Meng British heavy Tank Mark V Male 1:35

[Mike]

British heavy Tank Mark V Male
1:35 Meng Models

The British use of Tanks in WWI was very much a work-in-progress, starting from scratch, with numerous hold-ups due to the immature technology that resulted in the Mark.IV tank being a bit of a compromise and built on the Mark.III instead of being its own design. The Mark.V was originally a totally new design of tank that suffered from similar technical delays, so the Mark.IV was modified to accept the new more powerful 150bhp engine and renamed as the Mark.V, while the original project was dropped in order not to delay production too much. As well as the new engine, steering had been developed sufficiently to reduce it to a one-man job, freeing up crew-members to man the guns, with one machine gun added to the rear. A rear cupola was designed with hinged sides to give the crew protection when releasing the unditching beam or fascine bundle without having to leave the tank or expose themselves too much.

The V arrived mid 1918, but in sufficient numbers to be used in several battles where it performed well. After the war a few were sent to Russia, some were given to France, and they found themselves dotted all around, which explains why there are so many still to be found in museums.


The Kit
Meng don't do things by half, and this Mark.V comes with a full interior, and as such it needs a deeper box to accommodate all the extra parts over and above their usual size. The box is simply deeper, so still stacks well if that matters to you! Inside the box are nineteen sprues and one separate part in a sand styrene, four in black for the track links, a sheet of Photo-Etch (PE) brass, a length of chain pre-finished in black, four poly-caps and a decal sheet. The instruction booklet at 36 pages resembles more of a modelling magazine, and has a triple glossy outer to cater for the colour profiles, with the inner being black and white. The Tank Museum logo is present on the booklet as well as the box, because they have been closely involved with the production of this kit, which is very good news and excellent PR for their site at Bovington. Having been there recently, it’s a superb museum that's well worth a visit if you're in the area, or even if you're not.

If you've not been following the development of the kit too closely, you may not know that the kit includes a full interior, which is incredibly well detailed and will keep you busy building far longer than a traditional AFV kit, which is often just a shell of the vehicle. Meng have made it so a great number of hatches and panels can be left open to view all your hard work inside too, so it's worth putting in the effort. Construction of course begins inside with the engine bearings and the platform around it. The 150bhp engine is built up from large number of parts over the next several steps, and includes the linkages used by the crew to control the vehicle's power plant. With careful painting you should end up with a highly realistic power pack. With the addition of the starter and belts the finished engine is enclosed in a protective compartment before attention shifts to the man at the end of the linkages. The driver. The twin seats are attached to a transverse girder with their hand and foot controls, all of which is placed to the front of the engine compartment, while at the back, the manual cranking handle (just like the one you can turn in the mock-up in Bovington) is added along with a number of other small parts. The completed assembly is then glued to the hull floor and the water tank, radiator and fuel tanks are built up, latter having an optional open hatch on the top of the armoured box, as well as the rear machine gun hatch open. This attaches to the rear of the floor and forms the lower section of the rear of the tank. Transmission and ammo storage are built up next, and the many many road wheels are assembled, comprising two idler wheels, thirty of one type of wheel and twenty four of another type. In order to add them to the sponsons the inner faces have to be added along with the transmission gear and the upper track skids. The drive-sprockets are assembled around the last cog in the transmission assembly, and then installed in the sponson end to be accompanied by a mixture of the two wheel types and interleaved with PE panels on the lower track run. The upper track run scrapes along the ski plates, assisted in the rear by a solo wheel on the transition from sloped to straight as it climbs up the rear of the tank. The outer face of the sponson has a radiator grille and track tensioning device added before being glued to the inner assembly. The whole thing is repeated in mirror-image for the other side, and both sponsons are added to the floor along with the lower glacis plate.

The commander's cab is made up from individual sides, and has a pair of openers at the front and rear, plus a number of pistol ports dotted around, with one even found on the roof. It can be built up in either opened or buttoned-down poses, as can the driver's cab. A pair of aft hatches can be posed open or closed too, in order to show off your handiwork inside, or prevent the crew from choking on carbon monoxide fumes. The exhaust and two cabs are added to the roof panel, plus a semaphore pole that has a pair of handles on the bottom and two flags on the top for inter-tank communications. How you'd get a colleagues attention during the height of battle though, I have no idea. Once the hull is closed up, the fascine rails are added, and the mechanism for holding the unditching beam is added to the inner edges.

The Male Mark.V tank was equipped with a pair of six-pounder guns, and these are built up next, complete with breech and sighting mechanisms, a single-part curved gun shield and inner elevation "mantlet". They mount on an armoured box that also houses a number of shells, the percussion caps for which are moulded into one side. This fits to the floor of the gun sponson, and is surrounded by the other faceted panels, one of which mounts another machine-gun. The gun is installed from inside before adding the roof and crew door, which can also be posed opened or closed by removing one or other of the attachment pegs on the hinges. Again, the opposite sponson is a mirror-image, and they are both added to the large rectangular holes in the hull sides. The radiator grilles are given PE covers to shed mud, or a pair of crossed beams if you prefer.

Finally we get to the tracks! They are individual links, and each one has three sprue gates to remove, which is pretty easy, actually. There's a raised ejector pin mark on the inside face, but as the inside won't be seen unless you are doing a maintenance or knocked-out diorama, you don't need to worry about that. Did I mention they are also click-fit? Well they are, but they're a little sloppy, so won't stay in one piece during rough handling, or driving round your workbench going "Brummmmmm!". My suggestion would be handle them carefully while installing them on the tank, then flood the joints with a little liquid cement to freeze them in place.

No WWI tank would be complete without an unditching beam, but with this uber-complete kit, you also get a crib, which is a lightweight fascine bundle replacement made up from wooden beams and small metal joint-stiffeners on a hexagonal frame. The unditching beam is made up from two parts and has a short length of chain pegged to the shackles, the ends of which are wrapped around brackets attached to the rail. The Crib has four hexagonal frames made up from two parts each, which are joined in each corner by a beam. The finished assembly is perched atop the driver's cab on the rails, and two lengths of chain are passed through the bottom, one end linked at the front of the glacis, the other behind the crew cab.


Markings
There are three decal options included in the box, and all have the white and red stripes on the sponson fronts. From the box you can build one of the following:

• The 9th Battalion Tank Corps, British Army, France, 1918 – all over brown sand.
• The Tank Museum, Bovington UK – all over brown sand with additional red and white striping on the tops and rear f the two cabs.
• "Devil" the 4th Battalion, Royal Tank Corps, british Army, Bovington Camp, 1925 – all over dark green with additional red and white striping on the roof and rear of the commander's cab.
  

The decals are by Cartograf, and although most are plain white, the coloured parts are in good register, with colour density and sharpness to match. The satin-finished carrier film is closely cropped around each decal to minimise the chances of silvering, but some of the spaces between letters could be cut to reduce it further.


Conclusion
Everything about this kit is good, and you get so much in the box that there's little need for anything aftermarket. You could perhaps consider wrapping a single layer of glue-impregnated tissue around the exhaust to replicate the asbestos lagging that was sometimes applied, but everything else seems to have been thought of.

Extremely highly recommended.

Review sample courtesy of

[sinnerboy]

Nice review, thanks Mike it looks luvly.

all we need now is the Takom(?) MkI's

[Mike]

I'm waiting for the Mark.9. The only decent Pig

[sinnerboy]

oooo forgot about that baby! mind you it didn't have any bangy things on the side or top!

Who's going to be releasing that Mike?

so we have or will have

MKI Male, Female and hermaphrodite

Mk IV M&F

Tadpole

MkV

Mk IX

Whippet

A7V

St Charmond

Schnieder

Skoda 30.5CM 1916 Howitzer

Skoda 42cm 1917 Howitzer

Krupp 21cm Mortar

& Big Bertha

isn't there another thread about lack of 'WOW' factor?

I'm certainly 'wowed'!

[Mike]

I'm just dropping it into threads hoping that someone gets carried away and does the 9 to save me from having to scratch-build it

[sinnerboy]

oh, I thought I saw one mooted somewhere or maybe it was one of your droppings that I saw

if that is the case then you're a cruel tease....but I hope the game plan works!

[wyverns4]

So by how much more is the box bigger...? Duck and Cover!!

[Mike]

Deeper... just deeper. I'm not getting caught out typing the wrong numbers again!

[robw_uk]

maybe if the "British Made" GB comes off for next year this might be something different for me to try

[mrobeson]

Maybe someone will give us the massive Gun Carrier Mk.Is, or the Medium C tanks. Come on Meng/Takom.