Landships II

Francisco · Sergeant

First WWI tank

Mark Hansen · Legend

Hi Francisco,

The hatch on the Bovington tank was installed, along with a silencer, when it was converted to a supply tank.

I don't know of any better photos of the sponsons or the area between the rear horns but someone else here might have seen some.

As far as the track spuds go, all the Mk II's I have seen had spuds fitted. You could have a diorama showing a Mk II having its spuds being attached. That way you only need to scratch build a few.

Phil R · Captain

if its an early mark 2 then it may not have the triangular hatch rear of the exhaust outlet, it may have the round hatch same as mark 1. it should probably have the exhaust covers but not a silencer. although it may have! if its male, then possibly the long 6 pounder, possibly the short 6 pounder. there are a lot of experts on this forum who can advise better. and there was a lot of variety in the vehicles.

a very good book is

http://www.ospreypublishing.com/title_detail.php/title=S6895~ser=NVG~per=44

i have used superglue to do the tracks. i glue all the way round (rubber track to plastic body). i start at the top centre and work outwards and down to the underside. that way any joins that dont meet (i know that makes no sense but you know what i mean) can be filled and/or hidden with mud or grass or sand or whatever. its not brilliant because you do end up with unrealistically curved track plates in some places. but the Matador replacement tracks are rather expensive i feel. perhaps the rubber Airfix tracks can be cut into individual plates and glued on??!!

the track spuds were added or removed as the crew saw fit. in place on roads and hard ground they distorted the track so presumably a good crew would remove them for such travel. on soft ground they were slightly useful. so its up to you if you want to put them on or not.

http://www.landships.freeservers.com/spudsandtorpedoes.htm

Mark Hansen · Legend

There is a photo of a Mk II under construction at Metropolitan on this site at http://www.landships.freeservers.com/jpegs/mk1_bw45.JPG. The WD number is 577 which makes it the second Mk II female to be built. The hatch is the raised triangular type. Mk II male tank 777 "Charlie Chaplin" which was the second Mk II built also has the raised triangular type of hatch. I don't really think there was an early Mk II as tanks 599 and 799 (second to last of female and male respectively) are exactly the same as "earlier" Mk II tanks.

Francisco · Sergeant

This is my progress so far. I have some doubts about the shape and size of the box on the rear and forgot a view port on the sides of the drivers cab. The rivets were done with drops of white glue and some of them are oversized, I'll probably change them. I'm thinking of buying landships decal sheet from my local retailer, I dont know of any others, can I use it on a male Mk II?

Any comments are welcome, I'd like to improve this model

Peter Kempf · Field Marshal

I must say: most impressive!!! Looks very nice, and accurate! Well done!

Regarding the tracks: the Airfix tracks are a b*tch. (the only really bad part of this kit.) You CAN glue them down, carefully, with superglue, as suggested above. Another solution is to buy the resin tracks that Matador sell: they will look a lot better, and you will get spuds as well.

Keep up the good work!

Eric · Colonel

Very nice, the detail improvement is better than on mine. Since my construction, I bought some book, the most useful is British Mark I Tank 1916 by D. Fletcher, as stated by Phil R. For my future project, I will add more details, with the help of this book and your build.

Eric