BEUTEPANZER (LOOT TANK)
Model by Franco Fusco
The Germans salvaged many British tanks from the Cambrai battlefield and were able to repair and re-employ about 40 captured MARK IV tanks, organised in four companies.
Due to shortage of British ammunition, the Lewis machine guns were retained and adapted to fire German ammunition, while some “Male” were re-equipped with the Belgian 5.7cm quick-firing Maxim Nordenfelt Model 1888 gun. In late autumn of 1918, some Female tanks were issued the 13 mm Mauser Tankgewehr M1918 anti-tank rifle, that could be easily mounted to replace one of the machine guns.
The first operational use of the Mark IV Beutepanzer took place during Operation Michael, on March 21, 1918. By that date, the Germans had only two operational units. Abteilung 1, with five A7V tanks, and Abteilung 11 with five captured Mark IV Females tanks. Later on, Beutepanzer units were made up of two Male and three Female tanks.
NOTES:
The bundle consists of eleven sheets for the two models to be printed on 100 g/sm and 160 g/sm (suggested) paper, and nine sheets for the instructions.
Once downloaded, the sheets can be printed as often as you like, which means you can build any number of MARK IV Beutepanzer Landships very cheaply.
You will need scissors, a craft knife, a metal ruler, glue, 100 g/sm and 160 g/sm (recommended weight) paper, 1mm card (I recommend finnboard/wood pulp board), cereal box type card, light card, cocktail sticks and pins. You will also need brush pens of various colours (sepia, grey, etc…) to touch up the parts, all of which are described in the included how-to section.
The sheets are laid down in A4 format. Print your sheets at “fit to page” setting (Adobe Acrobat) onto A4 paper and US legal sized paper, on US letter size will print at 93%.
You can, of course, print the MARK IV Beutepanzer in any scale you choose, making it extremely flexible in this respect.
Our Motto is Paper Landships, Proper Landships!
Enjoy