‘E’ Company, Heavy Section Machine Gun Corps, (later ‘E’ Company, Tank Corps) with 22 officers and 226 other ranks under the command of Major N. Nutt, was dispatched to Palestine in mid-December 1916. The crews, support staff and equipment left from Devonport bound for Alexandria, Egypt where they arrived in January 1917. The tanks themselves – twelve new Mk IIs delivered direct from the factory – were to sail from Avonmouth a week later.
Due to an administrative error however, eight old Mk I tanks being delivered from Thetford to Bovington for training use, arrived at Avonmouth and were mistakenly loaded aboard the ship. By the time the mistake was discovered, loading was almost complete and there was no time to correct the problem before the scheduled sailing date. ‘E’ company therefore received the wrong tanks.
The unit received four Mk I Males and four Mk I Females. They left Gilban, Egypt for Palestine in February but due to delays in the rail trip, arrived just too late for the 1st Battle of Gaza on 26th March. They remained at the front and six of the eight saw action in the 2nd Battle of Gaza from 17th April to 19th April. The remaining two were present but took no active part in the operation.
Takom provides markings for 'Sir Archibald' but the kit requires some modifications, both to rectify basic shortcomings and to accurately depict the vehicle in question.
The kit's cab is too narrow, being patterned after the Mk IV cab. Mk IVs were supposed to get wider tracks, though they were never fitted, and the cab was narrowed for clearance. MR Modellbau makes a resin cab with the correct width and I fitted that to the Takom kit.
The MR Modellbau set is not without its problems however. The rivet spacing on the cab should match that on the hull but it doesn't. Again I suspect it was partly patterned after the Mk IV cab. I replaced the rivets along the lower front and rear edges with Tichy Train items, though I left the upper ones as is.
The MR Modellbau set gives you a separate flange for the front of the cab where it joins the glacis. On my example, the part was warped in two dimensions so rather than attempting to fit it, I replaced it with styrene strip.
The vehicles sent to Gaza had no steering tails, so I omitted these parts from the kit (as Takom directs in the instructions).
There are conflicting accounts of whether the vehicles had the hydraulics removed when they lost their tails. I decided to remove the ram but leave the shield since it's evident in photographs from Palestine.
The eight vehicles sent to Palestine were among those fitted with the mounts for spaced armor on their roofs, though the armor plates themselves were never fitted. I therefore added the spacers and bolts using Tichy Train hex bolts, using a pattern I found on the Landships web site.
The model is now ready for paint. More photos to come.
Neil
