FINISHED PROJECT - “B” Battalion of the Tank Corps, 1917

[Tomsche]

Great paintjob, and I just love those bases 

[Admiral Benbow]

How could I have missed this fantastic thread? Great modelling, painting and weathering - a joy to read!
 

[fastolfrus]

If you've got technical tank related questions I would recommend Bovington museum.
They have been very helpful in the past with odd questions, even if it's just to say what book title to look for.

[Haarken]

Gorgeous looking tanks, can't wait to see them painted. This thread just reminds me of what a great forum this is, I love the way if someone makes a mistake people are genuinely concerned about it, rather than just picking up on it as a mistake. 

Haarken

[Sambeaux]

These models are most beautiful I must congratulate you on your skills as an artist.

How are you finding the Mud and Blood rules to game with? 

[FramFramson]

Superb stuff. I did the same with the sponsons  but realised too late to change them.

Lewis guns are available from Company B as can be seen below

Question I forgot to ask about this image: If this is a british tank What's with the knights crosses? Is this particular paintjob supposed to represent a captured tank? I don't recall knights crosses being part of the brit livery!

[Wirelizard]

The Germans ran captured British tanks - "Beutepanzers", which Google tells me means "trophy tank".

Love this whole thread, and your blog is an inspiration, from terrain to vehicles to figures!

[Plynkes]

At Cambrai the Germans captured about 100 Mark IVs in their rapid counter-attack (broken down, damaged or stuck - a few operational tanks were cannibalized from these). The British tanks had initially been so successful the German high command, which had previously not been impressed by the machines, were forced to take notice and get their tank program up and running, and the captured tanks were added to the force. Gradually more tanks were captured. Even more were taken in the offensives of 1918.

Captured Mark IVs outnumbered home-built tanks in German service, as their own tank program never really got off the ground when compared with the large numbers fielded by their foes. The white/red/white recognition stripe system was adopted by the Brits because of "friend or foe" confusion with all the Boche Mark IVs rolling around.

[Faber]

this forum is so great... even if I'm not interested in WWI I'm really learning lot of things about painting and modelling. Greetings for your amazing project! Really a pleasure to read. 

[FramFramson]

Great answers - thanks folks. I knew the German tank corps in WWI never really got rolling, but I didn't know that captured amis tanks in German service actually outnumbered native-built ones.

[Sidney Roundwood]

I’ve posted below the penultimate entry for this workbench project.  These are the crew figures from one of the sections in “B” Battalion of the Tank Corps from 1917, based on the descriptions of these soldiers in Ian Verrnider’s oustanding book “Tank Action in the Great War”.

Each of the Mark IV tanks (irrespective of being Male or Female) had eight crewmen, with an additional section commander (usually a First Lieutenant or Captain) joining one of the three or four tanks which comprised a section in the Tank Corps in 1917.



I painted up 18 figures to accompany my section of four tanks.  Of course, if all the four tanks “ditch” and the crews get out, I’m in trouble in a game!  Probably not in as much trouble as the British player will be in by that point, but trouble nonetheless.    However, painting 33 tank crewmen to cope with this remote possibility did seem a little excessive.  So, there’s 18 finished figures, plus two casualty figures to simulate “shock” in the “Through the Mud and the Blood” rules which we use for our Great War games.



A number of figures are converted.  The officer with the ash-plant walking stick is based on Major Mark Dillon of “B” Battalion who served as one of the battalion’s reconnaissance officers at Dessart Wood in the Third Battle of Ypres in 1917.  Shortly before an attack, tanks would be guided to their stating positions by reconnaissance officers following white cloth tapes laid out over the battle field.  Following these tapes in the dark, over a battle-scarred terrain was far from straightforward.  The tapes could rip under strain, or be cut by shells or by tanks passing over them.  Major Dillon’s vivid recollection is featured in Ian Verrinder’s book: “there is always a dirty trick awaiting one where least expected.  All went well until the Company reached the point where I had left the beginning of the tape.  It had gone.  …..A search right and left and found our tape again. I had suffered an agonising hour, and the relief of finding the tape was enormous” (Tank Action in the Great War, page 103).  I also swapped the officer's Webley for a flare pistol with a quick hand swap. The tape was made using the foil from an old wine bottle.

I added a spare Vickers machine gun to one of the prone crewmen to replicate him having dragged a machine gun from the tank after it had ditched.  Afficionados will immediately realise that the Mark IV tank didn’t actually have Vickers machine guns fitted – however, at the time I did the conversion, I’d not realised I could get 1/56th scale Lewis guns.  Oh well, if I’m going to count rivets, I guess I’ll only use the figure with a Mark I tank!     The Vickers ammunition was just thin brass wire cut to fit and glued along a strip of the foil from the same wine bottle.



The small black cat is taken from the picture of an earlier tank commander, Second Lieutenant Drader, featured on page 109 of Trevor Pidgeon’s fantastic “The Tanks at Flers”.  Cat courtesy of Irregular Miniatures (does anyone else make cats?).  I sense a “Through the Mud and the Blood” card, ‘Lucky Charm’ or ‘Sooty’, approaching!



I also wanted a figure to look as if he’s loading up a tank with the not inconsiderable stores which would need to be carried into a battle.  According to John Glanville in “The Devil’s Chariots”, “The tanks’ already narrow gangways became choked with more drums of engine oil and grease, a spare machine gun and four barrels, 33,000 rounds of Small Arms Ammunition in the female types, thirty tins of food, sixteen loaves, and, for some, a basket of carrier pigeons” (page 154).  He’d also do for a supply tank for when I get round to that.  I love the cigarette hanging from his bottom lip as he carries two tins of petrol to his tank.



Finally, here’s a picture of the figures deployed on the wargames table.  I’m planning a game in December, ‘Jackdaw Wood’, featuring these figures and the finished tanks from ‘B’ Battalion, and I’ll post an AAR in the First World War section when we’ve played it in early December.



Next stop, the final workbench posting – the finished tanks.

[Silent Invader]

Lovely details. I've really enjoyed following this project. 

[Sidney Roundwood]

So, welcome to the last of the Workbench posts on “B” Battalion of the Tank Corps from 1917.  I’ve added some of the photos below from painting the tanks themselves, together with some shots of the finished project.

I’d undercoated the tanks in black, and started with a base coat of Vallejo about 75% burnt umber with 25% black.  I then shaded a little more black into the mix to paint in the shadows under the sponsons in particular.



I was aiming for the type of colours featured in the Osprey Mark IV book, in particular the image of Deborah (D51) from the battle of Cambrai.



On a couple of the tanks, I added some fine sand mixed with diluted PVA glue to the tracks.  On one female tank, “Banshee”, I added sand on the track plates, trying to recreate the look of a tank which had been churning its tracks in thick mud.  As Second Lieutenant Wilfred Bion recalled of the conditions in the Ypres Salient for tanks in 1917, “We travelled literally one foot to each revolution of the tracks”.



When the PVA glue and sand mixture was dry, I painted it a black/ dark brown mix.



I then dry brushed lightly along all the tank panels, bringing out the rivets and armour plating with progressively lighter colours.  I used Vallejo English Uniform as the highlight to Vallejo Burnt Umber.



After the dry-brushing and a heavy dry-brush of grey on the tracks, I got to this stage.



Then, back to an old technique of flicking a mixture of dark red/dark brown oil paint heavily diluted with turpentine onto the tank, simulating rust, dirt and caked on mud.  I then ran a clean brush with turpentine over the resulting splatters.



I wanted these tanks to look like they had seen action, so some oil and grease streaks were added on the sides, and thinned with more turpentine on a clean brush.  I was trying to recreate the thoughts of Colonel Bertie Stern, one of the directors of tank manufacture in the Great War, when he said that people needed to bear in mind that the first tanks were not precision motor cars, but were more like agricultural machinery.  I liked the comparison, and tried to bear that in mind when doing the weathering...





I added some MIG rust weathering powders mixed with a Plaka Wassebasis fixative to the exhaust for a bit of texture....



....and dry-brushed the chains on the ditching bar, first with Plaka dark brown, then a Vallejo gunmetal/ black mix, adding some Mig standard rust weathering powder mixed with more of the Plaka Wasserbasis.







I used some Archer Dry Transfers for the battalion numbers on the tanks, rubbing them on with a soft pencil, then buffing with a Q-Tip.





So that the transfers did not look too pristine, I weathered them as well with some more of the red brown/brown turpentine splatter, and some more oil/ grease streaks.



I found it really, really difficult to work the Archer Dry Transfer lettering onto the front armour of the tanks under the viewing portholes.  In the end I felt drepressed, gave up and painted teh tank names freehand, reasoning that quite a few of the names painted on the tanks were done free-hand by the tank crews in a variety of lettering anyway.  I weathered the tanks’ names like the numbering using the same methods as above.

So....here’s the final results....



LAF readers with good memories may remember the disaster I had with my upside-down sponson on one of the Female tanks.  My initial efforts to prise this off failed.  I hunted around for solutions.  I'm deeply endebted to Plynkes for supporting the solution I found....not prising the sponson off, but changing the vision slots.  So, armed with a set of sharp files, I carved some new vision slits in the tank’s sponson and drilled a new pistol loophole, added a green stuff loophole cover and finished it with a Webley .455 pistol being brandished out of the loophole by one of the tank crew.  I was quite intrigued to read that tank crews could, and did, fairly frequently deploy revolvers through pistol loopholes, particularly against an enemy close assaulting a tank.  Here’s my (initially unintentional) tribute to that way of fighting the War!



The tanks also carried carrier pigeons which were “only to be used in an emergency”.  Here’s one being launched from “Belladonna” (B8)...





Here’s a closer view of the Female “Banshee” ....



....and the Male “Black Prince II”, both of which fought at Cambrai and feature (as do "Brigand II" and "Belladonna" in the fighting around Fontaine on 23rd November 1917, which is covered in detail in Ian Verrinder's excellent "Tank Action in the Great War", which was the inspiration for the project). 



And finally, the completed “Band of Brigands” from “B” Battalion, 1st Tank Brigade, Tank Corps, 1917.





These are going to be in action next week at my local club in a game of "Through the Mud and the Blood".  I'll post some more pictures and an AAR in the World War I folder after the game if anyone's interested.  Well, that's it.  PROJECT FINISHED. 

[Phil Robinson]

Bloody brilliant Sid, I'm spellbound

[Aaron]

Fantastic results! Thanks for letting us all ride along.