Not a tank in true sense of the work, the Mark IX was a purpose built armored personnel carrier (the first), and supply vehicle. Rather than design an entirely new "tank", the Mark IX was basically a stretched Mark V. Officially, it could hold 30 troops, or 10 tons of cargo. Ultimately, 34 of the vehicles were built with only a few completed before war's end. To test its amphibious abilities, a Mark IX was fitted with large pontoons along each side, and a smaller one at the front. Openings were sealed, bilge pumps were installed, and exhaust pipes were extended up above a "conning tower" which sat atop the hull. For propulsion, hinged paddles were affixed to the tracks. On November 11, 1918 (armistice day), the "Duck" was tested in Hendon Reservoir. After several minutes in the lake, the engine stalled, killing the bilge pumps. The vehicle started taking on a dangerous amount of water, and frantic signalling from the conning tower resulted in it being dragged to shore via ropes.
This is the first Wayne McCullough designed model I have ever built, and it's a honey. The fit of each and every part was perfect, and I encountered no difficulty during the build. Wayne obviously took into account the thickness of the paper in some of the parts. There is a disclaimer on the download page that the bounding box (whatever that is), is incorrectly sized on the parts page. Wayne's original model is 1/72 scale. I resized mine to 1/50, and did a Photoshop recolor to add dimensionality to the rivets. I used toothpicks and paper Q-tip shafts for all the stuff sticking up out of the conning tower. I wanted to show the paddles in their down position, and the only way I could do that was by elevating the model above its base. I textured the display base with green marble, hoping that it would also read subliminally as water.
It's a dark and dreary rainy day today, so the photos are a bit grainy from the low light.
Oh, I almost forgot. Landships II hosts the model, and it can be found here
Landships II
