Britannia FV4201 Chieftain Tank

This weeks update is solely about 1 model - my only Britannia Chieftain Tank. I have 4 more Chieftains - 2 Airfix ones, built and painted by somone else long ago, bought recently by me off Leigh. I also have 2 from the Tank Collection Magazine - but I have to say that the one I am most proud of is this Britannia model.

BTW - Britannia has been recently reopened by Andy Grubb. You can find the new Britannia website here I'm not sure how much Cold War kit is actually available yet - but this will be the best place to get your Britannia needs from.

For more on the Chieftain Tank you might want to look here for a start.

Review

I think the Chieftain is the nicest Britannia model I have dealt with so far. I don't believe there were any particularly big air bubbles in the resin, and I used greenstuff to fix up any small ones I did find. My only issue was that the commander's MG was a bit deformed so I simply left it off the finished model.

Putting it up against the Airfix Chieftains - it is exactly the same size - and against the Tank Collection Chieftains it is a little smaller - which at a guess means it is a 1/76th scale model rather than 1/72 - but that's just my guess.

It comes with a very nice metal barrel and commander figures. It has the commander's hatch molded open and the driver's hatch molded closed.

All-in-all I really rate this model and would be happy to suggest it to anyone.

Painting

I painted this the exact same way as the FV432s in the previous post. Only difference was I used Vallejo Khaki and a Citadel Devlan Mud was on the sections of the barrel covered in the shroud.

So here is the finished product:







As you can see - pretty straight forward stuff.

A few cool youtube clips







Finally a reminder - if you want to see an excellent TV doco on tanks with loads of fantastic shots of BAOR Chieftains in action look no further than here an old post of mine showing "Soldiers - A History of Men in Battle - Tanks". Well worth watching.

Have fun

Richard