Peter Ganchev reviews Dragon's Churchill Mk. IV.



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Thanks for the review Bill, i've been thinking of getting this one but I wanted to wait for a review first. While overall it looks like a nice kit I just can't help but feel Dragon has been a little lazy with this one. I mean moulded on tools and only 1 decal option just feels like a half hearted effort. Compare this to earlier armor pro kits and it really seems like a step backwards to me. I think i'll wait until its in the sales bin before getting this one.

Looking at the pictures in the review it also suffers from a number of issues (not mentioned in the text)

The smoke dischargers are in the wrong place (and not by a small margin) and are depicted fully deployed.

The exhausts and covers seem to dip o the rear deck as if the exhausts are not there and the covers are just sitting on the deck

there are only two engine hatch props instead of the 4 needed on the actual tank.

The cover for the ends of the props, which should be located in the centre of the engine hatches is instead located between the front two hatches where the other two prop rods should be

The 6pdr barrel is a very strange shape

One of the large conical rivets on the right side behind the pannier door is in the wrong place. The kit has two at the top and one at the bottom. This is correct for the left side but the right side should be two at the bottom and one at the top

Overall it doesn't look a massively bad kit, but very very sloppy on the details

Regardless of issues, ( and some sound quite bad) this is a kit I have been looking forward too for while.
I guess Dml is treating the new braille releases with some carelessness, maybe in an effort to chuck them out at speed, or , to lead the way with new tech, ( i'm looking at you horch with slide moulded hull.

What DML is realizing is that the main customer mass of the kits they produce are people that wouldn't notice most of what ChrisDM has pointed out.

So yes, as every other kit out there this particular one has its faults and a fair share of simplifications. Perhaps most of us had their expectations bar raised a bit high after earlier releases (most of my recent 1/72 AFV purchases are Dragon kits for a good reason). My guess is DML is trying to balance price with quality and level of detail - I can remember well the sentiments of modellers when the 1/72 Pz.Kpfw. IVs came out at over $20.

What I can tell you is that the build is pretty straightforward and as far as the growing number of occasional modellers are concerned - this will turn into a very nice and eye-catching addition to the collection without the need to fiddle with a heap of tiny parts and flimsy PE.

I'd be happy to look into the expected Mk. III and compare parts changed (in addition to the turret and the external fuel tank).

I doubt it would have cost any more to get these things right. Its not a matter of adding any extra detail at all; just spending a few more minutes looking at the wealth of information freely available on the net and putting the details in the right place.

These are not tiny details we're talking about, or a matter of something being a few scale millimeters out, they are major components that have been done wrong for lack of care on the part of the designers.

The mystery is why they got it wrong in the first place. Matchbox, Hasegawa, Airfix etc all managed to get these parts right....

For what its worth I personally think these mistakes are a fair bit more significant than the usual imperfections we see on kits. No kit is perfect, thats true. But some are a lot less perfect than others

It looks like the kit can be fixed though, with a little micro surgery to relocate parts and add the missing rods, but it looks like a tricky job