Dragon’s Churchill is molded in light gray styrene with crisp detail and no flash or knockout marks. However, all the tools and tow cables are molded on the hull, and, overall, parts fit is not up to the standards of Dragon’s 1/35 scale kits.

The turret is composed of upper and lower halves with the gun mantlet sandwiched in between. The seam between the two halves was obvious: I sanded it down and blended it in using liquid cement to add cast texture to the turret. Two guns are provided, but only the 6-pounder is shown in the directions. The second could be the U.S. 75mm gun. Both guns are slide molded, keeping the barrels open. The hatches can be posed open or closed.

There are large louvers on the upper and lower rear of the hull, so I painted the featureless interior flat black. The directions numbered the halves of each set of drive sprockets incorrectly: A24 should be glued to A25, and A27 should be glued to A28. The two sprockets are different enough that noticing this should be easy. The fit between A27 and A28 was very tight; I forced them together, causing A27 to break apart. The rear drive sprocket did not want to fit on the axle and needed to be drilled out. The axle on which the front sprocket is mounted (part of B5 and B6) is too long and needs to be trimmed. Otherwise, the front fenders will not fit properly. The sides of the driver’s armor plate needed a little filing to fit properly to the bottom hull.

The enclosed tracks need to be mounted to the lower hull before the upper hull is added. The tracks were too long, so I removed two links on each side. If you take care when removing the links, the extras can be used as add-on hull armor.

I painted the lower hull and tracks, then glued the upper hull to the lower hull. I left the mud guards off to make painting easier. 

I base-coated the tank with Tamiya dark green (TS-2), then faded it with Vallejo Model Air dark green mixed with white. The directions are to paint the road-wheel tires black — but the road wheels of the Churchill were pressed steel, so there were no tires. I followed Mig’s brown wash by dry-brushing with Humbrol khaki drill. The rest of the details were painted with Humbrol and Vallejo paints.

Decals are for C Squadron, North Irish Horse, in Italy, 1944. The decals adhered well with Micro Set and Micro Sol.

With the low parts count and the inclusion of vinyl tracks, it took only 16 hours to build this kit, making it a good change of pace. Two pictures I found on the website northirishhorse.net show this tank with a 75mm gun and Sherman mantlet, not the 6-pounder shown in the directions. So, if you want to build an accurate model of this particular tank, this website is a good place to start. The Tamiya Photographic Album of the British Churchill Tank was a great help with walkaround pictures and drawings. 

Despite the fit problems and possible inaccuracies, the kit makes a good representation of a Churchill and could be tackled by beginners with a few kits behind them.

A version of this review appeared in the May 2012 issue of FineScale Modeler.