I've always liked the look of the Char
B1. To me, it's the "missing link" between the
trapezoidal WWI British tanks and the more modern designs
of WWII onwards. I'd very nearly given up hope of ever
seeing one in the manly scale and didn't really want to
give the old Matchbox 1/76th scale version a go. I've
never seen one, but based on some of their other armour
kits I'd had in my posession over the years I didn't expect
good things.
So once again we can thank Trumpeter for coming to the
rescue with a great little kit. Having seen the sprues
of the Tamiya 1/35th version on the net it looks to me
like this is more or less a scaled down version of that
kit. The big giveaway being the odd holes moulded in the
bottom of Tamiya's kit (for a future motorised release
perhaps?) which Trumpeter has faithfully copied. The road
wheels are thankfully simplified in the small scale kit
into beautifully done one piece slide-moulded parts (see
pic below) which would probably have sufficed in the larger
scale as well since you can't see much of them on the
finished model.
There are some strange anomalies however that Trumpeter
obviously didn't copy from Tamiya. The driver's hatch
& vision block are complete fabrications that bear little
resemblance to the real thing. The hooks on the rear hull
are not included despite holes being moulded for them
to fit into and the tow hooks are missing as well. All
of these issues are fairly easy to fix, though I must
confess I didn't even notice the hatch & vision block
problems until I read Miro Baric's very good review at
"On The Way" which can be seen here.
I modified the vision block by filing off the angled bottom
and drilling and filing the opening into a rectangular
hole, the visor being made from .020" sheet. A new driver's
hatch was scratchbuilt and the missing tow and rear stowage
hooks were added from fuse wire & brass wire respectively.
I also added the long hinge straps on the side hatch which
were conspicuous by their absence from the mouldings.
The round indentation on this hatch (which I think is
something to do with the locking mechanism) was bigger
on some Char B1s, Bourrasque included, so I drilled this
out to enlarge it.
Click
thumbnails to change image)
The tracks are Trumpeter's usual one
piece vinyl types but they are superbly moulded, though
slightly too long. I cut one link out and the fit was
much better. The other standard item was the instruction
sheet; good for assembly but not so good at telling you
which pieces went with which version. For instance, both
early and late fenders & exhausts are included but there
is no mention of which of the two markings options they
are applicable to. The options are No. 257 Bourrasque
from 15e BCC 1ère compagnie & No. 481 Vercingetorix from
46e BCC 3e compagnie. As much as I like the three colour
camo of the latter I chose Bourrasque, though I'm not
entirely convinced it wore the camouflage scheme depicted.
In the Minitracks Char B1 book there is a picture of Bourrasque
and it looks very much like there was a black outline
to the turret camouflage, leading me to believe that the
turret at least was painted in the three colour Renault
scheme. Still, 257 is almost always depicted in the two
colour camo (and I think this is something else Trumpeter
copied from Tamiya as the same two options with the same
camouflage patterns are offered in that kit) and pictures
aren't clear enough to say with any certainty one way
or the other so I painted mine the same way. Who am I
to argue...?!
Paint is Humbrol Dark Green and a 60/40 mix of Dark Yellow
& Light Stone, weathering is done with washes of black
and Dark Earth. I lightly dry brushed silver on the tracks
to represent wear. Decals were very nice though the blue
was noticeably out of register so I carefully trimmed
the white outline of the hearts to correct this and overpainted
the tiny heart on the lamp housing with blue and white.
The roundel was trickier. I managed to find a Turkish
aircraft roundel in my collection of decal spares which
was the right size and proportion so I punched out the
blue centre of the kit roundel and overlaid this on the
Turkish marking. Works for me.
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