How to make EMHAR's Mk IV into a Mk III
- An easy 1/72 scale conversion
by Mark Hansen

For those starting out in Braille scale, here’s an easy conversion to a Mk III female based on the Emhar Mk IV female. The modifications are simple and very little has to be added to the kit.

Modifications:

First, we’ll start with the roof. You’ll need to open the exhaust holes (green arrows) and remove the hatches and centre strip behind the raised hatch (red arrows):

Next, the cab front. Mk III’s were used for driver training and weapons were rarely fitted, especially the machine guns. Leave the forward Hotchkiss mounting off the cab front or replace it with a Lewis gun. If you want to be really picky, you can move the rivets at the top left and right of the cab a little closer to the other rivets but at this scale, it won’t really be noticeable.

The rear body plate needs some rivets adding (green arrows) and the locating lugs for the fuel tank removing (red arrows). A small square plate needs to be added to the top of the piece between the door and the vents as fitted to Mk II’s.

The machine gun mountings should have the guns removed and the piece drilled out. This is tricky as the diameter of the hole is almost the same as the width of the piece. If you wish to use machine guns, Lewis guns should replace the Hotchkiss guns.

The female sponsons also need some tricky detail work. The centre strip needs to be removed (red arrows). If you do remove the other details, just replace them. The top single row of rivets is correct for the Mk III female sponsons If you are modelling the Mk IV, the top rivets should be in two rows.

Assembly:

Assemble the tank according to these instructions (red X means leave this piece off):

Instead of using the exhaust pipe and silencer, use thin styrene, brass, or aluminium to make baffles of the same type as used on the Mk I & II.

Painting:

The overall colour of the Mk III may have been khaki or grey. The large training numbers were painted in white as well as the WD number (if visible). Here are three different schemes: