Manufacturer: Heroics & Ros
Genre: 1/300 WW1 Wargaming
Comments: These lumbering rhomboidal tanks were characteristic of British main tank design during the First World War, and this one — the Mk.IV — looks (except to the discriminating eyes of the true Tank Nerd) pretty much like any other variety. They were made longer and longer as the war went on, with the idea of allowing them to cross wider and wider trenches, but at the cost of maneuverability: the stresses on the tracks when turning one of these monsters were extreme.
This one is a "male" tank, armed with a pair of 6pdr guns in side-mounted sponsons. "Female" tanks were armed with machine-guns, and "hermaphrodites" had one 6pdr and one machine-gun sponson. The sponsons could be swung into the hull to allow the vehicle to pass through narrow gaps.
These models by Heroics & Ros are pretty basic, but they capture the look of the vehicle fairly well. I've replaced the original guns with lengths of brass pin, which gives both a cleaner look and a more durable model; the side-mounted guns are very vulnerable to damage on the wargames table.
