Category: Spotlights

Includes four Hotchkiss HMG teams.

With the machine-gun ruling no-man’s-land, we are lucky to have the French Hotchkiss mle 1914 heavy machine-gun to call on for support. Either beating back a German attack or providing a machine-gun bombardment for our advancing troops, we have one of the best machine-guns available.

Check out the Machine-gun Platoon in the online store here…

Designed by Evan Allen
Painted by Aaron Mathie

The Hotchkiss HMG Team

The Machine-gun Platoon in Great War
Unit cards for the Machine-gun Platoon are contained in the Great War American Unit Card pack (GUS901)…

Includes one Mark V* Male, Female or Hermaphrodite Tank and one Decal Sheet

The latest variant is the Mark V* tank with it lengthened body to carry a section of troops. Its increased length also gave it amazing trench and terrain crossing abilities. Like all the other female marks, the Mark V* female tank is festooned with machine-guns

Check out the Mark V* Tank in the online store here…

The Mark V* male tank shares all the characteristics of the female variant except it houses a 6-pounder gun in each of its side sponsons, replacing one of its Vickers machine-guns on each side.

Like the Mark V, the Mark V* tank also came in a hermaphrodite variant that mounted a sponson with two Vickers machine-guns on one side and a sponson with a 6-pounder gun and one Vickers machine-gun on the other side. This gave it the hard hitting firepower of the gun, without compromising too much of its machine-gun fire.

Designed by Evan Allen 
Painted by Victor Pesch

The Mark V* Male Tank

The Mark V* Female Tank Decal Sheet

The Mark V* Tank in Great War
Unit cards for the Mark V* Tank are contained in the Great War British Unit Card pack (GBR901)…

Includes one Mark V Male, Female or Hermaphrodite Tank and one Decal Sheet

The Mark V was a more reliable improvement on the Mark IV and was used in the later battles of 1918. ‘Female’ tanks could unleash a torrent of machine-gun fire, while ‘Male’ tanks would smash the enemy trenches with high-explosive six-pounder fire.

Check out the Mark V Tank in the online store here…

The Mark V ‘Male’ variant carried two six pounder guns and four .303″ Hotchkiss Mk 1 machine-guns. The Mark V ‘Female’ variant replaced the two six pounder guns with two more .303″ Hotchkiss Mk 1 machine-guns – a total of six machine-guns! There was also a version with one of each sponson type, creating a Mark V ‘hermaphrodite’.

Designed by Evan Allen 
Painted by Victor Pesch

The Mark V Male Tank

The Mark V Female Tank

Decal Sheet

The Mark V Tank in Great War
Unit cards for the Mark V Tank are contained in the Great War British Unit Card pack (GBR901)…

Includes one Mark IV Male or Female Tank and one Decal Sheet.

The Mark IV tank incorporated several automotive and structural improvements over earlier designs. One of the key characteristics of the British rhomboidal tanks was the primary armament being carried in external sponsons on both sides of the tank.

Check out the Mark IV Tank in the online store here…

Its six-cylinder Diamler engine provided 105hp giving the 28-ton vehicle a top speed of about 4mph. The vehicle required a very large crew of eight to man the various armaments and control the vehicle. Simply steering the vehicle required the coordinated effort of four crewmen: the driver, two gearsmen, and the commander. The driver controlled the primary gearbox, the gearsmen controlled the high/low gear ratios separately on each track, and the commander controlled the brakes. Reverse gear was controlled by the driver, but the gear ratio was set fairly high resulting in poor reverse performance for the vehicle, making it difficult for the Mark IV to un-ditch itself.

The Mark IV was produced in two major variants, 420 ‘male’ tanks which carried two six pounder guns and three Lewis .303 machine guns, and 595 ‘female’ tanks, in which the six-pounder guns were replaced with two additional Lewis machine guns.

Designed by Evan Allen
Painted by Victor Pesch

The Mark IV Male Tank

The Mark IV Female Tank

Decal Sheet

The Mark IV Tank in Great War
Unit cards for the British Mark IV Tank are contained in the Great War British Unit Card pack (GBR901)…
Unit cards for the German Mark IV Tank are contained in the Great War German Unit Card pack (GGE901)…

Includes one Mark A Whippet Tank

While the Mark I and later the Mark IV tanks were excellent infantry support weapons, and could even create a substantial breach in an enemy line when used in numbers, they lacked the speed to exploit that gap. In late 1916, William Tritton proposed a faster vehicle to the Landships Committee which would be capable of filling this role on the battlefield.

Check out the Mark A Whippet in the online store here…

Unlike the large crew of the Mark IV, the Whippet managed with a standard crew of three, a commander, driver, and gunner. Given the gunner was responsible for manning both two machine guns (which could point forward, left, right, and rear), sometimes a second gunner was squeezed in.

As its primary role was to get these guns into the enemy rear as quickly as possible, the Whippet was designed with two 45hp engines-one powering each track. This gave the Whippet a top speed of 8.3mph, far faster than its heavier cousins.

Designed by Tim Adcock
Painted by Victor Pesch

The Mark A Whippet Tank

The Mark A Whippet Tank in Great War
Unit cards for the Mark A Whippet Tank are contained in the Great War British Unit Card pack (GBR901)…