15mm Vickers Light Tanks

I wanted to get some Vickers tanks for my WW2 desert British, both for early war actions, but also to use a Divisional Cavalry in operational games. They can also make a cute command tank for Armoured units.

I got one of the 'troop packs' from QRF. £11.50 for three tanks, with an extra 10% off in the sale. Not quite such good value as the Crusader troop packs as you get a lot more lead for your 11.50 in those, but compared to 6 quid for a single Zvezda one, stupidly cheap.

These are very delicate models as they are so small. Just four pieces - hull, turret and two track pieces. Some of the mouldings are very thin in places, and it easy to accidentally snap the tracks when handling them. There wasn't much flash though, just a few casting threads, and they went together easily enough, aided with Blu Tak and a slathering of super glue.

Like lots of early war tanks, these have nice sharp edges and all sorts of random bits which pick up a wash and a drybrush nicely. I did vaguely think about adding a commander to one of them, but couldn't be bothered to cut the cupola around. I might come back to that in future when I'm a bit less 'painted out'.

They are absolutely tiny vehicles, rather like a turreted Bren carrier. In fact many years ago I scratch built a 20mm Vickers using an Airfix Bren Carrier chassis.

I painted them all in Caunter as they are predominantly 1940/41 vehicles. The overall pattern is the same on all three (based on the model vehicle in the Vickers Armstrong Museum in Bamburgh), but I did three colour variations.

Baca Juga

The first is Dark Green over Light Green over Sand, which iirc was the second authorised pattern.

This one is Dark Green over Smoke Grey over Sand. Like the cruisers, they all got a pinwash over the camo sections to refresh the detail and the whole thing got an overall drybrush of Pale Sand which raised the highlights and faded the overall tone.

The last one is Dark Grey over Smoke Grey over Sand. The dark grey is actually Vallejo Panzer Grey, which is so dark it is almost black, but the Pale Sand drybrush lightens it considerably.

They were fun to put to together and paint, if a bit fiddly. At least they won't take up much space in the tank box!