The „Operation Crusader” A12 Matilda Mk.III in 1:72

[KRK4m]

Impenetrable for the 1939-41 enemy tank guns A12 Matilda was the only British tank in service from the first (September 3, 1939) to the last (September 2, 1945) day of WW2. On the other hand, it was the only one of the six most numerous British WW2 tanks (the other five are: Valentine, Churchill, Crusader, Cromwell and Covenanter) not used by the Polish Armed Forces - neither in Great Britain, Africa, Italy nor in the 1944-45 battles in France, the Low Countries and northern Germany.

Honestly, I haven't been able to confirm the definitive production numbers and WD serials of the Matilda variants. There were 7 of them (not counting the Scorpion, CDL and Frog modifications) and all sources indicate the Mk.IV as the most common (500+). However, the same sources put the number of the AEC-engined Mk.I and Mk.II as "below 300", of the close support Mk.IIICS and Mk.IVCS as "under 200" and the final Mk.V as "less than 200". This leaves at least 1,500 (if not 1,900) of the 2,990 Matildas built for the Mk.III. Where is the truth?

 

 

Crewed by 4 men, the Matilda Mk.III was powered by two 95hp Leyland inline six-cylinder engines. Armed with a 40 mm gun and a 7.9 mm Besa MG, this variant weighed roughly 26 tons.

The kit I used actually origins from the Italeri 6118 set called "Battle of Arras 1940". It is said that despite its age (1976 tool) it is still the best Braille-scale Matilda kit on the market, much better than the Fujimi (1972) and Airfix (1973) tools - BTW both at 1:76. Although seriously unsuited to the 1940 French campaign scenes (the AEC-engined Mk.I had a completely different exhaust and the venerable Vickers MG instead of Besa, introduced with the Mk.II), it fits perfectly with the desert war period. The kit consists of 120 styrene parts and two continuous vinyl tracks. It was built almost OOB, i.e. only a few modifications were made mainly on small details.

 

 

According to data obtained from @Mike Starmer, not all Matildas fighting in the Western Desert wore the Portland Stone/Silver Gray/Dark Slate camouflage. Sometimes the Light Stone was used as the brightest tone in the Caunter pattern, while some tanks that arrived from the UK in the plain G3 Khaki (i.e. no Dark Green or Tarmac added) could keep the G3 (in lieu of Dark Slate to save time and money) as a dark disrupter. There are no colour photos available, so you can only analyze the contrast between light and dark areas against the ubiquitous Silver Grey centre. The one I needed (featuring Portland Stone and Dark Slate) should be the most contrasting, so my choice fell on the T7411 of the 7th Royal Tank Regiment, 32nd Army Armoured Brigade, 8th Army, taking part in Operation Crusader near Tobruk (Libya) in November 1941.

 

 

Thanks to the large stock of Humbrol enamels, I decided to paint the Caunter diagram with colours straight from the can. Silver Grey BS.28 was made from Humbrol 240, for Dark Slate BS.34 I used Humbrol 224 and Portland Stone BS.64 in these photos is Humbrol 95. Enamels were applied (as usual) with Italeri brushes.

Fortunately, there was no need to fight any PE fret. So the biggest problem was the decals that had to be assembled from scratch. The white, red and white rectangles on the tower are from Italeri Valentine. The larger ones on the fenders are from IBG Crusader.

 

 

The tank individual name GNAT was made up of single letters from the WGB-DEC-30 sheet by Warlord Games. There are 40 names of British tanks on it - Buncrana, Virgin and Valiant were cannibalized for the production of GNAT (12 letters were used because four of them were damaged during the operation). Then came the WD serial number, also composed of the numbers from the accompanying WGB-DEC-28 sheet. Each digit is 1 mm high and 0.5 mm wide. The distance between them (as printed) is 0.1mm and - of course - the T7411 was not ready for use. Again, 12 items had to be used to get the effect you see in the photos.

 

 

Finally, Vallejo matt acrylic varnish was applied with a brush. The antenna made of Aber 0.3mm steel wire appears thick in the photo, but remember that on the 15" screen the picture is about 200-220 percent the size of an actual 1/72 model.

The photos are taken with an LG smartphone. More photos can be found in the WIP thread within the 2020 "WW2 MTO Part 3" GB

Comments are welcome

Cheers

Michael

Edited January 9, 2022 by KRK4m
misprint found

[Stef N.]

Very nice Caunter scheme, like the colour choice. Well done.👏

[Bullbasket]

That's a nice looking Tilda, and the Caunter scheme suits it.

 

John.

[sardaukar]

Nice job on the Caunter scheme, I have an s-models kit sitting on the shelf of doom waiting for me to brave that scheme.

[Wulfman]

A marvellous Matilda, great work !

 

Wulfman

[Watto64]

I'm working on a 1/35 version at the moment.

 

Lovely build on the Braille scale!