GHQ Models Forums

In photos of Churchills in Normandy, I see tanks with full track guards, no track guards at all, and track guards near the front and back (but generally, the front mudguards are gone).
In some grainy WWII photos I have difficulty distinguishing whether the ridges in the middle part of the hull edge are tracks or guards. I see that some of the photos for GHQ Churchills look like the middle section of the guards are missing, and are painted as tracks but the tracks seem to narrow as the turrent ring/lip extends, so unless the track goes under the lip, I think they must be guards not tracks.
My question is - are any of the 3 GHQ Churchill tanks (III, VII, AVRE) intended to have missing track guards and show the track in the middle upper hull section?
I have GHQ UK#55 and I'm fairly certain that it has full track guards.
Also, I mean no disrepsect to the catalog sample painters - they are way better than what I can manage, I just want to see if it is worth while to get a different hull type to add some variety.

Thanks
Phil

Hey Phil, when I wanted to paint my Churchill VIIs I was wondering the same. I'm no expert at tank at all, but here's what I found. I checked a bunch of photos (real and miniatures) and came to the following conclusing: most of the time they have either full top guards or they have none. Most half covered tops are models and quite a few model painters mistakenly thought the guards were tracks. But partially covered tops are quite easy noticable (track part is lower).
So, whether your particular model has a top guard or not, you'll have to check by eye. (the GHQ Churchill mk VII has fully covered tracks imo) One thing to observe carefully is whether the top guard (or track) has a bit of a lowered circle in it. That's where the turret goes and you'll know for sure it's a guard. You can see that very clearly in the next picture I found:


Some more pictures:

This might look like a track on a model, but tracks couldn't be that high next to the rest of the guard.

This is a great model to show you a half covered track. The track is quite a bit lower than the rest of the top guard. And you can just see a tiny bit of the lowered circle that's on the middle top guard.

Anyway, I think GHQ models are so good in detail, you should be able to see the lowered turret circle in the guards quite easily.

Hope this helps, Patrick