HISTORY

The Mark IV was Great Britain's most numerous tank to reach combat in WWI. Germany captured and/or salvaged Mark IVs from the battlefield and were redeployed against the Allies. These captured tanks in German service were known as "Beutepanzerwagen."

There were two armed versions of the Mark IV; the Male and Female. The Male had two sponson-mounted 57 mm cannon and three .303 in machine guns. The Female had five .303 in machine guns. Germany deployed both types, but Females were nearly 3 to 1. Rhomboid-shaped track runs were designed to allow the crossing of enemy trenches.

Germany completed reconditioning of approximately 66 captured Mark IVs in 1918 at a former rail depot in occupied Belgium. Attempts were made to replace the British armament with German ones. Ultimately, the Female retained the British Lewis machine guns, but many were rechambered for German 7.92 mm ammo.

The first detachments were mobilized in March 1918, the last in August 1918. Mechanical breakdowns and spare parts deficiencies prevented Germany from fielding more than 20 Mark IVs at a time, except at Chemin des Dames and Champagne. Such few numbers prevented any combat effectiveness.

PAINTING

The Germans captured many Mark IVs and applied large crosses over the existing British colors. The model used paints from the Vallejo Model Air line. The British Khaki was a mixture of Dark Earth and Sand. The crosses were airbrushed using stencils from DN Models, which are laser-cut vinyl with an adhesive backing and worked very well except that they didn't conform to the numerous rivets. The next steps are to paint the three-color German camouflage around the existing Khaki.

The first coat of British Khaki is on and the German crosses have been applied using stencils from DN Models.

Initial Mark IV Beutepanzerwagens remained in British colors but had two large Iron Crosses neatly painted on each side in durable paint.

Camouflage colors of green, brown and yellow were added. The British Brown remains on the roof.

As German reconditioning proceeded, captured tanks were camouflaged with Belgian rail stock colors (yellow, brown and green) at the depot in Charleroi. In addition, it's possible that an ivory paint was applied. The roof is mostly British Brown and then I used MIG-061 Warm Sand Yellow and MIG-060 Pale Green from the AMMO of Mig 'French Tanks Colors' paint set. The red-brown was a custom mix of Vallejo Model Color 908 Carmine Red, 982 Cavalry Brown and 955 Flat Flesh. The ratio was 10:5:5. My reasoning was that a Belgium factory would likely use colors similar to those used on French armor.

Tank No.5 of Beute-Abteilungen 11 was named 'Hedda.' Here, tape is being used as a stencil to airbrush the name in white on the glacis plate.

WEATHERING

Many different weathering steps were carried out after the basic paint was applied. Artists' oil paints were used for filtering, color fading, grease stains, speckling and outlining. Each rivet head was touched with lightened shades of the (acrylic) camouflage colors. The unditching beam rails were painted various oxidized-steel browns and sponge daubed dark grey. The tracks were painted a metallic shade and then washed with wet pigments and speckled with earth tones. Wear points were rubbed silver. A wet pigment dust wash was applied overall.

FINAL STEPS

The roof bin was stocked with resin fuel tins, chain and a resin box. The exhaust was painted various browns and rust tones. Pigments were applied dry around areas of track travel and locked down with pigment fixative.

REFERENCES

• Beute-Tanks, British Tanks in German Service Vol.1, by Rainer Strasheim, Tankograd Publishing, 2011

• Beute-Tanks, British Tanks in German Service Vol.2, by Rainer Strasheim, Tankograd Publishing, 2011

• The German A7V Tank and the Captured British Mark IV Tanks of World War I, by Rainer Strasheim & Maxwell Hundleby, Haynes Publishing, 1990