Darren Baker takes a look at a Cromwell Conversion set for Tamiya Cromwell in 1/35th scale from Accurate Armour.

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If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

Hi Darren,

These parts do look very useful! The diagonal-split hatch is a drop-in replacement for the driver's hatch on the Tamiya kit - they discovered the standard hatch tended to get fouled by the turret (trapping the driver!) and came up with this diagonal idea as a quick-fix that was applied to many C and D hulls in the run-up to D-Day. The front portion was hinged to open forward, while the back part was simply slid out of place to make a hole.

The turret boxes originally came with the later type-F hulls with sideways-swinging doors for both driver and hull gunner - this meant losing a stowage bin on the fender, so the displaced stowage moved to the turret. As these parts were in the supply chain they soon found their way onto other Cromwell turrets as a tank can never have enough stowage space!

Likewise the late "vision" cupola that was seen first on later types, but could be retro-fitted onto earlier tanks. It's a handy item to have!

Not sure about the add-on armour - I had thought those were only seen on some welded-hull versions but need to check references.

All in all a great set for Cromwell fans!

While your reply and my own investigations reveal some unexpected results I do like the set. I, like you got the feeling that this set was for the F type version with the welded turret and that the welded turret should be offered with this set; however I also found most of the parts with the exception of the added armour on the hull in front of the driver and MG position on various tanks in my limited reference.

I LIKE THIS STUFF!!! Hopefully, this trend to improve/correct the older 1/35 kits out there will continue!