Photos of the Great War Society's display and other exhibits at Tankfest 2013 at the Tank Museum, Bovington. As a tip of the hat to the Great-uncle of a chap who joined us on our display, we portrayed the crew of D50 'Dainty Dinmont', the story being that our Mk IV, B46 'Big Brute' had been newly transferred to our unit and not re-marked yet
A7V and (part of the 18!) crew
Our Officer during his talk on the Tank Corps, the men and the machines
With Sewell VC's Whippet
Germans and 'captured' Mk IV
Taken in a dust cloud created by movements in the arena
Nice photos Rob, thanks for sharing them with us. Looks like all re-enactors must have had a good time. Only gripes are that the A7V could do with a little weathering, and the MkIV wants cleaning up and repainting in a more convincing colour!
Good selection of photos there, wish I could have made it. :(
It did make me think though (Yes it does happen some times)... When is Bovi going to get itself a working FT for its displays? Must be something out there they could beg, steal or borrow for next year??
You do know that if I had been there I would have tried to stow away on one of the tanks for the display. :)
What's wrong with the Mk IV colour? I think it looks pretty good, a LOT better than the original bright green it was first painted in (how, I don't know....). A7V wise it would look better with some more weathering, hopefully the dust over the weekend gave it a nice look by Sunday evening (I didn't really notice)
I had a ride in the Mk IV during the Saturday display, definitely needed the helmet, came out with all my senses battered, and received just a tiny, tiny fraction of an idea of what it must have been like (it was mainly flat, there was plenty of room inside, there wasn't an engine right behind me, and I wasn't getting shot at, plus the fumes were nowhere near as bad nor the noise), and gave me a massive new-found respect for the Tankies
To me the Mk IV looks like it is still largely that green colour, just covered up with a bit of weathering (by paint, more of a tan/rust colour) in patches and some mud that looks like it was applied artificially. I think the mud does nothing for the look and should be washed off, then the whole thing repainted in a decent shade of tan, with Lodestar taken as reference - it is at least genuine WW1 paint, even if there would have been variations from tank to tank.
It would also benefit from some rear spaced armour plates being added.
-- Edited by TinCanTadpole on Friday 5th of July 2013 10:50:48 PM
Not sure how much mud is fake but there's definitely a lot of the real stuff on there, was told last year they left it on after the filming and there seemed to be more on it this year than last from driving around the arena. Back plates wise that's because it's a straight copy of the Mk IV Male in the museum, which doesn't have them either, unfortunately, as does the Emhar kit of course
Indeed. It is, of course not a big gripe. To keep things in perspective, I must say that it's great the museum has these replicas, especially given that they can't really use the originals anymore.
I'd agree with that - someone there was telling me there were plans to run the original but owing to money it didn't happen and was shelved. If I won the lottery, a Whippet replica would be my first port of call
It's that time again..... yet again i'll be there, with the Great War Society, portraying a crew member of the Mk IV Tank replica. Anyone else be there?
