Gilles Thomas 1/35 Models

The model is the RPM kit, a pretty nice pet even if the general assembly is a bit complex. I've extensively reworked the hull with new rivets as the original kit rivets are too small. There are also a lot of small improvement : new air intake on the roof, the vision ports on the front, the driver's flap and so on. I've also made a scratchduilt idler to have a WW1 wood model. The kit's parts depict a late steel idler just good for the tank used during the Thirties and WW2. I changed the suspension springs using copper wire and improved the supports of the return rollers which are too narrow. Fixing the running gear along the side need care, as the kit layout is not the very good. Built straight fom the box, the tank is too large.

And what about the turret? The flat sided turret in the kit is very crude and as far I know the general shape is closer to an american Six Ton than a Renault. I've built a new one using the old Bellona drawings. I think it look much better...

Painting the model is a great pleasure as I wanted to depict a tank used in Argonne during the 1918 summer. I've no picture of it, just a story my grand father told to my when I was a child! He was in a trench artillery unit and during days of rest in the french second or third line he spends some time with a Renault tank crew. He remember them because they called their tank "le Tidou", just the name of his dog before the War! I haven't painted the name as he just told me the tank wear the red square and the name but not where it was painted and I was not yet a modeller to ask him at that time...

Too late now...

Indeed building this modell is some kind of homage to his memory.

/Gilles Thomas

This Emhar kit is not so bad and quite direct «from the box». I've just textured the armor plate with a dremel and open the vision ports. The MG sponsons also need some work to correct the MG mounting. If I had to built it now, I would also change the front vision ports and drill a triangular hole inside the to horn in the rear. 

The paint scheme and markings are also from the box, this particulary tank was in use during the «bloody week» in early 1919 in Berlin. There are some existing pics: in the D Flechter book «British tanks» page 159, were you can see it was rearmed with maybe two MG 09 (one on each sponson) but it seems retain the original Lewis in front and also retained the rails on top - damn, I've forgot them ! A picture of maybe the same tank, beeing dismantled by workers, can be found in the Waffen Arsenal no.112 «Deutsche Kampfwagen im erstes Weltkrieg ». To break the general lines, I let one sponson in British green. An hypothetic last minute change! 

/Gilles T.

There is no 1/35 Mark V plastic kit, so I've to convert an Ehmar Mark IV. The differences are more important than I thought before beginning my work ! Most of them are noticeable on the pictures : Driving cab, exhaust, commander turret, rear access doors and fuel tank. The sides are also to be altered with different armor plate layout behind the sponsons and ventilation louvres. Note that the general shape of those male sponson is wrong. I think that most of the work should be the same with Emhars smaller 1/72 kit.

There are always mistakes on my models, and I always notice them to late! With the Mark V, they are one more time located inside the rear horns: here I drilled the holes I forgot on the Mark IV, and when looking on pictures of the Bovington Mark V I notices that... there was no hole at that place! It's also possible that this individual tank, like most of the Mark V send to Russia, had been an hermaphrodite with one male and one female sponson, but it's very hard to see on the pictures !

The markings are dedicated to the Ex-White Russian Mark Vs that, together with some Renault FT-17:s, were the first Soviet AFVs. I choose here the very intricate light green/dark green paint scheme, but there was also a more weawy scheme. The tank from the second armoured platoon in south Russia 1920. Be careful with the markings : the designation at this time should not be URSS, but RSFR. Picture and drawings are provided by the Armada number 14, a very useful booklet, even if most of the text is in Russian. 

/Gilles T.

This is a scratch-built model of the last prototype in the A7V family. Only roadwheels, tracks and guns were taken from the old Tauro model. 

The whole job needs a lot of explanation as I spend two years working on this tank that only lived some months. I found it a very interesting design, as it mixed the British romboid design and the German suspension and internal layout. Most of the technical informations are coming from Max Hundelby's very informative article in «The Tankette»: a good small scale drawing appeared in Volume 20 issue number 3. Compared with the construction, the paint scheme and markings are rather simple: a very dirty gray-green and a white «524» painted on a black square on the rear of the fuel tank.