding the fenders and main decking. There is a small mistake on the engine deck, which is missing the second set of hatch braces and the central cover is too far forward. The turret hangs over these parts, though, so if you have the turret pointed forward this will not be noticeable. The remaining details are all pretty straightforward and well done. The fenders have front and rear mudflaps, for instance, and the side vents are separate. The tracks are the Dragon DS flexible style, and should fit easily. One big advantage of the Churchill tank is that you can easily hide the track joint under the fender, where it will never be seen (unless you decide to cut off parts of the fender; a common sight on Churchills in combat). With all these bits & pieces put in place, the next step is painting.Painting a Churchill Mk IV is pretty simple: they're green, all over green. All right, that's a bit of a simplification, but that was the camouflage of the majority. Quite a few carried names on the hull sides, though, making for some interesting markings. This kit comes with just such a marking, for Castlerobin IV from C Sqd., North Irish Horse, in Italy 1944. The markings are well done and include the name and the turret markings. Unfortunately, these are markings for an NA75, not a Churchill Mk IV. The NA75 replaced the 6pdr gun from the Mk IV with the 75mm gun from a Sherman, including the mantlet. That's a pity, as it's a rather colorful name.
Conclusion
Overall this is a good addition to Dragon's 1/72 armor line, even with its faults. The level of detailing is superb, enough so to work with the errors and correct them. My thanks to Dragon Models for the review sample.