Tamiya

1/48 British WW2 Cromwell Mk.IV Cruiser Tank

Kit Number: 32528

Reviewed by  Andrew Birkbeck, IPMS# 27087

MSRP: $25.00 Mr Tamiya and his firm have rekindled interest in 1/48th scale AFVs with their launch of an all-new range of kits 18 months ago, and the line has grown fast. One of the latest to arrive is the British WW2 Cromwell Mk.IV Cruiser tank, which for all intents and purposes is a "shrunk down" version of Tamiya's 1/35th Cromwell, simplified for the smaller scale. The kit consists of approximately 160 injection plastic parts and the now standard cast metal lower hull, plus a small assortment of polycaps and Philips screws, along with full instructions and decals for three vehicles. The quality of the injection molded plastic parts is consistent with all the Tamiya kits I have ever built: crisply detailed, with no flash present. There are some ejection pin marks on the small track parts, easily filled with the application of Mr Surfacer 500 from Gunze Sangyo, my favorite "filler" for such small problems. The only other pin marks I found "of concern" were on the inside surface of the turret hatches. The Tamiya 1/48th AFV kits have for the most part gone together very well for me (I have built about a dozen in the range so far), but I must sadly report that the Cromwell kit is not like the others. Starting with the track links, which are link and length injection molded parts, these are very fiddly to assemble due mainly to their small size. The road wheels also do not fit snuggly onto their hull "posts", and the modeler will have to be very careful in aligning the road wheels, as there is lots of "play" in them. When building the Tamiya range of 1/48th armor kits, I initially tried to do what many armor modelers do, and that is assemble the entire kit, and then paint it. However, for me at least, this made getting at the lower running gear and tracks so difficult, that I have now changed my method of construction. I now paint all the road wheels, the lower hull, and the tracks separately and then assemble together, touching the paint up where necessary upon completion of this task. Then I attach the top of the hull to the lower hull assembly, and continue the build. Once the entire kit is assembled I mask off the lower hull area, and paint the upper hull sections. Adding to the earlier construction difficulties of this kit are the quite noticeable gaps where the hull top and bottom join at the front and rear of the vehicle. A quick check of the internet chat groups shows that this is a universal problem with the Cromwell kit, and not just the poor assembly work of your humble reviewer. I managed to solve the fit issues by putting in various shims of plastic, whereas others have chosen different avenues of attack. Here is another method I found that seemed reasonable:   (www.track48.com/articles/techniques/fixing-cromwell/fixing-cromwell-index.html). However the modeler approaches the fixing of this issue, if one is careful and does lots of test fitting as they go, it is not a big deal, just a pain that one doesn't expect to find in a new Tamiya product. And other than these problems, the rest of the kit went together extremely well. I did not use any filler other than the plastic shims and the Mr Surfacer on some of the most obvious track links. In painting the vehicle, I used a custom mix of Tamiya Acrylic paints that I found on the internet. Cromwell tanks, along with all other late war British-built tanks (including the Sherman Firefly) were painted "SCC15 Olive Drab" which is NOT to be confused with US Army Olive Drab. The latter color is what British armored vehicles came painted in if part of the Lend Lease program, but the Cromwell was of course a home-grown British vehicle. To get to the SCC15, I mixed the following paints from the excellent Tamiya acrylic range:   XF-1 Black: 1 part   XF-26 Deep Green: 8 parts   XF-52 Flat Earth: 8 parts This produced a very nice Green, which closely matched the color from the Cromwell box top artwork, and I was very pleased with it. Once the kit was painted, I applied a coat of "Future" acrylic floor finish to the model to both protect the Tamiya paint, and of course to provide a smooth surface for the decals. As mentioned earlier, the kit comes with decals for three different vehicles, two from units of the British 7th Armoured Division, and one from the Guards Armoured Division. The decals were the usual product from Tamiya, by which I mean slightly thicker than the best aftermarket decals, but nonetheless perfectly serviceable if one uses some common sense and general modeling skills. The decals adhered very well to the model's surface, and on areas where they had to settle down over numerous raised features, I applied liberal amounts of Gunze Sangyo's Mr Mark Softer (interesting name), and the decals snuggled down fairly nicely. Where they didn't turn out perfectly, I used a pin to prick any air bubbles, or a sharp scalpel blade to slice into any offending areas, and with more Mr Mark Softer applied, the decals worked wonderfully. Once dry, more Future was applied to "bury" the decals, followed by the application of some PolyScale Matt Finish from their acrylic railroad line of paints. Bingo, almost zero silvering and little noticeable decal film problems. Despite my mention of the fit issues with this kit, with a little careful work a gem of a model can be produced right out of the box. I thoroughly enjoyed building and finishing Tamiya's 1/48th Cromwell tank, and highly recommend it. As well as appealing to anyone interested in 1/48th armor kits, the new range of 1/48th Tamiya armor kits are quick to construct and paint/decal, and make a great change from the "super detail kits" now flooding onto the market from certain of the 1/35th armor kit producers, loaded down with upwards of 900 parts. A Tamiya 1/48th armor kit can easily be completed in 10 hours work, with an additional 10 hours of careful painting, decaling and weathering. I LOVE them. (please note that I had two parts go MIA across my modeling room into the Twilight Zone: a shovel and a turret spotlight part which you might have noticed missing from the review model) A list of this excellent range of 1/48th AFV's can be found at: www.tamiyausa.com/product/category.php?sub-id=10500 . and of course can be purchased at any well stocked local hobby shop.

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