Den Bels Medium DM

I intended to build all the early British medium tanks and had completed kits of Medium A Whippet, Medium B Whippet and Medium C Hornet. This left Johnson's Medium D, of which there were a number of experimental prototypes, but never a production model. Neither was there a kit, so I set about researching drawings to do a scratchbuild. Then, unexpectedly, I stumbled across Den Bels Models' new 1/72 resin kit of the Medium DM, the last in the Medium D series and intended to be the definitive version. So I was delighted to build this amazing vehicle. Amazing on several fronts - it used Johnson's wire hawser tensioned "snake" tracks as a novel form of suspension, was intended to be amphibious (but sank at least once in trials on the Thames) and had a weight of 18 tons, with a max speed of ~20 mph. Fast for its time (1921). Even so, it was a rather large vehicle and dwarfs the other medium tanks of the time. It was J F C Fuller's intended vehicle for Plan 1919 that envisaged fast highly mobile vehicles to break through enemy lines and wreak havoc behind the lines. Unfortunately it would have been too mechanically unreliable and only had machine gun armament.

The kit is quite simple to build, with only a small number of parts. The detailing is good and I was pleased that it compared well with my own drawings.