Sir Sidney's “B” Battalion of the Tank Corps, 1917

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[Hammers]

This is an abbreviated thread with Sidneys Roundwoods wonderful Great War tank project. Besides the fantastic result, the thread is also very instructive in terms of vehicle prepping and painting techniques.  I have chosen to prune all the 'Oohs!' and 'Aaahs!' so we can have a condensed How to thread here.

You'll find the original thread here

[Hammers]

I’ve spent a fair part of this year finishing my British and German infantry forces for “Through the Mud and the Blood”.   Until about a fortnight ago, however, I had done nothing regarding building up a force from the Royal Tank Corps despite having both the models and figures buried deep in the “Projects Pending” cupboard for almost a year.  

About two weeks ago I somehow remembered this, and felt that September was a good time to take this part of my Great War project in hand.  I also thought it might be fun to post the work-in-progress on LAF.  I’ve not done a huge amount of AFV modelling before, and thought you guys can tell me where I’m going wrong.    So, here’s where I have got to so far with modelling a section of four tanks from “B” Battalion of the Royal Tank Corps as they might have appeared during the Third Battle of Ypres in the second half of 1917.

Why four tanks, why “B” Battalion and why Passchendaele?  Well, I chose this unit because of the really excellent recent account of “B” Battalion in Ian Verrinder’s book “Tank Action in the Great War” (Pen & Sword, 2009).  I can thoroughly recommend the book as a well-written and interesting read, with new photographs of the tanks and a very moving piece of Ian’s family history wrapped into the text.  I chose the Third Battle of Ypres, Passchendaele, simply because it gave me the chance to field a section of four tanks (three male and one female) section instead of a section of three tanks which seems to have been used a little later in November 1917 at Cambrai.  

I thought I would start with a couple of shots of the inspiration for the project.  First, the historical books which I’ve been reading over the past year on the Royal tank Corps....



....and then some more modern inspiration for the tank modelling, slightly betraying my other interests !! .....



There were eight crewmen in each of the Mark IV tanks.  While I don’t envisage all 32 crewmen being out on the table at the same time (heaven forbid all the tanks “ditch” at once), I wanted to make sure that I had sufficient figures to cover at least a couple of the tanks breaking down and the crews leaving the tanks to return to their own lines, or forming ad-hoc Lewis gun parties.  The figures are Great War Miniatures, with Litko bases (with hexagonal bases denoting "Big Men" in the "Through the Mud and the Blood" rules).  As a lot of people have posted, the Great War Miniatures figures to need a little time to clean and prepare, but I feel they repay the attention.  You’ll also spot I’ve added a company commander and a battalion officer, as well as a motorcycle despatch rider.  Like the Prince Henry Vauxhall staff car which comes later in this post, they are really for “fluff”, but there may be a scenario I can use them in somewhere.  They’re lovely figures, anyway.  Here’s the shots of the undercoated figures (and yes, that is a stray german anti-tank rifleman in the background).....



.......and then with their faces done and base coats of some uniforms.  I wanted to paint a mixture of overalls and uniforms on the tank crew, both being evident in quite a few photos in the books. Christy Campbell's "Band of Brigands", another good book on the Royal Tank Corps, makes reference to the overalls being black to hide the oil smears......



I also wanted to add a couple of casualty bases to place besides the tank crews to signify “shock” being inflicted on the crews if they are unfortunate enough to be outside the tanks.  There are some very disturbing images of dead tank crews in contemporary photographs, particularly of badly burnt crewmen.  I would never want to model such grim material, but didn’t want to leave out a reminder of the horrific casualties the early tank crews suffered.  So, here’s some of Steve’s generic casualty figures, with some suitably “tank focused” bits of battlefield debris manufactured from plasticard, plastic trip, bricks (more matchsticks cut up), picture wire, Styrofoam (petrol cans) and a selection of resin and metal bits (revolver, ammunition box).





Now on to the four tanks themselves, which you can see I have not even started.  I've put two in the picture, a Mark IV female on the left and a male Mark IV on the right.  They’re both resin models from Great War Miniatures, being well detailed and finely cast.



I also wanted to paint a couple of Austin armoured cars at the same time, so I have added these to the thread.  Both are from Sloppy Jalopy.  I managed to assemble both in about a couple of hours, the second one being quicker than the first.  



I found the suspension on the Austins a little tricky at first to glue on, having to balance the model carefully upside down.  



Once the model is stable, however, the suspension, the axle and the wheels glue on pretty easily.  



I tend to use an epoxy resin for modelling resin/metal kits.  Perhaps this is force of habit, but it also seems to me to give a better, slightly less brittle join than superglue.  I’d be interested if you also find that, or indeed whether you abandoned epoxy resin in the 1980s.

The door-shelf on the Austin glues on quite well, as does the plate below the door on the other side of the car.  However, I wanted to ensure that the shelf and plat stayed in place and I supported both with a wadge of green-stuff as well as gluing both the metal shelf and plate to the resin car.





All in all, I thought that the Sloppy Jalopy Austin armoured car kit was great value for money and went together pretty well.  I also got great service from Richard at Sloppy Jalopy, and I think that always sets you in a good frame of mind to make a model.

I also added a 1914 Prince Henry Vauxhall to the force, this really being a little “fluff” for the back rank of the wargames table. My idea was to possibly use this in a scenario to signify a company headquarters, especially with the two battalion officers and the motorcycle despatch rider. The model was “Y-02-3” in the Matchbox Models of Yesteryear range, picked up on Ebay.



The bases of the cars are all marine plywood, and then textured using fine gravel and cardboard. The random bricks dotted around all the bases are cut matchsticks.  I like the idea of a more “industrial” feel to my Great War terrain, and have been adding a few ruined factories and commercial buildings over the past few months for a contrast to the more open terrain boards I built last year.  I painted the bases completely before pinning and gluing the primed and undercoated vehicles to the bases.

Well, that’s the work-in-progress thread started.  I’ll post again, hopefully this weekend once I’ve moved things along a little further.

[Hammers]

After the weekend and last night, the Tank Corps crewmen are about 90% of the way there.  I've added a few (pretty hasty) photographs which I took last night.  I'll do a more decent photo session when I've finished everything.





I double-checked a couple of references this weekend and went with many of the crewmen wearing dark tan or khaki, instead of black, overalls.  I think I mis-read one of the references in “Band of Brigands” to black overalls, but a quick check on the “Landships” site, and the Osprey “British Battle Insignia 1914-1918” has hopefully (fingers crossed) put me straight.  I came to the view that it probably doesn’t matter a huge amount, as I doubt that the overalls, whatever colour they started with, stayed that way for long.  At least not if Lieutenant A.A. Dalby of “B” Battalion’s letter home in January 1917 is anything to go by :“I wish you could see me come in from my present course. Clad in overalls (khaki) and absolutely one mass of grease, oil and dirt” (“Tank Action in the Great War”, page 26).  I doubt that the crewmen would be a lot cleaner in the field.



I painted one of the officers in a darker coloured set of overalls, trying to replicate a well known photograph of Second-Lieutenant Reginald Lyles, MC at the Tank Museum at Bovington wearing what appears to be a pair of leather overalls.  I’m guessing that officers with a bit of cash to spare might well have supplemented their standard uniform with such things when on leave.  I’m going to try and get a “leathery” look for the officer’s overalls with the help of some satin varnish.





I also finished up the casualty bases.  I’ve no idea if the wiring used in the Mark IV tanks was coloured.  I’m guessing probably not, but I felt it made a nice touch, even if just to distinguish the wiring made from picture hanging wire from grass scatter on other bases!

Next, to finish the last 10% on the unconverted tank crewmen and then the staff officers/despatch rider.

[Hammers]

Slightly slower progress than I had hoped, Ladies and Gentlemen, owing to being busy at work.  Anyway, here's the command group just about finished.  I took a few liberties with the uniforms.  Although "B" Battalion wore, from 18th January 1917, "a band of distinctive colour 1 and a half inches wide around the shoulder strap against the seam" which was yellow ("Tank Action in the Great War", page 25), I couldn't find any record of arm-sashes being worn.  Same with the despatch rider.  In other words, the yellow arm-sashes are made up!

The chauffeur in the Prince Henry Vauxhall is from Sloppy Jalopy.  I thought he looked about the right scale for the car.  Other figures are Great War Miniatures.

I've started the Austin armoured cars and I'm hoping to get them done by the end of the day, my daughter's birthday party permitting!






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[Hammers]

I've just about finished the two Austin armoured cars this evening.



Just as a reminder of how they started....



Then a heavy wet brush of dark green (Vallejo Russian Green mixed with Vallejo Black) to serve as a base coat.



Then several coats of dry-brushing with a mix of Vallejo Russian Green with Vallejo German Camo Orange Ochre, adding progresively more of the ochre to try and bring out the contours and texture.  It's at this point that I realised that the resin casting of the cars was a little.....errrr......bumpy!!  



Then a heavily thinned (with white spirit) mix of burnt umber oil paint mixed with rust coloured weathering pigment flicked onto the cars with an old brush.  And yes, the mix and technique is straight out of the Forgeworld “Imperial Armour Masterclass Volume 1" book



OK, so it looks a bit like this after the oil colour weathering….



Then I washed a heavily thinned black oil colour into the various corners, rivets, shelves, bolts and armour plates on the cars.  I usually do this a couple of times, sometimes adding more, sometimes less thinners, trying to get the effect of shading onto the base paint.



Then I added a little more dry-brushing to simulate some mud, mixing a Plaka Yellow-Brown (Gelb-braun) dry-brush with some weathering pigments for texture and a little colour.

I added the details last, which on these Austin armoured cars were really just the unit numbers and some dark-rust weathering pigment fixed in place with an artists matt varnish on the tow chains.  



Well, that’s about it for the command group and the armoured cars.  They just need varnishing and the bases finishing off with some static grass, barbed wire and a couple of other touches and then on to the tanks later this week and next weekend!

[Hammers]

With apologies Ladies and Gentlemen for the continuing slow progress of this .... err....”September Project”, I’ve added some photos below of constructing the Mark IV tanks.  What took me so long, I hear you ask.  Well, I suppose I can claim to have been busy in my non-hobby life.  Sure, but that’s only been part of the reason.  The other major difficulty I had was in keeping myself motivated to build four of the tanks.  One was fun, two fine, but the third and fourth were a really painful exercise.  So, mea culpa, and I’ve learnt a salutary lesson when it comes to building sections of tanks in 28mm – go for the smaller section of three tanks not four!  

That being said, here’s the snaps from the Roundwood Workbench.



Ok, first stage, give the resin a good clean.  I figured that as the Great War Miniatures tanks have smelt very resin-y since arriving at Roundwood Towers, they were probably coated with some invisible release agent.  Thinking I’d best take no chances, I did the metalled parts as well.  Oh, and don’t forget to wash the sponsons...



As they arrived, fresh out of Northstar Nick’s parcel, I thought the Great War Miniatures Mark IVs were a nice kit.  Certainly the surface detail was very finely sculpted, with numerous rivets, pistol loopholes and access hatches.  There were some pretty pronounced mould lines on the models, however, especially at the rear of the tank.  The same mould line appeared on each of the rear tank tread, but is pretty easily removed with a scalpel.  I’m sure I can strategically place some mud on the part of the track which was affected, anyway.  There was one tank with a mould line across the rear .. ‘fender’ (?).... of the tank, so some green stuff smoothed that down.



I had a little less fun with the large roll-bars which were such a prominent feature of the Mark IV.  These were fitted to allow a “ditching beam” (basically a reinforced iron railway sleeper) to be chained around the tank tracks and rolled over the top of the tank if, or more likely when, the tank “ditched” in the mud of the battlefield.  The iron roll-bars seemed to be present in almost all of the photos of Mark IVs I’ve seen, and are a nice feature to add.  However, the Great War Kit’s roll-bars are a bit fiddly to fit, to say the least.  I ended up gently bending them and cutting down the locating lugs.  



The reason for this is that models in my games are used at my local club as well as at home.  I therefore wanted to make sure that the roll-bars were are as securely fixed as possible to the tank.  To do this I glued the front roll-bar to the cabin of the tank, rather than (as would have been more historically accurate) leaving the bar elevated slightly above the cabin.  OK, so I’m not a purist, and I admit the models are not strictly accurate.  It’s a compromise, but if it means I never need to repair a broken roll-bar, I’m happy.

The roll-bars also needed a fair bit of filing before fitting. I wanted a smooth cast steel look for the top of the roll bars but the casting of the roll-bars wasn’t perfect.  As you can see, filing the bars was a pretty tedious task when you have 16 to do (4 for each chance).  Time for some music or a podcast, I think ...



Hopefully you can see in this picture the filed smooth right roll-bar being fitted to the top of the tank’s cabin.  Without removing the front locating lugs the bar would have been elevated above the cabin’s roof.  Hopefully, with the roll-bar being glued to the cabin roof instead, it will be more robust on the gaming table.  Fingers crossed...



Now for a more pleasant task, the sponsons.  These fitted well on the Male Mark IVs, but there’s quite a bit of trimming to do on the female Mark IVs as without this the entrance/escape doors under the Female sponsons won’t fit flush with the side of the model.  



One this is done, however, the sponsons look very impressive, and are nicely cast on both Male and Female models. The 6-pdrs guns on the Male tanks fitted fine.  My main decision here was whether to go with the Hotchkiss machine guns which Great War Miniatures supply all the Mark IV models with. My reading of the Mark IVs in action in 1917 at Passchendaele and Cambrai was that they were still equipped with the Lewis gun with an ammunition drum.  Ian Verrinder in his excellent “Tank Action in the Great War” mentions that at Fontaine on 22 November 1917 the Lewis guns performed particularly badly, with many Lewis Guns being rendered unworkable in the action, not least through the guns being vulnerable to armour-piercing bullets and splinters (page 156-157).  

After reading this, I was keen to give my clubmates who are aspiring Great War ‘tankies’ some realistic problems with “B” Battalion’s Lewis guns.  I wanted to swop the supplied Hotchkiss for some Lewis guns to fit into tank sponsons.  No-one yet makes these, but from most of the photos of Mark IVs from Ypres and Cambrai all that really can be seen is the Lewis gun’s metal tubing.  I therefore used some brass rod cut to the same length and drilled out the sponson holes accordingly.  Not a perfect solution, I admit, but I liked the slightly different look it gave.





The long partly asbestos-covered exhaust was easy to fit without much work.  I added a slightly greater bend to a couple of the exhausts supplied.  Apart form that, perfect.



Then to fitting the roll-bars.  You don’t want to do this too early, as once they’re fitted the model becomes a lot more delicate. It was a juggling act trying to glue these chaps in place and took a number of goes to get the first one right.  The others were quicker, but by the end of the fourth, I was thoroughly hacked off with the project !!      The problem was in getting the bars to hold in place while the glue set.  I mainly use araldite because an epoxy, at least in my eyes, is less brittle than super glue, especially when you’re using the models a lot in gaming.  But in situations like this, super glue, in retrospect (and especially with an accelerant), would have been better.  In the end, even after the roll-bars were glued I added some thin solution super-glue (the sort you use for naval rigging) to the more exposed joins for greater strength.



At least once you’ve got the roll-bars in place, you’re almost there.  Next step was the ditching beam.  Great War Miniatures’ early castings of Mark IVs didn’t seem to have these, which is a real shame as the ones now supplied are very nice indeed.  They are well cast and a fine chunk piece of metal which adds a lot to the finished model.  I glued them in place on the roll-bars, holding them in place with blu-tac as they dried.  



I was in a bit of a quandary about how these beams were actually attached in action.  I searched the books I had looking for photos without success, and looked on the Landships website for more information without finding anything.  There were several accounts, particularly at Passchendaele, of the ditching beam being shot away by enemy shelling, so I did wonder whether they were lashed on with ropes.  However, as the ditching beams were clearly chained on when the “unditching” process was happening (the Osprey Mark IV has a great illustration of this), I settled for the fact that the ditching beams were probably chained on.  I got some 14 link-per-25mm chains from 4D Models and glued these in place near to where the roll-bars joined.  I made sure that the chain ends were equal lengths to ensure that it looked as if the beam was double chained to the roll-bars.  If anyone has any information as to how the ditching beams were actually secured, I’d be very interested, although please note I am not changing the models now !  







All that was left was a quick spray with Halford’s car primer and they’re ready for painting and weathering.   I carved an offcut of Styrofoam the size to fit into the underside of the model to hold each tank as it’s painted.  



Finally, to provide a bit of inspiration, I put the tanks on the gaming table, trundling through a shell-pocked wood to try and get me motivated to finish!  Wish me luck!



How did I rate the Great War Miniatures mark IV as a model to build?  Probably about 7 out of 10 for the Female and 8 out of 10 for the Male (owing to the Female's entrance/escape doors not fitting well).  It's a very nicely cast kit, but the roll-bars are a real pain to fit.  Probably add an extra "1" if you're just doing one model instead of four!

[Hammers]

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.

[Hammers]

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.  

[Hammers]

I just felt liek bumping this oldie-but-goldie. it's worth bringing to light again.