The vehicle

“The Vickers Light Tank Mk.VI entered production in 1936 and was the culmination of a series of machine gun armed light tanks produced during the 1930s. At the outbreak of war these mainly reconnaissance focused light tanks formed the major part of Britain’s tank strength being used in France, Greece, Malta, Crete, Syria and North Africa.” [1]

The state we were in at that time – “when the Second World War began in September 1939, the vast majority of the tanks available to the British Army were Mk VIs” [2] – seems horrifying now. I can understand the reconnaissance and “colonial role” for these things, but up against a modern European army with some proper tanks (i.e. the Germans) they must have been found wanting.

The kit

Airfix 1/76 kit [1].

Having dismissed the vehicle above, why build it? First of all, it is tiny little kit and I sometimes like to intersperse such as this between the big, involved projects. Besides, being primarily a British Army armour modeller at this time, if I were to build only successful vehicles there would be a gap of about thirty years between the Mk IV of the First World War and the prototype Centurion at the end of the Second! As an aside, it seems that during that period all of the successful design work went into producing aircraft, which, as things transpired, was our deliverance.

References

1. http://www.airfix.com/vickers-light-tank-mk-vi-a-b-c-1-76.html
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Tank_Mk_VI
3. http://www.armorama.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=4105