Dragon 1/72 Churchill Mk. IV, kit 7424

Well,considering the aging releases by ESCI, Airfix and Hasegawa the Braille scale world has been aching for a modern kit of this important machine for quite some time. Well – here’s DML’s attempt.

The kit contains 70 parts:

  •  68 in grey plastic
  • 2 runs of DS track

Oh I hear your cries about NO PE parts, but rest assured – this is a non-issue with the kit.

There are two main hull components, cast as separate parts – the upper one represents the top deck and the fenders, and lower part is the slide-molded hull tub.

Dragon 7424 Hull tub bottom - a look from front to back
Hull tub bottom – a look from front to back
Dragon 7424 Hull tub bottom - aft end
Hull tub bottom – aft end

It is interesting to note that there are fuel can racks at the aft end of the fenders, and Dragon has included two pairs of British-style 2 gallon cans to be posed there should the modeler so desire.

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Horch 108 and FLAK 38, Dragon 7422

I painted the entire composition with Revell enamels – 79 being the main color and 57 as well as mixes of the two used to vary the shades in different places. I also added the white rectangles on both the Horch and trailer fenders, but these almost disappeared under the dust I applied later.

Seats were brushed with Revell 381 and given a thin acrylic wash to accentuate the molded-on uneven surface (again a nice touch by Dragon). Tires were sprayed Revell 78 to simulate a bleached/dusty effect, and then added to the vehicle body and the trailer. The exhaust pipes and muffler were basecoated with Revell 37 to simulate rust and glued on the vehicle. I then proceeded to add some metal chips by drybrushing Tamiya’s X11.

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Building Dragon’s Horch and FLAK combo (kit 7422)

Since I got the kit to build as a reviewer for Armorama I started almost immediately after taking the pics. Here’s how the build went through.

I started by adding the lower engine compartment/radiator face and the firewall to the vehicle body.

Dragon 7422 Horch front
Horch front

Other than filling the seam line in the front wheel arches these fit fine.

Dragon 7422 Wheel arc seam
Wheel arc seam

Next step was the suspension. After carefully studying reference images I glued parts B9 and B10 first, and then proceeded to add the suspension arms.

Dragon 7422 Frame and suspension
Frame and suspension

Please note that all 4 parts are labeled B7, but the parts intended for the rear axle have an extra pair of locating pins. With these fixed I glued the 8 springs (parts B8) to parts B10 and B11. So far fit has been very good. I cut off the representation of the rubber mudguards and replaced them with thick aluminum foil.

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1/72 Heavy Uniform Personnel Vehicle Type 40 + 2cm FlaK 38, Dragon kit 7422

Well the DML people kinda got it wrong, because the box top says “Typ 40”, where the boxart and the parts depict the earlier version (Typ 1a). It has the spare wheels exposed on the vehicle body sides, while the Typ 40 has flat side walls, as the spare wheels are located inside the vehicle body.

The kit contains 91 parts, including

  • 88 plastic parts
  • 2 photoetched parts on 1 fret
  • 1 clear part for the windshield

The Dragon team has simply included one of the vehicles found in the Horch 1+1 combo (kit 7378) and added a towed 20mm AA gun.

There are 54 parts used for the Horch “jeep”. 50 of those are located on sprue B.

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