The Churchill was a heavy British infantry tank used in the Second World War, best known for its heavy armor, large longitudinal chassis with all-around tracks with multiple bogies, and its use as the basis of many specialist vehicles. It was one of the heaviest Allied tanks of the war!
Introduction
The Churchill was one of the iconic British tanks of WW2. This kit represents a Churchill A.V.R.E which basically means Armored Vehicle Royal Engineers so it is a vehicle used by the British engineers in various combat tasks like deploying a bridge, or clearing mines, etc.
Assembly Process
The instructions start out with the running gear assembly. It is made of several pieces and it was new to me but actually nice and went together ok.
After it is completed you need to strip the tracks into place.
And now to finish off the “panniers” seen bellow. This was a specific characteristic of the Churchill.
After that you glue them together on the lower hull and they fit quite good.
The turret is made up of 3 main pieces and it has quite a few parts that have to be glued on for detail. However I struck my first big minus: the sand bags that have to go on the side of the turret would not fit for the life of me in the designated place. After several tries to trim and force the pieces into place I gave up and cut the pieces completely to fit my needs. This was an omen of things to come.
Moreover, the back “basket” of the turret did not fit together like it should and I also had to manually trim that piece also After that, i fixed the turret into place on the upper hull.
But here comes the kicker. Now it was time to assemble the upper hull and turret with the lower hull and running gear. As I slowly approach the 2 pieces together I realize with surprise and shock that they are not going to fit. That’s right folks. After following (wrongly it seems?) the instructions to the letter it seems that the two main pieces don’t fit.
I tried for about 10 minutes to kind of force them into place but the way they were glued together already made that impossible. I was forced to actually dismember the model and glue it back together in a way that does not appear on the instructions to make it work and not be forced to throw it to the trash and believe me that wasn’t easy. It is the first time this happens to me and it is a major no-no to the kit and the manufacturer. I gave up on doing the bridge also because all I really wanted was the normal version.
Evaluation
| Plastic Quality | 2 (Bad) | Soft old plastic that bends and scratches easily. Minor flash had to be removed. |
| Number of Details | 2 (Bad) | Details are almost non-existent on the hull and few in number on the turret. |
| Instructions | 1 (Very Bad) | The instructions are bad but i had to downrate them on account of taking me into a point where the model would not fit. I managed to save it by using different assembly steps than the instructions. |
| Building Time | 3 (Mediocre) | Build time was 65 minutes. 20 minutes were actually spent trying to fix the model so it actually fits. |
| Enjoyment | 1 (Very Bad) | My enjoyment was cut off with the difficult side protectors and the model’s inability to come together smoothly. |
The plastic is soft so it bends and scratches easily but this would not be a big problem as the faulty instructions are. It was all going fine until I had to do major surgery on the model so in my opinion this is not a beginner kit like they suggest on the box and i personally would not recommend it purely based on my experience with it.
Mounted the sideskirts in wrong direction^^ and says it is a mistake by the manufactu…you made my day^^
Is that what i did? Oh my! :)))