Victorian Science Fiction: How I Build Them

VSF is an alternative history, but that does not mean we can not draw inspiration from events in real history that is yet to come.

Victorian Science Fiction, Paper War Tanks of the Great War.

The Great War (World War One) was a period of great technological change. Below are some examples of paper models of War Tanks from this period.

Models in the Works
The Tsar Tank
The Kolossus
DownLoads

I am hoping to make this a hub for a number of pages on various projects of Great War tanks made of card stock.

A Few Models in the Works

As this is a new project for me I have not made a lot of progress on these plans and models yet. But I hope you will check in often to see how I progress.

The materials I use are really rather common. The card stock is from the boxes of breakfast cereal and other food items and foamcore (a type of foam and card board sandwich sold at craft and art stores). I use two types of white glue, Tacky and standard student glue. These are both Ploy Vinyl Alcohol (PVA) glues just of different grades. The tools and methods are real quite simple as well. These can also be seen on Building a Landship page.

Here we see some card sides of the Kolossus being laminated into some Foamcore to help it stay straight. Lots of clamps are very useful.

The sides combined with the belly plate and some bracing to form the main hull. Note the 15mm Old Glory figure for scale.

The hull finished, showing the basic form of this machine.

With basic details added. No rivets on this model as it is really just a test shot for the plans I am working up. The source for my work are these plans .

The card was sealed with a coat of lacquer.

The German A7V is a good subject for a card model as it features flat plate sides.

Here with some basic detailing and a figure for size comparison. I was surprised at how big this vehicle really was. (I may have to check the scaling factors).

Adding a few more details.

The card was sealed with a coat of lacquer.

This is the Hornet tank (Medium C) which, in a round about way, inspired all my Landships

The Hornet after lacquer.

Just a quick family shot of some of my projects.
From right to left the German K-Wagon, Kolossus , the Italian Leonardo combat vehicle, the British Medium C, "Hornet" in the works, the German A7V battle wagon and a British Landship . Clearly not all from the Great War, but from my imagination, in stead.

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The Tsar Tank

You may simple click on the photo, or here for the top view and here for the side view.

You may simple click on the photo, or here for the front view and here for the rear view.

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The German Kolossus
I am working out the details of the fold up model plans for this vehicle.
Until those are finished I hope this basic plan will be of some inspiration.

Landship: German Kolossus

You may simple click on the photo, or here.

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How to build a Landship: Plans and Downloads

Below you will find links to various JPEG files of some basic plans offered by Christian Andreas Steimel to the Yahoo Group "Contemptible Little Armies". If you would like to join this group you may sign up at CLA Home. Once a member you can find photos of Christian's work at the CLA Photos . And the plans that Christian suppled at CLA Files . With Christian's kind permission I am also able to offer them here: Click here to download the plans on tanks in zipped PCX format. Alternatively, you can click on the plans below and save the JPEG onto your computer. Christian has indicated that if printed out on "A4" size paper, these plans will be scaled for 28mm figures. If you have questions about these you may wish to contact Christian directly at: tribun_christian@yahoo.de.

I have not yet had a chance to work through these plans, but I would not consider them to be either complete or exacting, but for wargame inspiration they are a great start.

For 15mm or 18mm figures, my calculation show that printing at 150 pixel to the inch provides an approximate scale of 1/96 which is quite good for our scale. This is also know as 1/8 inch scale as 1/8" of model equals one foot of prototype.

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Plans for the Mark IV

You may simple click on the photo, or here for the hull plans and here for plans for the tracks, or here for the tracks.

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Plans for the A7V, Hull

You may simple click on the photo, or here for hull plans and here for the tracks.

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Plans for the Mark A Whippet

You may simple click on the photo, or here

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Plans for the FT-17

You may simple click on the photo, or here

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Plans for the St. Chamond

You may simple click on the photo, or here for hull plans and here for the tracks.

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Click here to view the How To Page.

The finished model can also be seen on my Models page.

To see the finished models in action, go to my Battles page VSF Battles.
Or you can go to the Model Gallery Page.
Or to head back to the The Victorian Science Fiction Page.

For more inspiration go to my Victorian Inspiration page or
theMajor General's. or THE AFRIBORIAN CAMPAIGN. pages.

I hope to be able to add more latter.

Thank you for looking:

DyeHard

You can write me at:
e-mail

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.