Die Waffenkammer FN001 Vickers 6 Ton Mk.E with 37mm Bofors Gun

Vickers 6 Ton Mk.E with 37mm Bofors Gun

Very fine resin WW II military vehicle kit, in 1/56 scale (28mm). Needs to be assembled and painted. Crew figure and stowage included.

Master by Jeff Trnka.

The Vickers 6-Ton Tank or Vickers Mark E was a British light tank designed as a private project at Vickers. It was not purchased by the British Army, but was picked up by a large number of foreign armed forces. It was licensed by the Soviets as the T-26. It was also the direct predecessor of the Polish 7TP tank.

Poland purchased 50 and licensed it for the local production, but only put together 38 out of 50, using the unassembled 12 for spare parts. The Poles modified it with larger air intakes, their own machine gun, 360-degree Gundlach periscope and 5 or more with two-way radios and decided to make their own tank that would address the shortcomings of the very Vickers: in the case of a 7TP, in fact nearly 10 tons heavy, the Poles also, besides the aforementioned telescope, added liquid-cooled Diesel engine as well as better armor protection, better ventilation, two-way radios, 37 mm Polish version of Bofors anti-tank gun, and a bigger crew compartment.

This model is the finnish version : Finland used 33 tanks since 1938 (including an evaluation tank). They were bought unarmed, without optics and radios. Some were armed with a short-barreled 37 mm Puteaux gun and later equipped with a 37 mm Bofors anti-tank gun as their main gun with a coaxial turret MG and a ''tank SMG'' in bow plate. They were used in the Winter War with the USSR. After this war, the Finns rearmed Mark E tanks with captured Soviet long 45 mm guns and DT MGs as used in the T-26. The Finns designated the rebuilt Vickers tanks logically as: T-26E. They were used in combat from 1941–44 and remained in service as training tanks until 1959.