1:72 Infantry Tank “Valentine” Mk. IIIAA, vehicle “T17290” of the British VIIIth Army, 7th Armored Division, 6 Royal Tank regiment, “B” Squadron; Reggio Calabria (Southern Italy), during “Operation Baytown”, September 1943 (What-if/mod. ESCI kit) - WiP

            The kit and its assembly:
This fictional Allied SPAAG is the result of recycling: I had a leftover chassis from an ESCI 1:72 Bishop SPG in the stash, effectively a Valentine Mk. III infantry tank hull, as well as a mixed media conversion set for a Crusader III, AA Mk II / Mk III tank from S&S Models. In real life, the compact Valentine never received such an update, probably because of its small hull/turret ring that offered little development potential – but in whifworld, things might look a little different. 

With these ingredients, the build was a straightforward one: the Valentine chassis was built OOB and the resin turret was adapted to this basis. While it is a little wide overall, the turret’s low silhouette works well with the smaller Valentine basis. I just added a machine gun barrel to the two 20 mm guns, an aiming aid that was frequently used in real life on the Crusader SPAAGs.

Painting and markings:
This was to become a British Army vehicle from the start, but the choice of paint schemes turned out to be limited. I did not want a North African scheme, but eventually came up with a two-tone pattern in dark green/olive drab(?) and a sandy brown from the Italian TO, which I adapted for this fictional SPAAG. The basic tone is Humbrol 163 (modern RAF Dark Green), because it has a slightly brownish hue, combined with Tamiya XF-57 (Light Buff) as large contrast splotches overall.

The model received a washing with highly thinned dark brown acrylic paint and some post-shading. The decals/markings come from the scrap box, and then the model received and overall dry-brushing treatment with light grey. After a final coat of matt acrylic varnish and after the tracks had been mounted, the model’s lower areas were lightly dusted with greyish-brown mineral pigments.

Taken on: December 16, 2021

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