Matilda II.pdf

MATILDA II

By Reidar Morten Syvertsen

The Matilda’s looks will be well known to

most modellers, ugly but still handsome in

a quirky way, like so many other British

designs of that era. Much has already

been written about the Matilda, most of it

derogatory-or so it seems. Then why was it

affectionately known as ”Queen of the

battlefield” and ”Queen of the desert”?

World War II, the Aussies preferring it over

any alternative right up until the end of

hostilities in the far east. This provides the

modeller with a lot of versions and colour

schemes to choose from.

For my own part, there was no contest –

my first Matilda just had to be an early

desert vehicle in the classic three coloured

”Caunter” scheme. In 1/35 scale the

modeller has but one kit to choose from,

the Tamiya offering dating back to the early

Seventies. Just like the Matilda itself, this

kit too has been on the receiving end of

many a derogatory comment in later years,

however by applying some basic modelling

Well, simply put: At the time of it’s

introduction no one could touch it! It

carried what was probably the best anti-

tank gun in the world, and its armour was

all but impervious to any of the opposing

tank guns. It also had the distinction of

staying in front line service throughout

skills I hope to show that a fair

representation of the Matilda II will

transpire.

Aiding my efforts was a rather large

amount of interior and exterior detail

drawings obtained from the Tank Museum

following quite a bit of correspondence

with the librarian, David Fletcher. Mr.

Fletcher must surely be one of the most

helpful, and knowledgeable persons

around, and has contributed a lot to

whatever I might know about British

armour.

I would also strongly recommend

Darlington Publications’ ”The Matilda

Infantry Tank in Australian Service”. As the

title suggests this booklet concentrates on

Aussie vehicles, but there are a lot of detail

photos of general value.

Osprey offer three useful titles; Vanguard

23: ”British tanks in North Africa”, New

Vanguard 8: Matilda Infantry tank 1938 –

1945, and finally ”Modelling the Matilda

Infantry Tank”. Unfortunately, at the time of

writing, I have not seen the book last

mentioned, but considering its most able

contributors I feel pretty confident this

book is well worth having. Last but not

least I heartily recommend a visit to the

APMA homepage, which has a splendid

selection of photos of the Matilda in its

reference section.

Attention first turned to the hull front where

two prominent ridges run from underside

to top, although not far enough as

they are supposed to follow the

locker doors all the way up.

What these ridges are, I’m

not sure, they are

too smooth to be

weld

beads, yet they show the position of the

inside vertical armour plates-a mystery!

When looking at head on photos of the

Matilda it quickly becomes apparent that

the ridges are too close together at the

nose, creating an impossibly sharp angle if

one were simply to extend them to the end

of the locker doors. Thus construction

started by scraping the ridges away, I then

filled in the open sponson floors and glued

the upper and lower hull parts together.

After filling and sanding, new ridges from

stretched sprue were glued in place. There

are several join lines missing in the kit, two

of them run at an angle forward from the

drivers station, these were scribed as seen

in the photos. The front portion of the tank

was then given a rough cast look by

applying thin liquid glue followed by

stippling with a stiff brush.

scraped inside the cut-outs to accentuate

the hinge pin and glued stopper bolts each

end. Finishing off, hinge mounting plates

were glued to the hull.

the position of these details may actually

be found on the box art. Also missing are

four track tensioning devices, these were

built using scrap plastic, rod and resin hex

nuts.

The exhaust pipes also need some

attention, and with hindsight I ought to

have scratch built them-oh well, next time!

The rather feeble looking asbestos isolation

was scraped off and replaced with dental

lead foil. The entire exhaust was then

mounted using some Eduard etched parts.

The kit tools leave a bit to be desired, and

are best replaced. I lifted a shovel from

Tamiya’s Churchill kit and scratch built the

rest, they were fitted to the tank using

Eduard PE and dental lead foil straps.

Eduard also provides the position lights

and I added thin copper wire for leads.

Four rods in front of these lights are also

offered in the PE set, but being flat in

profile they are quite useless. I filled the

kit’s mounting holes and drilled new

smaller ones. Four pieces of thin brass

wire were dipped in thick cyano repeatedly

until ”balls” had built up; these were then

glued in front of the lights.

The auxiliary fuel tank was glued together

and scraped clean of its mounting strips. I

then made a cut out for the filler cap with a

square section needle file. Filler cap, feed

pipe and new mounting strips were added

after which the fuel tank was fitted using

Eduard parts.

Moving on to the sides I scribed two

missing vertical join lines and glued four

missing boltheads each side. The

armoured covers for the fuel filler pipes

either side were next, these hinged

outwards and were in need of a few

details. Using a new scalpel blade I

It is worth noting that the auxiliary fuel tank

was not a common sight, most probably

only used when training or in transit.

Apart from a few odd details, this finished

the hull, it was time to move on to the real

challenge; the turret.

The side armour panels received a few

missing details, namely a vertical panel line

and keyholes for all the inspection hatches,

Basically, the turret looks right, but it is

sadly lacking in detail and what detail is

present is naive and for the most part

wrongly placed. Work started with cutting

off all detail on the turret roof and filling in

the loaders hatch opening. I intended to

have the loader’s hatch open, but as the

photos show the kit has it all wrong. This

done, I scribed the circular turret roof plate

using a pair of compasses, starting lightly

to get a true circle, and get a good groove

going.

cover a disused overflow vent, the other is

the top of an internally operated signal

lamp, for use in darkness when radio

silence was required.

The gun mantlet has a rather complicated

shape, and the kit part does not reflect this

properly. I used putty to fill and round out

the inside edges and shaped with a round

burr with reference to the photos. The

mantlet housing was detailed with its six

large securing screws, and was also given

a cast look.

A piece of steel angle running across the

turret roof was fashioned from strip and

detailed with flush fitting screws as per the

turret roof. The ventilator guard and dome

were next, followed by the periscope

mounting.

The loaders hatch has a shallow pyramidal

shape, this was replicated by cutting and

gluing four pieces of 0.25 mm plastic card

together, adding details inside and out.

The kit’s gun tube was replaced with a MR

Models piece, and the turret was

assembled. A new signal flag holder was

fashioned from dental lead foil, the

antenna base is combined from Eduard

etch and add-ons from scratch, this

applies to the smoke grenade launchers as

well. Using a scalpel to give the pistol port

parts better definition finished off the turret.

The turret roof consisted of two plates, so

a dividing line was scribed to represent

this. I drew on the position of the loader's

hatch opening and cut this open using a

mini-drill.

The bulge on the left side of the turret is

slightly off, so I corrected this then applied

thin liquid glue to the turret sides, and

using a stiff brush I simulated a cast look.

While this was drying I turned my attention

to the commander’s cupola, this too was

to be open, so needed quite a bit of detail

on the inside of the hatches. The

searchlight needs a bit of tweaking so I

hollowed it out with a small round drill-bit

and added handles and wiring.

The turret roof was secured with flush

fitting screws of two different dimensions.

To simulate these I cut two different sized

syringes and sharpened them. Using a

twisting motion I made round imprints in

the appropriate places. To finish off the

illusion, I cut a slot in each screw using a

new scalpel blade.

Finally I could break open some jars of

paint and start stirring about!

As mentioned I wanted to replicate the

famous ‘Caunter’ scheme on my model,

like so many others I had grown up with an

image of a tank in desert yellow, dark grey

- and light blue no less! That was what the

Airfix Matilda of my younger days showed

For the right side of the turret roof two

circular cover plates were made, one

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