And this one needs no feeding, but building it a kennel is a right royal chore!

The Whippet tank is what its name implies; a Whippet, a breed of fast hunting dogs used for chasing prey down and catching it. “Fast” here being comparative. Compared to the much larger and heavier British tanks of WW1, the famous ‘rhomboid’ shaped machines, these really were Whippets, but don’t think you were going to win Silverstone with one. At a mere 8.3mph they were more than twice as fast as the Mk IV tank.

The Whippet weighed about 14 tons, had a range of 80 miles, a top speed of 8.3 mph and was the fastest tank in the war. Its predecessors weighed 30 to 36 tons with top speeds of 2.5 to 4.7 mph. While the heavy tanks had a crew of 8, the Whippet required only 3.

Designed to effectively emulate the role of scout and cavalry, push ahead, harass the enemy and to use machine guns to sow confusion, the Whippet was intended to work with those heavier tanks and not to replace them.

Acknowledgement

It is still a monster. At twenty feet long it is only 6ft shorter than a Mk IV, its 8ft width is only 2 foot shorter than the female and it is over a foot higher at 10ft. Its weight in com parison was slightly less than half. By comparison a Sherman or Matilda tank is slightly smaller, and the Churchill and Cromwell tanks are about the same but all are significantly heavier.

The Model is a 28mm Old Glory Resin and metal kit purchased from the Estate of Lyle Damon. Again the machine gun barrels have been replaced with piano wire.

Mainwaring taking a break from the bank to check out Dad’s Army’s new acquisition.

Tomorrow more Japanese tanks.