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Vickers Medium Tank Mk.II** 1:35


Mike

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Vickers Medium Tank Mk.II**

1:35 Hobby Boss via Creative Models

 

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After WWI there was a hiatus where it was believed by some that tanks would never see combat again after the "war to end all wars", but reality hit and planning for future wars became prevalent again.  The Vickers Mark I bore a resemblance to the tanks of the Great War, but had a fully-fledged turret on top of the hull, giving it a more modern look.  It was replaced by the Mk.II, which sometimes served alongside its predecessor as both were used to replace the ageing Mark Vs of wartime design.  Only a hundred were commissioned initially, with just over half of these upgraded to the II* by moving the commander's position aft to avoid spent shell cases and install new coax machine gun.  The rest were upgraded later to the same standard and called II** because they had an additional wireless compartment added to the rear of the turret, giving it a "bustle" and vastly improved inter-crew communications on the battlefield.  Another batch of 20 were built as IIAs and a number of special variants were also made before the tank was phased out just before the outbreak of WWII, although the threat of invasion saw a number taken out of mothballs briefly.

 

 

The Kit

This is a revised tooling of the original kit release in 2016 as the Vickers Medium Tank Mk.I (83878), with new parts added to each of the following boxings, working from the II to the II* and now this variant.  The box is typical Hobby Boss, and inside the more delicate parts are protected by a small card divider, with ten sprues in sand styrene plus hull and turret parts in the divider, four sprues in brown styrene containing track links, a sheet of Photo-Etch (PE) brass, a small sheet of decals, the instructions and separate colour painting guide.  Detail is good, with lots of raised rivets dotted around the slide-moulded hull and turret parts, plus the individual track links, which are crisply moulded.

 

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Construction begins with the WWI-esque sponsons, which have well-defined sloped plates on the outer edge to disperse tracked-up mud.  Five sets of four road wheels are fitted to the underside of the sponsons, plus a single pair on the end, and the adjustable idler wheel at the front.  The hull is built up by adding the hatches and the ball-mounted machine gun in the sides, with the floor panel closing up the underside.  Grab handles, steps and various vents, radiators and ports are added to the hull, and the multi-part drive sprockets are installed on pegs at the rear of the hull, joined later by the sponsons, which mate using three pegs to hold it them in place on the sides.  A run of return-rollers and a guide rail are glued into the sponsons to support the track, which is fitted later, and a number of PE grilles are added, as is the driver's raised hatch.

 

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The tracks are made up from individual links that have two parts each, with the guide-horns fitted to a depression on the inner face of the links.  Each run requires 65 links, which are a tight fit and the hollow guide horns are small, so will need a little care and patience.  If you use liquid cement and drape them round the road wheels whilst the glue is still flexible, holding them in place with clamps etc., they should look good when painted.  If you also use a straight-edge to ensure that they are correctly aligned, the task will be much easier.  With the track runs fitted, the fenders can be attached to the remaining slots in the hull sides, with a set of PE brackets formed up to support them, plus the exhaust, light clusters (with optional headlamps) and stiffeners also made up from PE.

 

The turret is mostly preformed by slide-moulding, to which a turret ring is added, and the gun's mantlet slotted into the supports moulded into the turret lower.  The coax machine gun barrel slots in next to the mantlet, the radio box is fitted to the rear, and the commander's cupola with clamshell doors popped on top.  The final act is to place the turret on the hull (no bayonet fitting here), and fold up then glue on the light boxes that deflect the paltry glow from the headlamps down toward the ground.

 

 

Markings

Only two decal options are provided from the box, which is almost expected for this middle-tier offering from HB, with one only having the number plate "ME 9840", and the other "MK 8227" and series of white Os on the front and turret sides.  There's no further information offered, and the decals are all white, so registration isn't an issue, but density and sharpness are just fine, so nothing to worry about.  Your MkII** will of course be green.

 

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Conclusion

A good quality kit of this unusual box-like little tank, which was superseded by the differently boxy Cruiser Mk.I, which fought well in the Mediterranean in the early stages of WWII.  With the addition of a commander poking out of the turret, its diminutive size will be well illustrated.

 

Highly recommended.

 

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17 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Now that is just too cool.....Why don't we get things like this in 1/72?  :(

Because you don't eat your greens :tease:

38 minutes ago, ted15 said:

Could this Mark be used in the Desert?

 

I've got a feeling the answer is "yes", but as it's a few days since I was researching, and I've slept since then :hypnotised:

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