Last year I built RINGER, a MkII churchill that took part in the Dieppe Raid of 1942 using AFV Club's MkIII Churchill, a Cromwell Models MkI/II conversion, the Resicast Churchill engine and scratched a full interior

I learned a lot on that build (especially through the mistakes) and learned even more on Carmen's recent (ish) build of another MkII Churchill at Dieppe

So as a confirmed Churchill -a-holic (this is my 12th) I decided I'd like to do another, especially as I have a long term goal to model every vehicle that landed in the raid

So this will be a build log of COMPANY, a MkI (reworked) Churchill

COMPANY was a Tank in C Squadron. It landed from the TLC and began climbing the beach when its Left Idler was hit by a shell breaking a track pin. The tank became immobilised before reaching far enough up the beach to use its 3in howitzer as the rise of the beach, and sea wall were higher then the hull mounted gun's maximum elevation

The crew could use the turret 2pdr and besa and they continued to hit targets as and when they were identified throughout the battle

COMPAY was hit several times by every calibre weapon the German's could bring to bear on it, and despite the tank occasionally filling with smoke, the crew were unharmed and remained able to fire back until the order was given to surrender

This is the kit I'll be using:



Plus a Cromwell Models MkI/II Dieppe Conversion:








I also got some Cromwell Models track for this:


But this just came so I might use it instead


The brand new AFV Club workable Heavy Track Set

I will also be using some of my own Inside the Armour Replacement Idlers


Oh yes, and I'll be scratching a full interior (with the exception of a small number of parts I can use from my MkIII interior kit)

OK so step one of the instructions is the insertion of the conical bolts into the pannier sides.



However Company is a reworked MkI, so it doesn't have any

Essentially the MkI and MkII were designed and a number built when the MkIII was put into production.

The MkIII featured a number of improvements over the MkI and MkII, including the rectangular upward facing air intakes (the MkI and MkII had downward facing ovaloid air intakes that tended to suck leaf litter and dirt into the engine. An interim solution was devised of turning them upside down, but the new rectangular ones were much more effective), mud channels on the front of the panniers, standardised mud guards (which did not change after the MkIII until the VII), conical bolts holding on extra armour, and a range of other small improvements.

The decision was taken to rework the existing MkIs and MkIIs, and to include the improvements on MkIs and IIs either unfinished on the production line or waiting to be put into production

Thus you get two types of MkIs and IIs: reworked and post rework scheme


Anyway, next I moved onto sticking the two halves of the panniers together. before you can do this you need to remove the bogey spring units from the sprue, clean them up and add the metal springs supplied and insert them when you make the join

As I will be adding Inside the Armour bits and sponson fillers inside. The springs are a little too tall, so I sanded the tops down about 1/4mm:



As you can see, I've also added some Mr Surfacer to give the cast texture on the panniers missing in the kit. People don't usually bother with this, but if you have a close look at earlier churchills it is quite noticeable





Also, looking at two of the three churchills at bovington that are post rework, the track runners on top of the panniers (L shape angle to allow the track to run along the top of the panniers with minimum friction) these should be in sections, not two continuous rails and AFV Club have modelled them, so I used a stanley knife (good for the solid blade) and cut regular grooves top represent this:

Look forward to this. I'm taking the easy route and waiting to get the new AFV Club Canadain Dieppe Churchill. I may build a British or Russian one someday as well because I do dig the tank.

Next an SBS of my 'easy way' to do the suspension


So a reminder of how AFV Club would expect you to do it. The first time I built one of these I did it how they say and ended up in a big gluey messy knot. I managed it, but only just!

The basic problem is you need about 5 hands. Sadly I was only issued with the standard two:



So forget that, and do it like this:

First look up the sides of the bogey housings on the sprues. Be careful here. The sides are in two parts each, a long one and a short one. The short ones come in two types on the sprues; Parts 15/16 and 3/4




If, like me, you look up parts half by the part number, part by appearance, you could end up picking out the wrong ones. make sure you get the ones called for in the instructions as these are for the MkIII whilst the others are for the MkIII AVRE kit


Next, stuck these to the bottom of the panniers:



While those are curing a bit, look up the seperators. These come in 4 types so I cut one type at a time from the sprue to avoid confusion. Pick the part that corresponds to an end though as starting in the middle of the bogeys with part 17 first will cause you problems


Working from one end slide these into the slots made for them on the inside of the side covers, gluing them in place



till you end up with this


Let this set for a few minutes, doesn't need long, while you do the next bit...

Hi Collins,

yes the Dieppe kit will by the slightly easier route for sure as it should have the track included, the right rarer pattern mudguards and a few other bits. Time will tell if they've caught all the details though as the MkIII kit needed a fair few corrections to build two of the options in the kit (the Kingforce and Calgary Tanks options)

Looking forward to the release anyway

the next part on the suspension is the swing arms. again these come in three types so pick a type that goes on the end and clean those up first:


Here comes the final clever bit. Because all the previous parts are not quite set, and because the AFV plastic is quite soft, there is a bit of flexibility, enough for you to do this:
Take the swing arm and pop it onto one side of the locating pins


Then simply pop it onto the other side:


And finally straighten up the spring unit until it slips into place




Each pannier takes about twenty minutes including clean-up and causes zero tears and gnashing of teeth (unlike the version in the instructions!)


All that remains to do then is attach the wheels

Hi Chris,

Look forward to developments, you're off to a good start.

Al

You can never have too many Dieppe Churchills...

I think between you and me Chris we've got about 20% of the Dieppe Churchills built...

I'd love to see an Dieppe OKE in the future... Maybe we can sway Alan to build one.

I'm aboard for this build. Looks awesome so far!!

Hi Carmen

I did do a pre-Dieppe one - in preparation for - does that count?

I shall probably get a couple of the new kits when releaesed, it's such a cracking tank. All the info I need should be in and Chris and your blogs

Al

Hey, good to have you both following guys


After the suspension you are directed to look at the front of the pannier and assemble the parts there. Be careful if you are building an ealry churchill, as most of them, including COMPANY did not have rails E25 and E24 for supporting the track




On many early churchills the jack blocks were actually stowed here. In fact,the MkII (dressed up to look like a MKI) outside at Bovington still has the mounting pins behind the idler.



However, for some reason the Canadians stowed them in non standard mountings on the outside of the idler horns. More on that later on in the build

So I'll be using some of my Inside the Armour Corrected Churchill Idlers:


These come on what look like quite big mounting points, but removing these is actually very easy. Line up your knife between the block and the idler teeth like so:





and with gentle slicing it comes clean off in one go.

Here's why I made them:

(ITA on the left and AFV Club on the right)

Every churchill made from the MkI to the MkXI and all gun tanks, AVREs and recovery tanks in between had idlers with these lightening holes, so its a shame the kit ones didn't replicate them!

One thing my idlers do not have is a locating pin and hole. To properly align the teeth, I use something I read in another blog to align dragon sprockets with vague locations.

Simply take the two halves, dry-fitting together, and wrap the kit vinyl track around them, squeezing slightly:


dab a couple of drops of CA onto one rib to hold the two halves together, then remove the track and add a couple more drops around the wheel. If you use thin CA this will run into the joints and set the wheels

Here they are fitted:

Next is the rear of the panniers.

AFV Club give you the option of mud scraper or no mud scraper. This is fine, COMPANY has no mud scraper.


However, what they do not mention is that there is a lever and spring molded onto the outside of the cover that are in fact retaining and adjustment apparatus for the scraper. If you don't want the scraper these must be removed

Also, there are to rectangular mounts on the rear of the cover plate which are for mounting the stripper arm. MkIs, IIs, and most MkIIIs did not have these arms, so you need to remove these mounts and fill the holes.

Unfortunately I didn't take any pitures before I did all this, only after:

So with most of the outside done I turned my attention to the insides, firstly adding all the bits I could use from my MkIII interior kit. As you can see its not much!




The MkI has plenty of stowage at the front of the hull for the hull-based 3in howitzer, so I set about scratching some:


And the canvass bucket that goes behind the 3in stowage:

I continued by adding the spare antenna rod holder that goes over the right hand escape door:


Then I added the cooker (from my mkIII interior) then some scratch built haversacks and gas capes, then the final compartment with the batteries;



So here is the right pannier interior finished:



Next I finished the left hand pannier and a lot of hard work it was!


on the left is a compartment with three 100 round bren magazines (drum type) on top next to a drinking water tank, with a compartment underneath for twelve besa ammunition tins. The turret mounted besa had a good field of fire, so like as not the crew would have got through a few tins, so I haven't stowed this compartment fully.

In front of that us a rack for 2pdr ammunition stowage. Again the 2pdr was able to select targets and the crew of COMPANY expended all their 2pdr ammunition during the battle so I made this from 2mm rod and drilled out the ends to make it look like empty tubes. This took a good hour on its own

In front of that is more 3in howitzer stowage. I didn't mention it on the right, but if we go back to the info at the start of the blog you may remember I said that after the left track broke COMPANY came to rest on a shelf of shingle on the beach at a more or less horizontal attitude, but the sea wall was higher and so the crew could not bring the 3in howitzer to bear on the enemy. The hull gunner fired one smoke round to clear the waterproofing on the gun, so I have left one tube empty, but used small discs punched from .25mm car to represent the ends of the rest of the howitzer shells

At the front of the Pannier is a bin for various items and by that thompson ammunition and clips for the hull gunner's thompson, and his machete



You may notice the brass controls and wires running along the top. These are from the fret supplied with my mkIII Churchill.The forward one is a selector switch to change between the main fuel tanks and the auxillary tank. The rearmost is an ejector control to release the auxillary tank

The funny thing is, very very few churchills ever carried the auxillary tank, COMPANY did not, and they were only seen on a few MkIs, IIs and IIIs. However, as I can testify from seeing them inside a postwar Crocodile they were never deleted, so the MkIV, V, VI, VII and probably VIII, IX, X and XI all had them when they never carried the tank they relate to

Anyway, here are the two panniers together:

So next I decided to get a bit of paint on these, as it would be difficult to paint them later


First a note on colour. Until around 1941/1942 all british tanks were painted silver on the inside. Aluminium was used to produce the paint. However, most aluminium is mined in South America and along with exotic fruit and nylons it had to come by convoy across the North Atlantic facing the U Boat 'Wolf Packs'.

Consequently there was a shortage of aluminium in the UK and as it was needed for aircraft production, the war department ordered that british tanks should have their interiors painted white.

Towards the very end of the war, and after the battle of the Atlantic had been won by better convoy tactics, Ultra intercepts and Asdic, the regulation was relaxed and tanks were again produced with Silver interiors, although most remained white untils after the war

This tends to cause some confusion as most tanks thatr survived the war were refurbished to post war standards for post war service including Suez, Korea and various other things. When this was done their interiors were repainted silver

Consequently, most museum tanks have silver interiors confusing modellers ever since. As always the motto is, never trust a museum paintjob!

So I went with silver using my favourite silver paint, the humble Humbrol rattlecan:


This is very SILVER:


Its also very shiney with an extremely smooth finish which makes it nearly impossible to apply a wash to it, or to weather. So you have to follow this up with a quick blast of matt varnish. This gives the surface a key for later stages to adhere to

I follow this up with a dull medium to dark grey. This takes some of the extreme shineyness off, but also starts the process of adding a dark sooty grime to the surface. This is important as all the accounts I've read of fighting in churchills talk of how firing the armament fills the fighting compartment with cordite fumes and smoke.

Even with the extractor fans running full pelt, apparently it didn't take long to have everyones eyes streaming. The standard solution was to crack a hatch, but COMPANY was mortared on and off throughout the battle, Stukas were dropping bombs on the beach and all sorts of ordanance was flying around, so I'm guessing this was not an option

Her's how it looked after the 'smokey' misting:


Then after some detail painting:


So those are done enough for me for now. It was just important to get a fair bit of paint on them now as much of it would be impossible once the tub is constructed. More weathering will take place later though

So with that done I had a look at the plates I can fit to construct the hull.

This is the lower rear plate1:


the rivets and two locating holes here are for the smoke emitters. However, no tank at Dieppe (as far as I can tell) ever had smoke emitters. They were introduced on the MkIII later on in the production

So they were filled then textured with Mr Surfacer:


the bow plate has two rivets on it:



But the MkI and MkII do not, so these had to come off:

Because I'm adding an interior, this is more complicated than it might be otherwise. There is the potential with the AFV Club kit for misalignment, but if you follow the instructions carefully it comes out OK. Unfortunately, to fit the interior I have to build it out of sequence which can make things trickier, but I got away with it this time!


So first things first, a brief explaination of the engine cooling system on a churchill tank

Like US aeroengine based thanks the engine of the Churchill was primarily air cooled. The engine itself was actually two Bedford horizontally opposed twin 6 350hp truck engines stuck together and given a common power take off to a rear mounted gearbox and transmission. These got hot under the armour plate of the rear deck, so to cool it, the Churchill had twin air intakes mounted either side of the tank to draw air into the engine.

This was sucked across the engine, over the transmission and out through a rear air outlet

In the original (pre-rework) MkI and MkII churchills they looked like this:





These were relatively inefficient. Especially at first when located like this as they tended to suck leaf litter in and deposit it on the engine!

The interim measure was to turn them upside down, then a cowling was attached (this type can be seen on BOAR, a Churchill OKE at Dieppe, and on All Churchill ARVs)

However in the rework scheme these were replaced with box style air intakes most people are more familiar with



At the rear of the the air went through a section of baffles to go both up and down.





Apparently it was a favourite trick of crews during inspections to wait for the officer to mount the tank. Invariably they would climb up the rear placing their hat on the rear air outlet. the driver would give the engine a little rev and whoosh, the officer's hat would levitate

So, on with the build.

First I Stuck the lower hull and the bottom section of the rear in place, then to complete the bracing I attached the lower front bow plate after first attaching more resin in the form of the manifold for the hydraulic steering system:



Then I went to the back and worked on the air outet. There were two types, the 5 inch air outlet and the 8 inch. The kit has the correct 8 inch for MkIIIs and after, but this is a MkI, so it needs the 5 inch version which is supplied in the kit.





This looks like its designed to fit the kits bracket:


But in fact its too small, so I shaved a bit off the top like so (easier to do it to the plastic than it is to do it to resin)


And on it popped


As you can see, below the outlet is a deflector. This was intended to prevent air being blasted straight onto the ground creating a dust cloud when the vehicle is stationary.

As it happens the vehicle was equipped with a fan, the scirrocco fan, on its underside that created a veritable storm of dust when the vehicle was stationary (not popular with crews when it attracted mortars and artillery) so you have to oander why the bothered with a deflector!

Hi Chris,

Nice work, looking good so far. Interesting bolg makes you want to build one .


Al

Nice attention to detail. Your homework has paid off.

Hey Chris! Nice work!!

Did you remove the clamp for the external fuel tank hoses that's on the Cromwell rear armoured plate? I can't tell from the angle of your pictures.

Also was the rear armour plate flush with the edge of the side plates? I see some overlap, just wanted to make sure.

Keep going, looks amazing!

CM

Thanks Al, Thanks Collins

Thanks Carmen. The rear plate was already noted and has been changed. it took removing that bracket molded on to the AFV kit entirely, but It went on OK and flush

The part for the auxillary fuel tank pipe I missed somehow, so thanks for that, its now been cut off

So after sticking all that together I returned to the front and added the detail under the bow plate, including the box for the foot controls, and the driver and co-driver's steering tiller bars.




Then I had a look at the glacis. Now there is one in the cromwell kit apparently, but I didn't get one. I emailled Gordon and he says he's sent it, but patience never was my strong suit

So I started on my own. Here's the AFV Club one:


As you can see, the inside is a crime against interiorrisation:


So I filled it, sanded it and added the details:

So here's the final update which brings me bang up to date with the build:
First I built the driver and co- driver's area:





The big shocker here for me is how little room the hull gunner gets! I had severe trouble finding a reliable picture of his station as most of the stowage diagrams appear to depict a mkII tank (even though they say MkI) I say this because there is a Besa spares box in the station (which would be unnecessary on a mki seeing as it has a howitzer not a besa) and because it has the standard co-driver's seat with the 'perch' on the back for him to sit on with his body out of the hatch.

Looking at where the howitzer is, there is no way you could get a standard seat in that station as the recoil from the howitzer would wreck it. Then I found a picture in the Tamiya Churchill Photograhic Album that suggests it has a flat seat instead, so that's what I went with


I can only imagine the hull gunner would slot himself in to the left of the gun. Must have taken some nerve to fire it and have all that steel shott past millimetres from your ear. Let alone the noise

Next I had to place the firewall. The best way to do this is to dry fit the deck and look for the seperation of plates behind the turret ring, the one with a line of rivets (marked with pen in this photo so you can see it in the picture):


As you can see, I've marked the top of the panniers either side of the plate. This helps me to locate the firewall

So locate it I did, and construction of the area around the turret basket is well under way, but not finished:


Thanks for looking, as always all comments criticisms etc very welcome

Nice job, moving right along with the Churchill. I'm curious Chris as to how many references you are using for this?