I began a pointless conversion¹ of a Bishop Self-propelled Gun. Why? Because I need one for my ALAMEIN Orbat, for 121st Regiment, Royal Artillery, and because I have a surfeit of Valentine Hulls. The first stage was to build the base and top of the gun casemate. Next, the sides were added on. The front and gun were the last to be built, with filing to finish off before the details such as hatches , were added. I went with sand shields, as first issued, rather than the later stripped sides for Sicily and Italy, and didn’t worry too much about roof vents and the like.
Of course, being out of practice with this sort of thing, I made the turret too wide (another pointless fat head) and had to cut a fillet out to bring it down to size. I had no excuse this time, having resized a web plan to 1:100; cheating, I know!
Bishops were the first British attempt to make a self-propelled artillery piece, if you discount the Birch Gun. They were soon superceded by the M7 Priest 105mm (90 sent to North Africa), then the Sexton 25pdr (of which 2,062 were built), but they soldiered on through Tunisia, Sicily and Italy, with 130 being built eventually.
- Coined by Phil Steele. It describes converting something that is readily available as a kit, because you happen to have a kit that will provide the base for the conversion, and you don’t need another model of the kit that you have.
Not Quite Mechanised 
Always frustrating having to rework parts of model. The conversion looks good.
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It served me right for only measuring once; I was out by the 4mm thickness of the side panels that I had forgotten to allow for 🙂
Regards, Chris.
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Making good use of a model you’ve already got though, so well done! Can you make it interchangeable with the normal tank turret so you can use either as you need them (and just live with incorrect tac signs on one of them – does anyone really understand British tac signs anyway?)? 🙂
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I glued the turret on, as I don’t really need the interchangeability, but it’s a good idea, John. The great thing about formation signs in the desert, was that as tanks were repaired, they were sometimes sent to a fresh unit with the old tac signs still on them. It’s happened “for real” in my boxes a few times now 🙂
Regards, Chris.
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Full marks for both modelling skill and pointlessness. Looking forward to seeing it based and painted 😉
Phil
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Praise from the master of the genre! Thanks Phil 🙂
Regards, Chris.
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Personally I am impressed that you took exactly the same approach as the original design team – “Hmm would a box on top work ?”
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It’s always easier to be the second person to do it, Ken. 🙂
Regards, Chris.
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