SKP Model
Cromwell Mk.VI CS with hull type F
SKP Model 1:35 Scale Kit No. SKP 099
Review by Terry Ashley

SKP Model
The Kit:
This new kit from SKP Model is of the later model Cromwell Mk VI CS with the Type F Hull which featured two side opening hull crew hatches instead of the earlier top opening hatch for the co-driver. It also had a revised engine deck layout with the CS being armed with a 95mm howitzer for close support (CS) instead of the gun tanks 75 mm ROQF Mk V gun.

As with previous SKP full kits this is a multi-media kit with the following contents:

Etched, metal and clear parts
SKP ModelSKP Model
SKP Model

The quality of the plastic parts is at best fair with a considerable amount of flash by today's standards, this ranges from quite excessive on some to just fine 'edging' that has to be trimmed on others, but means nearly all the parts require some degree of cleanup before assembly. There are also sizable ejector pins to be removed from the inside faces of all the road wheels and idlers before these can be fitted together as well as on the sides of the hull parts which adds to the cleanup needed.

The actual detail on most parts is quite well defined although some is a little soft, I should also mention the plastic itself is quite soft and while easy to work with care is needed when trimming the sprue attachment bur not to remove plastic from the actual part.

Also none of the parts are numbered on the sprue and you have to refer to the parts layout diagram to check for the right part on occasions.

Many of the finer details have been included in resin for better detail definition such as the drive sprockets, armament and mantlets (95mm and Besa MGs), periscopes, lights, fire extinguishers etc. The quality of the resin parts is excellent as we have seen from other SKP resin sets with just the usual casting block and fine resin film to be removed prior to use with the etched parts being done by Hauler for SKP Model and are also excellent quality.

The tracks are individual link type and completely free of any pins marks on the links. These are not designed to be workable, just to be glued together to form the track runs. If you wanted workable track, SKP have released a separate set of Workable tracks for the Cromwell set as #SKP 104.

One thing quite noticeable on inspecting the parts is the more than passing resemblance of the SKP parts to the parts in the Tamiya Cromwell Mk.IV kits with parts like the drive sprockets and road wheels still having the enlarge hole for the Tamiya poly caps and if you have some of these spare you can use them on this kit for easier fitting of the running gear.

The overall level of surface detail is basically the same as on the Tamiya parts although some is a little less refined and there has been quite a few minor alterations due to limitations of the SKP production and also to cater for the etched parts which are plastic in the Tamiya kits like the fender supports brackets and other detail. Also some additional detail has been added where required for the CS version with the biggest difference being the lower hull tub which is a multi-part assembly with the SKP kit while a conventional one piece tub with the Tamiya kit.

There are numerous similar examples with remnants of the Tamiya part detail still remaining and it can best be described by relating a story from my high school days. I had copied passages from a book for an English assignment making some minor alterations along the way. My Teacher sussed this but said there were just enough changes to be allocated marks but that it was not a good practice to get into the habit of.

Lower Hull:
This as mentioned is made up of separate parts for the floor and side panels as well as separate front and rear plates. The basic hull tub has the two inner side panels attached to the floor plate and the fit here is very good resulting in a nice square tub to add the rest of the parts too.

The separate axle arms have quite substantial flash/mould seams to be removed and when fitting to the hull there is no indication of the correct ride height which can lead to problems. The neutral axle position will see about ¼ of the axle stub boss exposed below the lower hull line (see image) and you also need to ensure the axle is aligned at 90 degrees to the hull as the fit is a little loose on some axles.

With the axles in place you then add the outer side panels taking care with the alignment, the lower front plate and glacis plus the six part rear plate.  You have to ensure all the mating surfaces are smooth as there is a bit of flash and excess plastic about and if not careful with the assembly gaps can result.

The drive sprocket and idler axles are resin parts and the locating holes for these had to be enlarged slightly for a better fit and of course would be glued in place using cyanoacrylate (super glue).

The assembled rear plate is attached to the hull and again you should test fit to ensure everything fits before gluing. I used tape to hold the two front plates and rear assembly securely to the lower hull until the glued had dried to ensure they all sat snugly in place as again gaps can result if not careful. See section below on assembling the main hull components for additional comments.

Each fender is full length with nicely defined detail on the upper side only with more of the large ejector pins to be removed from the underside. The rear three part mud guards/side fender need to have their mating surfaces trimmed smooth to ensure a good fit as do the front fender extensions, these are often left off in action so the choice is yours to add the small side fenders and front extensions. See section below on assembling the main hull components for additional comments.

Suspension:
The road wheels have excellent detail on the wheel dish and central hub for both the inner and outer wheel on each station with the bolt heads well defined although the three small holes in the central hub are not open and drilling these will add to the detail. The hub caps are separate but there is no locating lugs and you have to ensure these are glued centrally on the hub as well as having the cap bolts aligned with the bolt fairings on the wheel hub as it is easy to miss this when fitting the hub caps if not careful. (see image).

As mentioned above there are large ejector pins on the inside faces of the wheels that have to be removed before assembly as does the fairly heavy mould seam/flash around the wheel shoulder on each wheel. Note there are actually 12 pairs of road wheels included in the kit but you only need 10 for the Cromwell.  The choice is yours to use Tamiya poly caps in the wheels to make fitting easier but if you do note the poly caps have to be cut in half depth wise as the recesses in the inner wheel hub are slightly angled to allow their extraction from the moulds and the full poly cap will not fully fit into the hole.

The idler wheels have good rim detail but again need the inner faces cleaned up and you can use spare poly caps if wish but also just glue the idlers and road wheels to their axles as intended.

The drive sprockets are provided in resin resulting in very crisp detail with the usual casting block to be removed, this needs care as its easy to snap off a drive tooth in the process, also when removing the resin film in the lightening holes take care to make these as round as possible.

After cleanup the two inner dishes are added and the two drive sprocket halves glued together with locating lugs to ensure the drive teeth line up okay. You can again use some spare Tamiya poly caps as these fit neatly into the holes in the inner sprocket half.

You can fit the running gear now or leave off till later for easier handling but note the instructions show fitting the side fender extensions (parts B17, B18, B25, B26) before fitting the drive sprockets and idlers but you must fit these before the side fenders as you will have trouble afterwards, especially the drive sprockets that are difficult to fit with the side fenders attached.

The tracks are individual link but designed to just glue together with the links having detail that is quite okay as far as kit tracks go and will look acceptable when fitted to the kit. These are actually the same tracks released some time back under the Hobby Boss label as set #81004

After cleanup of the sprue burs the links glue together easily and you can fit around the drive sprockets and idlers while the glue is still pliable. Note that the track doesn't sag between the road wheels, nor does it touch the first and fifth road wheels but sits just above as it dips from the drive sprocket and idler.

Upper superstructure:
This is one large part moulded perfectly flat without any warping but there is fine flash around the inside edges of all the cut-outs to be trimmed before proceeding.  These cut-outs are for the front periscopes, crew hatches, the turret ring and on the engine deck the engine intake and deck hatches, the forward fighting compartment has the sides included while they are separate sides for the engine deck.

The front driver’s plate is a separate part and you should ensure it is aligned correctly with the front of the superstructure when attaching, the driver’s plate has the driver’s hatch and hull machine gun mounting as additional separate parts but these can be added later.

The two rear hull side panels have quite a bit of flash to be removed before fitting and the fit to the superstructure is not that precise so care is needed to again align this correctly, you should also allow the glue to dry completely on these parts before fitting the superstructure to the lower .

The engine deck hatch/panel layout is correctly depicted for the later F type hull, this layout differs from earlier hull types and its good SKP have made the alterations considering the kits hereditary. The two engine access hatches and the intake cover are separate parts and fit easily into place although the indents around the larger rear hatch hinges had to be enlarged slightly to better accommodate the hinge segments included with the hull moulding.

Assembling the main hull components:
As mentioned above care is needed when fitting the main components together to avoid any gaps appearing. The fit of the fenders and superstructure required a bit of coaxing to get the correct alignment but as the rear plate assembly was already firmly glued in place there was a noticeable gap between the left hull plate and the superstructure that needed minor surgery to correct. (see image)

A better course of action would be to assembly the lower hull, rear plate sub-assembly, the fenders and superstructure as separate sub-assemblies, allow the glue on these sub-assemblies to dry completely and the bring them together in the one operation while the glue is still malleable to make any alignment adjustments in the process.

It’s also best to get this major component assembly done before adding any of the smaller detail parts due to assembly process but apart from the one gap mentioned there weren’t any other real problems with the full hull/superstructure that couldn’t be handled during the assembly.

Hull details:
Once the main hull assembly is completed the smaller details can be added and starting from the front there are two small resin step posts that will need 1mm locating holes drilled, both posts are the same length but the lower one should be slightly longer and the higher one slightly shorter in length. The tow shackle brackets (parts B21) front and back will need the shackle hole drilled out as this is solid and the tow shackles themselves need the substantial flash/mould seam cleaned off before fitting.

On the glacis are two long etched bolted strips with small bullet splash guards that need to be bent using a good bending tool and care is needed positioning these correctly, there are two resin tow cable brackets, two small etched brackets and the small resin cable ducts (parts G24) also added, these ducts are for the wiring to the small lights mounted on the fender brace.

The headlights are in resin with additional clear lenses and the usual configuration was with the blackout light on the left and the “normal” light on the right side, the blackout light does have the lens visible in most available photos. To fit the lights you need to drill 0.8mm holes for the light posts and the wire light guards have to be made yourself using the wire provided, a template is included in the instructions for bending the wire to the correct shape and again you will need to drill locating holes for the wire guards.

The two fender braces are in etched brass and after fitting you will need to add the fender support bracket rivets as these are not included with the fender moulding, see image for positions of rivets to add.

Moving to the superstructure front plate there is the resin hull Besa machine gun mounting and ball socket that is held in place with the outer bolted attachment ring, the handy thing here is the MG mounting being in resin and the outer ring in plastic means you don’t have to worry getting glue on the mounting in the process as it will still be movable afterwards.

Added to the MG cradle is the Besa MG barrel that has the muzzle opening but the barrel is too long and you should trim about 2mm off the base to get the right length exposed.  The two part Driver’s vision block is added to the right side, the small central vision port is separate so you choose to the full block or just the central port open, or glue both closed as you wish.

On top of the superstructure are three periscopes with separate top covers but the periscopes are too tall and you should reduce the height by about half for the usual configuration seen. The central ventilator cover fits neatly into place and two side hatch hinges are in resin for good bolt head detail.

The two part crew hatches have nice outer detail but no interior detail to speak of and these can be positioned open or closed as you wish. The two hatch stay brackets on top of the front plate are in etched brass which you carefully bend to shape, but the location of these is not very precise and care is needed to fit these correctly.

Along the fenders are the two large storage boxes that fit easily in place and the rear fender supports in etched brass, the central support (parts L5) need careful bending as there is no engraved bend line and the rear support will need additional rivet heads added to the moulded fender brackets. The pioneer tools and resin fire extinguishers can be added at any time, the tools will need cleanup of the quite heavy mould seam lines.

At the back the rear hull intake truck has a separate frame (part B29) with the mesh screen in etched brass as well as the curved intake cover fitted to later Cromwells, this has four etched brackets added inside but you will need to shave out small amounts of plastic as the inner contours of the cover don’t match the etched brackets. Also there are no location marks for the etched brackets and you have to make sure they are evenly spaced by best marking the locations with a fine pencil before fitting.

On the rear is the large towing leaf spring with the tow hitch and when this is fitted the two resin smoke generator units are repositioned to the upper rear plate from their usual position on the lower plate. Included in the resin parts is the smaller tow hitch as an option although not in the instructions and if you use this hitch the smoke generator units would be in the 'normal' position on the lower rear plate. The generators are nicely detailed with additional small etched brackets attached to small pins on the generators to allow movement but these pins needed to be thinned more to fit into the holes in the etched brackets.

There is a centrally mounted box in etched brass that is easily bent to shape with two small attachment brackets but this box should be fitted lower down by about 2mm on the upper rear plate than shown on the instructions.

The tow cables are supplied as lengths of twisted copper wire with the end shackles in resin, these have a little excess resin film to remove and you should drill two 0.9mm holes to take the ends of the copper wire to make assembly easier.

After assembly the cables can be added to the vehicle with most photos showing the cables attached to the two right hand front tow shackles and laid down the right fender when not in use.

Turret:
The main welded turret shell has the five outer panels with the large bolt bosses added but there was some minor trimming required on some of the edges for a better fit and test fitting will determine of this is required on your kit. The separate lower plate with turret ring is then glued in place and again the fit was not good at all some large gaps at the sides, but as this is completely hidden after assembly there’s no point worrying about it further.

The front plate has the resin gun mantlet trapped in place by two plastic brackets and again there is no worry gluing the mantlet in place due to the two mediums, make sure you press the brackets as tight as possible against the mantlet for a firmer grip so the barrel doesn’t flop down when fitted.

Fitting the front plate to the turret went without problems to finish the main turret assembly. The 95mm barrel tube is a single resin piece with the muzzle hollowed out to a depth of about 10mm for a good appearance but the hole in the mantlet was marginally too big for the barrel for a snug fit and to fix this I applied some thick cyanoacrylate around the barrel base and let cure before fitting to the mantlet. This increased the diameter sufficiently for a better fit, securing in place with additional cyanoacrylate, the separate Besa MG barrel fits into the resin support but you should ensure the barrel sits centrally in the round hole at the end of the support and doesn’t rest again one side of the hole.

The four upper corner bolt bosses with the lifting hooks are in resin but you will need to drill 1.5mm holes for the bolt locating lugs to fit (see image) and on the left side is the searchlight with separate etched mounting bracket. There are two etched handles on the back of the searchlight that need freehand bending to shape but the mounting post doesn’t have the lower telescopic section used on the searchlight when fitted to vehicles with the large turret side storage bins added. This lower section can be made from plastic rod and attached to the underside of the mounting bracket.

The two storage bins are in etched brass with separate tops and side reinforcing fillets and they are easily bent to shape due to the larger size but it’s best to solder the joins together (from the inside) for a stronger assembly. Notable by their absence are the large securing rivets on the box mounting plates and these can be added from available rivet sets or made yourself to add this detail.

The turret has the later Commander’s cupola and this is three main parts, the round base with periscope guards, the lower resin ring with the periscopes and the upper cupola lip with further parts for the two hatches and hatch brackets.

Fitting the periscope ring will require all the holes in base to be enlarged and corners squared off for the periscopes to fit with the lip fitting neatly into place. The hatches have some internal detail should you want to show these open and the latches being resin have good detail but watch as both are numbered differently so make sure these are positioned correctly.

Adding the assembled cupola to the turret will need the inside of cupola opening enlarged  to allow the resin periscope ring to fit, you also need to cut a small notch in the resin rind to clear the locating pin on the underside of the base.

The two part Loader’s hatch has separate inner padding for the hatch halves and again these can be glued open or closed as required. The top ventilator cover fits easily in place but the two roof periscopes are again too tall and should have their height reduced by about half. This is easy to do by trimming the periscope housings before adding the top cover, the periscopes them selves will also need to be trimmed to allow the cover to be fitted.

The Commander’s vane sight is provided in two fine resin parts or in etched brass, the resin sight needs very careful trimming of the fine film inside the sight and some trimming of the sight frame for a better appearance. One the other hand the 4 part etched sight only needs bending to shape with engraved bending lines to make this easy, the inner uprights for the front and rear sections ensures the sight is the correct height.

The etched sight is by far the better option with easy assembly and excellent appearance when completed, note the sight should be attached to the turret roof centrally in front of the forward periscope and not offset as the instructions indicate.

The final items are the two aerial mountings, one with etched ‘cone’ that is best bent around a suitable sized drill bit (3.4mm) to avoid any damage while bending, soldering the two ends together will give strength and with the ‘legs’ bent inwards can be glued to the resin aerial post provided.

When fitting the turret to the hull there are no attachment lugs as with most plastic kit turrets meaning the turret is just sitting on the hull and if the model is turned upside down the turret will take off. Adding your own attachment lugs will help avoid unwanted accidents with the turret attachment.

Decals:
The nicely printed decal sheet has markings for two Cromwells including the tac signs, serial numbers and stencilling for the front plate, plus the large engine deck circled star and two smaller stars for the turret boxes. The A4 sized all colour painting guide has four view illustrations of the two marking options.
Conclusion:
Given the kit's heritage it has a good kick start and is dimensionally accurate overall including the engine deck for the F type hull but there is quite a bit of cleanup needed with the large ejector pins inside the wheels and other parts plus a bit more flash than one might expect today. There is also scope for misalignment of the major hull parts resulting in gaps if not careful but the fit is okay if this due care is exercised.

The level of detail is good and enhanced further with the inclusion of the resin and etched parts and some additional work is needed when fitting these as mentioned above but overall the kit will build into a very nice kit of the Mk.VI CS F type hull. It's also good to have the F type hull in plastic instead of duplicating what others have done.

Rating 8/10

The Sprues:

Click on thumbnails for larger view
Sprue images
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Detail Assembly images

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Part detail images
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References:
Cromwell
Wydawnictwo Militaria No.14
Book
Cromwell Tank Vehicle History
and Specifications

book
Ground Power Magazine
#044 - 1/1998

book

Thanks to SKP Model for the review kit.


Page created November 7, 2010



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