An interesting shot of the Ethiopian 7TP tanks before delivery
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Following on from my brief description of the Vickers tank in the last post, I’ve knocked up a Vickers twin-turret ‘6-toner’ to supplement the Abyssinian Armoured Field Force tank pool. Its been sitting on the desk for a while and now seems a good time to get it done!
This vehicle, equipped with twin MGs should prove to be a handful for the Italians unless they have some ‘heavy hitter’ artillery in tow as this vehicle is well suited to anti-infantry operations in Ethiopia.
So, without further ado here are some snaps (and comments) of the paint job and a final review by the Emperor himself!
The model is the Warlord Games Twin-turreted Polish 7TP tank.
In keeping with the backstory of the Abyssinian Armoured Field Force, this particular model was made on the production run of Polish twin-turret Vickers tanks built from March 1935. A ‘few extra’ rolled off the production line and found their way to Addis Ababa instead of Warsaw…
There are a few of these vehicle models around but this one does the job nicely and ‘fits’ my backstory as well! The colours shown are the base and top coat colours. I went for the quasi-Polish camo scheme replacing the red-brown with a dark-brown which is a paint colour variation I have seen for these Polish tanks. This fits in nicely with Emperor Haile Selassie mandated edict about foreign vehicle camouflage and markings…and I like the colour scheme!
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Here you can see the bottom colours on. The whole model was first given a coat of the dark brown, followed by the green and then base yellow colour. The application was a simple ‘stipple brush’ method, nothing to particular, just done to please the eye and give the general look of it all.
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Once those base colours have dried it a simple matter of adding the top colours being careful to leave an edge around each colour to provide a ‘shaded edge’ effect on the model. I find this method very simple and effective to give a shaded look to the model without going into the whole airbrushing technique and all that. I think at eye distance it nicely ‘pops’ on table as well, using this method.
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Final touch ups were to paint the tracks using a dark and mid grey highlight…done! I have at this point put the open hatch in the down position (using a blob of blu-tac underneath to secure it) and when I get a suitable crew member painted up I’ll pop him in for a slightly more Ethiopian look.
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Inspection by Emperor Haile Selassie and high command.
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…a closer look…I may go back and highlight the rivet work with some ink as the interwar ‘rivet look’ is part of the appeal…
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…not sure if the Turkish officer is going to be of much help here but one officer would appear to be studiously taking the Emperor’s notes so all shall be well!
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So, there you go, a nice quirky interwar tank that one can easily include in the Abyssinian Crisis story which should give Benny’s boys more than a bit of a surprise the next time they run up against the Ethiopians.
😉
THE ABYSSINIAN CRISIS