You can agonise over various details and the techniques needed to depict them for months and years, then one day you just sit down and do something that looks good.
It was raining in Sydney today and I decided to work on that pesky PSP rear deck and stowage ... photos are sketchy, and I'll bet there were actually a few styles determined by the whim of the craftsmen and what materials were available .... there was also the factor of whether or not the tank was fitted with a rear fuel drum.
This is the stowage I came up with, which I later covered with a tarp of leans cleaning tissue covered in white glue:
The end result was affective:
But I daresay too neat when compared to the stowage of the real tanks at Balikpapan. I reckon that when the tanks were landed the close support tanks in particular would have needed to carry plenty of ammo, and being in the tropics, there would have to be some tarps ... I took the British ammo boxes and tarps from the very handy Accurate Armour stowage set, the pastic boxes and tins were from Academy and I used a couple of Tamiya US jerry cans because the 2/9th had been training in Australia and they would have had contact with the Yanks. I will need to scatter some more stowage about::
I modified the PSP deck a bit, but some more work might be needed:
At the end of the day, I am not sure about the rear plate I have added, but it will be easy enough to remove.
I was seriously thinking about modifying the suspension access plate hinges on the side plates:
But my research paid off, and there was at least one vehicle at Balikpapan with PSP plating with the style of hinges depcited in the Tamiya kit, which I have only seen very rarely in photographs. That's good enough for me, I leave the side plate hinges as they are:
The flimsy can holders on the front guards are yet to fixed in place ... they were seen in that position on Matildas with the track shrouds fitted, but there are other stwage options. The spare track and ammo box on the front of the hull have been glued down.
Modelling for me is a funny business ... this project stalled about three years ago after I had to wrestle the hull in particular to make it fit (note the way the front of the side plates have been built up), and then all the real tanks I looked at had a different style of hinge on the suspension access hatches on the side plates, which demoralised me further.
After a couple of days, I have just about all the stowage in place and the PSP plating in the ball park accuracy wise ... all that's needed is to finalise the front guard stowage, add some cables to the smoke dischargers and then I reckon a coat of green paint is in order!
I am not normally one to paint during construction, but the Matilda, like the Churchill, is a funny beast, and the suspension, track and front shrouds have been painted. The PSP is not fixed in place, and I might paint it a slightly dirrent shade of green ... even if it was the same colour as the rest of the tank, it would have come from a different batch of paint, and the vehicle would have been weathered by the time the plating was fitted.
Anyway, this project's starting to look like an Aussie Matilda. I've learnt quite a bit from the process, but unfortunately the Firestorm upgrade is no longer available ... I only hope that the issues that saw it withdrawn from sale are rectified, or that a long overdue accurate 1/35th kit of a Matilda becomes available!
I have seen announcements that Russian manufacturer ICM are producing a MkIV Matilda, but I am yet to see the kit or any reviews ... there are also rumours that a Matilda is in the works with an Asian manufactuer ...
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