British Mk.V Heavy Tank - 1:35 Takom - 3 in 1 kit

[Julien]

British Mk.V Heavy Tank
1:35 Takom - 3 in 1 kit

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 features three different armament styles. The Male features two 6 Pounder main guns with four Hotchkiss Mk 1 Machine Guns, the Female featured Six Hotchkiss Mk 1 Machine Guns; while the Hermaphrodite (or composite) was fitted with one Male Sponson on one side, and one Female Sponson on the other side. This measure was to ensure that Female tanks were not outgunned by captured Male tanks, or indeed German A7V tanks.

The V arrived mid 1918, but in sufficient numbers to be used in several battles where it performed well. After the war 70 were sent to Russia to support the White Russians in the civil war. Most were then captured by the Red Army four were retained by Estonia, and two by Latvia. 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 American 301st Heavy Tank Battalion was equipped with and used Vs in WWI and at least one was taken back to the US and is now in the National Armour and Cavalry Museum at Fort Benning. There were surprisingly some uses of the V in WWII. The four Estonian examples were used as dug in fortifications during the defence of Talin in August 1941. In 1945 two damaged tanks were found in Berlin. It would appear they were ex Russian Civil war examples brought back to Berlin. It has never been verified if these took any involvement in the Battle of Berlin.


The Kit
The 3 in 1 part of the kit means that you can build a Make, Female or Hermaphrodite tank from the box. A fairly large box contains and impressive 11 plastic sprues, a small sheet of PE, a small length of brass chain and a bag of 190 track links.

Constructions starts with the main centre hull section. The front machine gun and drivers area is built up and this is then fitted into the roof of the main body. The front, bottom and rear plates are then added. The rear plate also has its machine mount added. A towing shackle is fixed to the very front of tank. The rear roof box is made up and installed. Next to be fitted to the roof is the exhaust system, and then the semaphore signalling system is built up and installed. The last part to be added to the centre section is the rear box and carrier which is held in place by two short lengths of chain cut from the one length supplied in the kit.

The side structures containing the tracks and wheels are the next items to be constructed. The front idler wheels, and rear drive sprockets are added along with the internal structure to carry all the parts. 27 small axles are then built up for each side. There are 11 type A axles and 16 type B axles. Each consist of a centre axles to which 2 wheels are added. It is important to follow the placement diagram for these parts when installing them into each side. Once these are made up the tracks can be linked and attached. There are 90 links per side which just clip together.

The sides can now be attached to the main hull and the supports for the un-ditching beam rail added to the top. The modeller then needs to decide which of 3 versions to make as they will then need to make up the appropriate armament sections.

The Female side sections contain two machine guns each. The guns themselves are in a circular copula with each of the 2 guns per side having 8 parts per copula. The two individual copulas are then mounted to a base plate and the external armour units added on.

For the Male copulas each one contains a 6 pounder gun and a machine gun. The 6 Pdr units are complete units to be built up. The breaches are first built and these contain handles, blocks and sighting telescopes. A gun shield is then added before the external circular armour is added. The gun sponson is built up and then the 6 pdr and machine gun can be added to that.

Before the gun sponsons can be added to the tank the modeller may have to remove some of the side rivet detail to match which type of armament selection has been made.

The last stage of construction is to make up the un-ditching beam and secure it with tow small lengths of chain, again cut from that supplied.

Markings
Mig Jimenez's AMMO have provided the colour profiles and paint codes for this release, as is becoming the norm for Takom. The decal sheet supplied is small, there is no printer mentioned but the decals look in register and are of a matt finish. From the box you can build one of the following:

• MkV Hermaphrodite Shown in Berlin 1945
• MkV Female Red Army Defense of Talin 1941
• MkV Female Russian White Army 1920
• MkV Female Shown in the battle for Berlin 1945
• MkV Male Red Army Defense of Talin 1941
• MkV Male France 1918
• MkV Male H41 preserved at The Tank Museum, Bovington
• MkV Hermaphrodite Red Army 1920
• MkV Hermaphrodite Captured White Army 1920

The paint codes are from the AMMO range as you'd expect.

Conclusion
This is a great looking kit and it is good that the modeller is given a choice of three different tanks to build. The parts count is high, and the inclusion of a small PE fret, chain and workable track links is good. The links in particular go together quite easily. Highly recommended.

Review sample courtesy of
UK Distributors for

[robw_uk]

tempting for the made in Britain GB (as something different to WWII armour)