Master Box 1/72 MK 1 ‘Male’ British Tank, Somme Battle Period, 1916 Kit First Look

By Dave Manter

First Look

By December of 1914, the maneuverable period of the Great War had ended. The battlefields had become covered by the continuous lines of entrenchments, wire entanglements and powerful field works. The killing fields of fire produced by machine guns nullified any infantry attacks.

The British MK 1 was the first tank to enter combat. Armed with Hotchkiss 57mm, the first crews were Navy personnel.

The first use of tanks happened on September 15, 1916 to the north of the Somme River. This attack was the last attempt of the British to achieve success in the large operation that began on July 1st. After one and a half months the British had managed to move a mere 2 km forward. Thirty two MK 1's took part in the attack. In five hours the British had moved 5km ahead into the German defenses. The tank was a new force on the battlefield.

The Masterbox kit consists of 46 styrene parts molded in grey and two rubber band track links. All of the parts are molded to high quality. There is some flash present, but it will be easy to clean up.
Right after I received this kit for review, I started it. The instructions are laid out well and easy to follow. The fit is very good and just a small amount of filler is needed. Some of the parts are quite small and are easy to break when removing them from the parts trees. I ended up using a small razor saw for most of the work.

Paint colors are called out on the back of the box and both Vallejo and Lifecolor numbers are referenced.

Overall, this is a superb kit from Masterbox! It is nice to see some new WWI vehicle kits being produced. Now let's hope Masterbox will scale these up to 1/35 scale!

Full Build To Follow!!!

My sincere thanks to DML for this review sample!