Matador Model's
1/72 Tadpole Tail Conversion kit

The Mark IV was a great improvement over earlier types, and were first used in action in June 1917 and by November formed the greater part of the strength of the Tank Corps at the battle of Cambrai. Especially the last battle finally made the German High Command sit up and notice, and a number of hurried counter-measures were introduced by the German Army. One of them was quite simply digger much wider trencher, making it well near impossible for the tanks to get across.

As a way of countering the counter-measure the so called "Tadpole Tail" was introduced. It consisted of a mild steel extension of the rear horns which increased the span which could be traversed from 10 ft to about 14 ft. This device lacked rigidity, however, and also the tank became diffucult to control. Dozens of these Tadpole extensions were actually shipped to france, but there is no hard proof that they were ever used in action. A “Tadpole Tail” Mark IV was later fitted with a 6-in. trench mortar between the rear horns, to experiment with close support for tanks in the attack. There were also made some experiments using these Tadpole Tail Tanks as supply carriers: the platform at the rear could be used to carry stores, and at the same time supply sledges could be towed.
 

This is another "At last!" that comes courtesy of Matador Models. Finally we have a conversion kit of one of this rare variant of the British Mk IV, the Tadpole Tail. The kit comes packed in the black cardboard box with orange header, typical of Matador Models, with the parts in zip-lock bags. (Notice that you will need either the EMHAR Mk IV kit or the Airfix Mk I in order to build this kit.)

The kit is done in light yellow resin, and consists of nine main parts (the sponson and sides, fitting lugs, plus the rear platform) plus a generous amount of their excellent WW1 Tank track-links. The last thing is of course a necessity, as the old EMHAR rubber track, besides being rather akward to use in itself, will not be able to cover all the new lengths of sponson.

The moulding is fine, with almost no flash. The moulding stubs are small and easily removed.

The details are ok and all there, but are not as delicate as on the kit they are to be mated with, which actually gives a bit of a weird effect, with rivets, etc, being almost twice the size of the rivets on the original hull. This is not great but acceptable, as in real life the tadpole tail extension WAS made separately from the hull, and the discrepancy will sort of underline this.

This is not a simple slap-together kit. You will have to do some very careful cutting at the plastic kit, at a line on the rear were the new tadpole tails will be fitted. It is important that you do this very carefully. Also, any irregularities in gluing together the kit sponsons will give you slight fitting problems. (The actually fitting is made easy, with the help of a couple of ingenious plugs, supplied in the kit.)

To see the kit fully built, click here!

You can get this kit directly from Matador Models.
 

This is a nice kit, enabling you to do a tadpole Tail Mk IV that really looks the part. The rather crude details on the new tail sponsons will perhaps put some off, but I think in a finished kit this will probably not be too noticable.