What a glorious hunk of shit. I love it. It's slow, the armor is pathetic, it's power-to-weight ratio is low enough I'm surprised it moves at all. It's got 5 flamethrowers and it's not afraid to use them to commit war crimes that the Japanese government is still denying to this day.

I absolutely love this tank. Not only is it a breeze to put together, as it took me two hours to build and it went together so easily), but has so many little connotations that make it feel like what the lore says it is.

A relic.

These tanks were commonplace during the Wars of Unification. Those brutal wars in the early years of the Imperium, before the Great Crusade.

For me what cements this are the details. Firstly, the two hull sponsons. Not the weapons themselves but the fact that there are these two weapon mounts placed here. For me this makes me think of the strange tank designs of the Interwar period, specifically the Vickers A9 Cruiser MkI with the two smaller turrets in front of the main turret and the MkI-IV tanks of WWI. Also the M3 Lee comes to mind here too. Whilst the Vicker A10 Cruiser MkII replaced these turrets with a front armour section that housed the driver and forward machine gunner, it is this change that brings me to the front hull section.

What is this little cupola to the right of what is clearly the driver. Is this where the commander can pop his head out and block the lens above him which is for something, the hull sponsons I guess. This little bit of weird design is reminiscent of the VK45.01(P), also called the Tiger (P) [(P) stands for Porsche, for those who may make the mistake it for prototype or production, although one did see combat the rest were repurposed].

It is that vision slit and then angled armour that makes me think of this. Save for the additional little lens, it is almost a like for like remake of that little section.

The turret itself has a bit of a mix of thoughts for myself, the almost dome turret fits in with the Deimos pattern predator and Fellblade turrets, but the option of taking a dome turret is a little archaic for me too. This turret type has been part of the design process for a nearly as long as the tank itself has been a design, with it being present on the Vickers A1E1 Independent (it had 5 turrets, the main one was domed), the Renault G1 and AMX-40 (duck tank) in earlier periods, whilst in later periods the M60 and T-55 (I'm pretty the USSR ran with this idea on their other tanks, under all their reactive armour).

It is all these little details that made this tank a great one for me.

Okay, so this is clearly some kind of amphibious tank, but it doesn't look quite like one of those converted LVTs...

Medium Tank A/T-1*, British amphibious tank prototype, Interwar-WW2 era.

This is a failed British prototype, using a purpose-built hull and the turret from a Covenanter. It never saw combat, but that should be counted as a blessing, seeing as it was a death trap. In the end, the project was abandoned as other amphibious tanks that actually worked were developed. Note:

Tank Man, I was watching a Tank Museum video about WW1 tanks, and right at the end, when they were talking about interwar German developments, they showed this thing, right after showing the Neubaufahrzeug. I've never seen this thing before. What is this?

Leichttraktor Vs.Kfz.31 prototype, prototype german light tank, ~1930, Krupp and Rheinmetall

This was one of the various interwar German prototypes, and a vital step on the track of development from the A7V, Germany's only previous tank-building experience, and the Neubaufahrzeug and Panzer series that would come later.

Steampunk-ass looking weirdo

Vickers A1E1 Independent, Prototype British landship/medium tank, 1926, Vickers

This is an interwar tank design by Vickers of which only one was ever built. On its own, it's not very notable, but it is an important footnote in tank history as one of the earliest multi-turret heavy tanks, and is considered by some to be the father of the Russian T-35.

In my opinion, not really, and it has very little to do with the tankette itself. By 1937, China was so woefully behind the rest of the world in technology, industrialization, and development, that there was no real chance of a Chinese victory, especially against Japan, a nation that had seized onto the western tenets and methods of militarism, industrialism, and imperialism like second nature.

Großtraktor prototype Pz.Kpfw.Nb.Fz.V. "Neubaufahrzeug", German Light Tank, 1930s, Krupp, demilled for use as a monument.

This was one of Germany's Interwar "definitely not a tanks", which saw very limited use, beyond the use of several of its ideas and concepts in later tanks, mainly the Panzer I. (Below is an active version of the tanks at Weimar government trials.

ID on these? Picture is small, sadly, and colorized, but it's interesting. One seems to have two turrets?

Left: Vickers Mark E "Six-tonner" type B, "VAE-446", British light tank, 1928, Vickers

Right: Vickers Mark E "Six-tonner" type A, "VAE-532", British Twin-Turret Light Tank, 1928, Vickers

So, these two tanks actually have a pretty wildly interesting story. This picture of them was taken in Paraguay, after their capture in the Chaco War at the Second Battle of Alihautá, and were the last two Vickers tanks left over in the Bolivian armored division after the disastrous war. They remained in Paraguay for several years, however after that their fate becomes unclear.

Some reports show that VAE 446 was sent to Republican Spain in the Spanish Civil War, by way of a Soviet arms dealer. However, this is difficult to corroborate. What is known, however, is that VAE 552 was returned to Bolivia in 1994 as a gesture of good will. (Pictured below)