British Mk IV Female Tank

Gaso.Line, 1/48 scale

Reviewed by Rob Baumgartner

FirstLook

Sadly, World War I armour has always been a poor cousin to the more popular subjects found in later conflicts.

Fortunately there are companies that want to address this shortfall and this release is one of many in Gaso.line's 1/48 scale range.

The kit comes in a sturdy cardboard box that contains 39 resin parts and a length of brass rod.

Packaging of the smaller items is good but I found the larger parts prone to rattle around inside the stout cardboard box. As a result, transportation of said items took its toll. This produced chipping of the moulded on track links, something that is not easy to fix.

The design of the kit is clever in that it allows for quick and straightforward assembly. There is only a modicum of flash and the pouring plugs are simple enough to eradicate.

None of the items in this example had any trapped air bubbles or contained deformities of any kind. Also pleasing was the sharpness of the detail. It was well defined and not too over stated.

The instruction sheet consists of two photocopied pages giving a breakdown of the parts as well as photos of the finished model. Part numbers are indicated on the latter and due to the type’s simple structure, these notes are quite adequate.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

If the modeller wishes to replicate the built up example on the box art, then they will have to look elsewhere for the decals as none are included in this release.

So now it should be a simple matter of picking a subject from period photographs and modelling it…should it not?

Well, you would be hard pressed finding one that matched some of the details on the kit. In fact comparison with restored examples found in various museums across the planet also produced differences. Normally one has to be very careful with such exhibits as there can be many salient points that get changed in this process. Fortunately there are three excellent vehicles that can be studied…the Brussels example being almost totally original.

One of the most obvious differences is the width of the penultimate armour plate on the side of the tank. This is drastically reduced and as a result, the manufacturers have seen fit to lengthen the track roller spacing to compensate.

Keeping to the side area of the Mk IV some of the rivet positioning, especially around the forward region of the vehicle, is in variance to wartime photos. The strip above the sponson doesn’t show the usual double row of fasteners and the proportions of the sponson detail will tend to raise an eyebrow.

The nit-picker will query the slightly under nourished circular rear end plates and the un-ditching beam rails are usually found with the angle facing the other way.

If one wants to include the rear armour shields, these will need fabricating from plastic card and one of the aforementioned museum examples will show the way here.

The exhaust has to negotiate a couple of roof hatches which will see it take a different path than that seen on some Mk IVs and consequently finishes a lot further to the starboard side than expected.

The foregoing is not a complete list of kit discrepancies but does give an indication of the type of study that is ahead of the avid builder.

Obviously there are variations between individual vehicles so it is up to the modeller to carefully scrutinise photographs to realise these.

Conclusion

Faithful reproductions of the Mk IV tank in kit form are scarce so it’s fair to say that the modeller has high expectations when a new kit is released.

Upon opening the box, the well formed pieces look most inviting. The problem is finding a vehicle that matches the features on this kit. If you can…then you will have a nice model of a famous subject. And most modellers will be happy to complete the kit “as is”; after all it does have the appearance of a Mk IV.

However, there are also builders that desire more from a kit, one that represents the “mainstream” subject found in period photographs. For those unlucky souls, there is much remedial work ahead of them.

Recommended with reservations

Thanks to Gaso.Line for the review sample