Churchill Crocodile Tank, 141st Royal Armoured Corps, Normandie 1944

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Tim R-T-C
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Churchill Crocodile Tank, 141st Royal Armoured Corps, Normandie 1944

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Normandy, D-Day + a few
A Churchill Crocodile of the 141st Royal Armoured Corps is awaiting orders. The tank commander has climbed into a ruined cottage to get a better view of the movements in the countryside around. Meanwhile his crew enjoy a well earned moment's respite chatting to some British infantry who are heading up to the line....


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This project began as an eye catcher for the SIG 144 display at Scale Model World 2024, part of a series of armoured vehicle vignettes.

I was also motivated by a desire to use some of the many whitemetal vehicles and figures that I have accumulated. Until the recent improvement in resin 3d printing, these were by far the best way to get figures and vehicles in 144th but the figures in particular are now showing their age compared to the lovely delicate 3d models available, so it seemed like a good excuse to clear out some of the stash.

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The highlights of this scene were the Crocodile, a lovely whitemetal casting from Arrowhead Minatures, which even includes some open hatches - a feature missing even on many larger scale kits, but so essential for authenticity in a vignette scene.

The ruined Normandy cottage is actually a 3d print that I have had for a while, from Highlands 3d prints via eBay. The detail is good, but there were visible print lines - fortunately these could be easily hidden on a damaged build.

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A rudimentary paint job before adding dust and rubble.

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Crocodile in green

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A giant stock of figures

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All had to be detached from their bases. It have previously buried the bases in texture paint, but it wouldn't work on this flat scene.

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Simultaneously painting four vignettes worth of figures!

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The house was a fun exercise in weathering. A large amount of pigment was used, both wet and dry, along with a variety of extra rubble detail as well as the model itself didn't have much debris on it.

Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of the base build up. I used cork sheet for the raised section, adding in a model railway tree.

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Then it was just a case of merging it all together and literally 5 minutes before we started loading the car, boxing it up for Telford.

Thanks for reading - this model and its cousins will be on the SIG144 IPMS UK tour this year, do come and see them in person.

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