The British Are Coming part 1

The League of Extraordinary Wargamers has decided upon a WWII game. It will be an early war scenario depicting fictional events during the Battle of France (1940).
We will be using the Disposable Heroes and Coffin for Seven Brothers rules from Iron Ivan Games, the best small unit rules around for gaming WWII.
Each of us is building a platoon-sized force. Mine will be a small British motor platoon, consisting of a platoon command section, three rifle squads, a Boyes anti-tank rifle, a Vickers MG and a 3" mortar, supported by a 2 pound anti-tank gun and a Matilda II infantry tank. The platoon will be transported by several small 15CWT (3/4 tonne) trucks and some Universal Carriers (aka Bren Carriers).
Because this is a side project (I mostly game late war US and Russians) I decided to set myself the goal of building this little unit as quickly and as cheaply as possibly.
We will be playing with my favourite 1/72 scale plastic soldiers. I have purchased a single box of Airfix British soldiers, some trucks and carriers from Minimi Miniatures and a couple of AT guns from SHQ Miniatures.
The biggest challenge will be to get all the figures I require from the one box.
But first, the sole armoured support, a Matilda tank.
I chose to purchase a relatively recent Airfix release, the Matilda Hedgehog, which is an Australian adaptation for busting Japanese bunkers by mounting naval rocket tubes on the engine deck. I went this way because the other vehicles I bought are 1/76 scale so this kit would fit better than the Italeri option (which is a true 1/72 scale), and I was unable to find the original Airfix kit or the other Fujimi kit available on the market. Of course Airfix kits have the advantage of being relatively cheap. Luckily the re-release includes the original kit plus an additional sprue for the mortar, and there are parts to mount a reserve fuel tank (which is not mentioned in the new instruction sheet but still in the kit from its original version), so the purchaser can build the Hedgehog for the Pacific war, a MKIII or MKIV for the desert war (with the extra fuel tank) or the early war verion that I have built.

Here is the box and the contents. The mortar unit is on the separate sprue at the right front, which has simply been added to the original kit along with a new instruction sheet. This will go into the spares box along with the reserve fuel tank. As you can see the kit is relatively simple, one of the advantages of the Airfix kits for a muppet builder like me!

 

Here is a shot partway through the build showing the tricky bit, fitting all the wheels and bogies to their holes and then fitting the outer plate to match. It took a bit of jiggling but we got there.

 

 The completed tank. In the end it went together easily and was completed in maybe an hour. All in all it is a good kit with very little flash and a fairly intuitive process.

 

Here you can see the problem with using 1/76 scale vehicles with 1/72 scale soldiers. The Matilda looks like a tankette, but it will be close enough for goverment work.

The next stage is to paint and base.