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George Williams
94 articles

1/35 British Chieftain Mk 5 by Tamiya

June 25, 2015 · in Armor · · 29 · 3.5K

The main battle tank was the successor to the Centurion, with the Mk 1 entering service in 1963 after a protracted development period. The Mk 5 was introduced in 1970 and was the main type in service during the mid 70s, the biggest improvement being to the engine bringing the power up to 750 bhp. The Chieftain was compared with the French AMX-30, the West German Leopard and the US M60A1, all of which are lighter in weight and boast better speed and mobility, they are, however, inferior in firepower to the Chieftain. Many overseas countries expressed in buying Chieftains, although the expense (100,000 British pounds each in 1967) limited its appeal.

The Chieftain is a relatively old kit, showing its origins with mouldings designed to accept motorising parts in the hull. I think it still represents an accurate model, and I've finished it in the rather smart (I think) overall dark green livery as seen on these machines while posted to West Germany. The kits comes complete with a crew of three, who have wisely disappeared in some of the pictures, their hatches firmly closed! I prefer to keep my armour fairly clean (although I admire those people who produce extreme weathered finishes), so it has only received a gentle wash of Tamiya XF52 matt earth. I have added some antennae, and a little detail to the barrel lagging.

Thanks for looking, George.

Reader reactions:
10  Awesome

7 additional images. Click to enlarge.


29 responses

  1. I like it, I find the clean build with a touch of weathering a nice touch, after all they are all clean at one time in their life. Even though I mostly build airplanes, I like tanks. I also like good modeling. This is a good one. Nice work !

  2. Nice job George. I'm glad to see you got round to building this one. Turned out really good. Well done.

    • Cheers, GDSC, it took a while mainly because I was unable to post any new articles for a couple of months earlier this year, it seems to be working OK now though.

  3. Very nice! I like the weathering you've done on the tracks and skirts, even the older Tamiya kits make up well. Like it!

  4. Good to see your posting issues have apparently abated, George...front step pics? 🙂

  5. What, no racing stripes? What gives?

  6. Smart work George, looks like you have the knack of building Tanks mate.

  7. Nice clean-looking build. I'm not an armor guy, but it sure looks like good modeling to me!

  8. George, it really looks the part. Just off the wash rack, huh? After a nice sojourn at Grafenwehr, or some other BAOR holiday camp.

  9. Glad you enjoyed it, Bernard, I like to think the British army looked after their tanks!

  10. Cool tank George! I think your right when it comes to the weathering. A heavily weathered vehicle would probably look better in a diorama.
    If you are wanting to showcase the vehicle as an individual model, then less is definitely more!
    Looking forward to seeing your T-90. How are you finding the Meng kit? I was really impressed with the Terminator kit.
    I want to do the T-90 as well but my next piece of armor is the Challenger 2 that Claire got me last Xmas.

    • Thanks for that Richard. I'm not sure I'm enjoying the T-90 kit as much as you enjoyed the Terminator, and there must be a lot of common parts. The lower half is fine, and the tracks are great, much easier that I had thought, but the top half seems a little over-engineered to me, which, along with that brittle plastic, hasn't made for the easiest of builds. It does look the part though, and I'll definitely finish it sometime soon!

  11. Well done, George. At first glance, I thought it was a photo of the real deal ! It doesn't get much better than that !

  12. Nice work George. As others have mentioned, it certainly looks convincing in appearence.

  13. A fine build, George ! Not every "cold war warrior" was dirty, its always great to see you posting something new, well done.

  14. said on June 30, 2015

    Great work! I applaud your subtle weathering.

  15. Dear George

    I hope this finds you well and that you’ll forgive the unsolicited email. I work as a commissioning editor for Pen & Sword Book in the UK. I contribute to their TankCraft series. We’re always on the lookout for tank modellers whose builds we can showcase in the books. Last year I worked closely with many modellers who offered images of their T-34s and various Panzers for the 2017 books. This year I am working on the Chieftain, among others, and came across your models. The books are aimed at the modelling community. I have attached the section on modelling for the panther so that you can see how the builds are featured. If you’d be keen on getting involved I’d love to chat further.

    Kind regards, Kerrin (kerrincocks at gmail dot com)

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