Let's start by showing the contents of the boxes. The H39 is, of course, brand-new and looks very good, as you would expect of modern Tamiya kits:
And the B1
bis:
Um … Oh, yeah, I've had this for a bit longer, that's right …
Almost twenty years ago, when it was new, I bought and built this kit, but never finished painting it:
As those knowledgeable about the B1 will already have spotted, the intention was to make it into
tank No. 251, named Fantasque, but my artistic skills weren't up to doing justice to the painted-on trees and shrubs, which meant it ended up back in its box only to come out of it again now
The reason to do that
and buy an H39 as well is:—
Because this has some interesting things to tell us about reasonably serious plans to cast armoured components for the H39 and/or Char B1 in the UK, in return for which the British would get completed tanks equal to half the number of castings they supplied. This never actually happened for several reasons, primarily of course the fall of France in June 1940, but also because the British were looking at making quite a few changes to make the H39 (the main candidate for this plan) better suited to their ways of armoured warfare. They wanted a two-man turret, for example, because they felt it needed more than one man (many French shared this opinion, but they were stuck with the turret, at least in the short run). There was also mention of doubling the number of bogies, but I can't figure out what exactly they meant by that — two side-by-side? I can't make much else of it, but it seems unlikely. There were also ideas about boring out the 37 mm gun to 39 mm so that it could fire British 2-pounder ammunition (a gun that today is considered a 40 mm, but in the late 1930s apparently a 39 mm).
In other words, this will be a what-if:
What if the Battle of France had gone according to Franco-British plans so that the Germans would have been halted in northern France? and
What if (because of this) French tanks had been supplied to the British in order to continue the war in France?.
The H39 will be built more or less straight from the box, with a few modifications. At the very least a British antenna, and probably reinforcing plates on all six bogies instead of only on the front ones or none at all, as Tamiya supplies them. And perhaps a hint that the gun uses 2-pounder ammunition.
The B1
bis will also get a British antenna and also a 2-pounder gun, because that was a better antitank gun than the French 47 mm and as far as I can tell, would fit in the turret. I also need to remove several parts that are already on the model, because
Fantasque was a mid-production vehicle while the British would of course have gotten tanks with later features than that. Luckily, the details are
on chars-francais.net.
And, of course, British camouflage, markings and crews for both. That's what the Gecko figures and Peddinghaus decals are for
