The Churchill Mk. VII is AFV Club’s 14^th entry in the line of Churchill tanks. Pretty much every variant you can think of has been produced by them. This kit is a dichotomy of both over engineering at times and at other times extreme simplicity.

The Build

Building this Mk.VII begins with a highly detailed engine and engine compartment, so if you want to have all the engine access hatches open you have something great to look at. That being said there is no other interior parts for the entire kit. I chose to keep the engine out and all hatches closed. Moving on body sides, forward gun mounts, and upper panels are added to the build. AFV Club has made this kit very modular due to the large number of variants for this tank. I did not find too many extra pieces but always double check as AFV Club doesn’t always pack everything into the box correctly.

The next few steps have you adding the multi part doors, periscopes, head lights, and tow hooks. It’s these steps that show the over engineering that goes into this kit. The periscopes are 3 pieces instead of one, the doors can have up to 5 pieces per door if you decide to have them open. The rear exhaust cover has 5 parts instead of 1. After all that rounding out the main body build is adding the rear armor, radiators and various boxes to the aft skirt. Some of these parts are photo etch but aren’t marked as so and you’ll need to refer to the parts guide to know that. Step 13 will have you adding the “Pioneer Tools” to the rear engine deck, but I held off on that until final assembly, for easier painting.

The next major assembly are what makes the Churchill unique, the road wheels. I give AFV Club a lot of credit here. They make it fairly simple for an extremely complex design. I would recommend watching a YouTube video or two on how to make these. I did and it really made them easy to put together. Once built you really start to see the “beefiness” of this tank. The last few steps of this part are adding entry hatches, return wheels and drive sprockets. I recommend waiting until final assembly to attach the sprockets and return wheels for ease of painting.

Moving on the directions have you adding the armor covers for the treads. I would also skip this until after painting the body and adding the treads. Now for the big caveat, check which paint scheme you want to go with, and the reason for this is in step 24 you would be adding the front fenders and side exhaust vents. Some of the schemes given by AFV Club don’t have either of those or combinations thereof. For instance, A scheme, the one I chose, does not have the front fenders or exhaust vent covers. So double and triple check your references.

The final main build steps are for the turret. No interior detail other than a fairly detailed main gun breech. The nice thing is this kit comes with a turned metal barrel so no seams! The opposite of it is the rear turret storage compartment that is made up of 3 pieces which could have been one. Again, if you close the hatches its 2 pieces open its 5. The final turret parts are added in the last step and that’s the various antenna and PE guards. At this point comes paint and final assembly.

Painting and Final Assembly

Painting the Churchill is pretty straight forward. That is until you spray Tamiya Fine Primer on all the subassemblies and parts needed for final assembly and see that there was still mold release agent on the B sprue. Thankfully this was just the bottom of the tank and the tread cover plates. So after sanding down the primer, washing and cleaning those parts and repriming we were back on “track” to finishing this kit. Painting was accomplished with Tamiya Acrylics. When the paint was dry final assembly began, the vinyl single piece tracks (the simplicity I mentioned at the beginning) were stretched and attached, the tread covers, and rear fenders attached and the rear fender accessories and “pioneer tools” attached to the rear deck. A spot coat of Tamiya gloss was then shot so the few decals that needed to be put on would have a smooth surface to adhere to and they went on with little fuss. Once they were dry an overall coat of Tamiya clear flat was shot, and the turret attached along with the couple of parts that needed to attach to it after painting. This finished the build.

Final Thoughts

This kit builds up into a fine example of the Churchill kit. The added complexity of some of the parts may be a turnoff but having single piece tracks and a turned metal barrel helps to equal out the build time I highly recommend it and I want to thank IPMS and AFV Club for the opportunity to review it.